Mr Saulter’s visit would end soon. It might be a mistake to allow herself to take part in these evenings, but she’d found she lacked the will to deny herself the treat. She’d have weeks and months to toil in her spartan governess role before she could hope to return to London for the consultation she’d promised Sara. She had only a few more days to make the most of this stolen interlude.
Of course, there was one glaring difference between dining at Somers Abbey and the same social ritual in London. An unmarried lady of quality could never have attended a London dinner with gentlemen present unless she had a suitable hostess to act as her chaperon. But a gently born woman who went into service forfeited her chance of making a respectable marriage and therefore no longer had a reputation to protect. As an independent woman who had often chafed at the silly restrictions society placed on unmarried females, Olivia could only approve that particular result of her change in status.
Once again, after Mary tightened the laces of the bodice and shook out the belled skirt and sleeves, she felt her spirits rise as she looked at her image in the glass. Savouring the warm kiss of satin against her skin, for another night she had become Cinderella, rescued from the ashes of the hearth and transported to accompany a prince.
And what a prince he was!
She recalled the magical moment that first night when she’d looked over to discover the Colonel dressed in his regimentals. He carried himself with an air of authority even in civilian clothes, but in uniform—oh, how handsome and commanding he appeared!
The scarlet coat with the gold epaulettes and braiding made his broad shoulders look even more imposing, while the sash at his waist emphasised his lean waist and hips, and the buff pantaloons hugged his saddle-muscled thighs. The sweep from scarlet coat, to gold sash, to buff pantaloons, to the ebony of his shiny black boots made him look even taller.
This was a man born to lead, a commander in whom every one of his soldiers must have had confidence—a man who could be relied upon to defend what was his and to shelter and protect anyone given into his care.
Her guilty attraction intensified, just gazing at him.
She’d conversed both nights mainly with Mr Saulter, who was quite handsome and charming in his own right. But he did not stir within her the same giddy awareness she felt when the Colonel’s gaze rested on her, or evoke the tingle that shivered over her skin when he took her hand to lead her into dinner.
Though she tried to remind herself that these feelings were one-sided, silently repeating to herself Travers’s contention that the Colonel had never got over losing his beloved wife, every instinct told her there was a connection between them.
Perhaps it was merely something physical, improbable as it seemed that a man who’d loved a delicate, fragile Beauty could be attracted to a tall, plain, brown-haired girl.
But what did she know of the ways between men and women? Lord Theo, the handsomest man she’d ever met, had become enamoured of her plain friend Emma. And married her.
She mustn’t allow her thoughts to stray in that direction. Even if her far-too-inexperienced instincts were correct and the Colonel somehow found her attractive, with his heart still held by his late wife, the most he might feel for her was lust. A hunger she didn’t dare encourage, no matter how strong her desire for him.
Not that he was likely to respond to any encouragement she might offer. Regardless of his own urges, a man of principle like the Colonel would never allow himself to trifle with an innocent, particularly one who was a dependent in his household.
Soon, they would go back to being merely governess and employer. Though probably not soon enough for her to extinguish the ever-growing attraction she felt for him.
How was she to deal with him, once they were again just governess and employer?
Having no good answer to that question, she pushed the problem to the back of her mind. For now, she would simply enjoy the moment.
‘There, miss, you’re all ready,’ Mary said, interrupting her thoughts. After stepping back to inspect her, the maid drew in an awed breath. ‘Oh, Miss Overton, that other gown was beautiful, but you look even prettier in this one! Just like a princess!’
‘Thank you, Mary! Although the credit must go to the skill of London’s dressmakers.’
‘Oh, no, miss. I knew you was Quality by how gracious you treated me that first night you come here. A body can always tell who was born to it—and who weren’t.’ The maid giggled. ‘I hope Mrs Wallace sees you tonight! Always trying to lord it over all of us, when I bet she’s as common as the rest of us. She’d be that put out, to see you dressed so fine! I think that’s why she’s refused to wait at table while the Colonel’s guest is here, like Mr Mansfield asked her. After all, it’s not like she hasn’t done it before. She used to wait on Mr Charles all by herself when he was master.’
Recalling the gossip Travers had related, Olivia pressed her lips together. Just what other services had the woman offered during those tête-à-tête dinners?
Recalling also the former lady’s maid’s warning, Olivia told herself to be watchful. If the housekeeper had been rebuffed when she tried to wheedle her way into intimacy with the Colonel, she might be incensed that the governess had been accorded the signal honour of dining with him and his guest. And look for some way to exact retribution.
Though that wasn’t the most dangerous thing she needed to watch for. She must not lure herself into imagining her Cinderella role would last longer than Mr Saulter’s visit. There was no prince in her story and only ashes awaited her at the end of this fairy tale.
Pushing away that unpleasant fact, Olivia said, ‘I’d just as soon not encounter Mrs Wallace dressed like this. It would only aggravate her, and she’s difficult enough to deal with already.’
Mary sighed. ‘You’ve the right of it there. Go on, now, and enjoy your dinner! Mrs Potter’s been fussing over it all afternoon. I have to tell you, it’s the nicest spread any of us have seen since the Colonel come back to England! She’s so hopeful that this visit from the Colonel’s friend will cheer him. Now, you fetch me to help you out of that dress whenever you come back up, no matter how late. I wouldn’t want you to tear none of that beautiful ribbon, struggling to get yourself out of the gown.’
‘Thank you, Mary. Like wearing armour, I feel ready to launch into the fray.’
Anticipation—and a guilty excitement—swirling in her belly, Olivia gave her braided coiffure one last check and walked from the room.
Perhaps it wasn’t just the gown’s connection to her old life that had made her feel on these last few nights more attractive and confident than she’d been since the awful morning she’d gone up the family solicitor’s stairs a lady and walked back down an indigent female.
Perhaps she truly did look transformed. Mansfield smiled with delight each time he saw her in her London garb and always whispered a compliment before he announced her.
Mr Saulter paid her even more extravagant compliments, although that was surely officer gallantry. But the Colonel, too, added his more measured praise. Reviewing in her mind his expression when he’d gazed at her in her fashionable gown, she couldn’t help but believe the admiration in his eyes was real.
Would he forget himself enough to act on it? Did she really want him to?
* * *
‘That meal was excellent!’ Stephen declared as he tossed his napkin back on the table. ‘Please, Mansfield, would you convey my compliments to Mrs Potter?’
‘Mine as well, Mansfield,’ Hugh said. ‘She has outdone herself tonight.’
Especially knowing that she works with such limited staff and supplies, he thought.
‘My mother herself would have been proud to serve her guests such a meal.’
‘I shall certainly tell her, gentlemen,’ the butler said. ‘She’ll be that pleased to know you were so satisfied.’
‘I believe, Glendenn
ing, that I would like to follow last night’s pattern and dispense with brandy and cigars,’ Stephen said. ‘That is, if we can persuade you to play for us again, Miss Overton.’
‘You do play wonderfully,’ Hugh said. ‘It was a true delight to have music in the house again.’ He supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised to discover she played as expertly as she did everything else, but hearing her perform so beautifully had been an unexpected delight.
Music was another of the pleasures he’d denied himself since India. Both by isolating himself from social contact with his neighbours and by working such long hours, he had neither time nor energy to play himself.
Like having a hostess at his table, as she’d begun the first piece last night, he’d been struck by how much he enjoyed it. How much he’d missed having someone create it for him.
Though these evening social interludes must cease once his guest departed, perhaps he could allow himself the pleasure of lingering within earshot when Miss Overton played the pianoforte for his wards, since part of her duties would entail giving them instruction on the instrument.
‘Very well, gentlemen, if you insist,’ she was saying. ‘The meal was so excellent I couldn’t keep myself from sampling every course. I’m so blissfully replete, I couldn’t possibly sleep for a while.’
‘Then you must play, by all means,’ Stephen said, taking her arm to escort her towards the salon that housed the pianoforte. ‘In fact, after you’ve regaled us for a while, we shall prevail upon Glendenning to play some dance music for us. Taking a few turns about the floor will provide just the exercise we need to settle in that meal and relax us for the night.’
Hugh held up a hand. ‘Don’t volunteer me, Saulter! I’ve scarcely laid a finger on a keyboard for years.’
‘Oh, nonsense, it’s like riding a horse. Once you’ve mastered the technique, you never forget and, as I recall, you performed for the mess quite competently on several occasions. If you don’t remember any tunes, there’s some sheet music in the bench. I looked through it just this afternoon.’
With a grimace, Hugh frowned at his friend, who returned a cherubic smile. ‘Remember your duty as host, Hugh,’ he murmured.
‘I’m beginning to regret not having associated more with my neighbours,’ he grumbled back. ‘I could then have sent you elsewhere to dine. Surely there is some country family with unmarried daughters who could try to entrap you.’
Stephen merely laughed. ‘You really should socialise more—or else the gentry hereabouts may start to believe you consider yourself above them. Perhaps we should ride by the squire’s house tomorrow when we head out to the fields. Country gossip being what it is, he’s bound to know you are entertaining a visitor. Chances are, we have only to pay a call and he’ll invite us to dine.’
‘I can still send you alone,’ Hugh shot back.
‘Not a chance. We should probably inveigle an invitation for Miss Overton as well.’
‘You certainly must not!’ she protested, her eyes widening in alarm. ‘In fact, if you should be invited to dine with the squire, I would very much appreciate it if neither of you mentioned that I have joined you for dinner here. It...might not be thought appropriate.’
A single lady dining alone with gentlemen.
Standards being somewhat different in India, it hadn’t even occurred to Hugh when he issued his invitation to Miss Overton that there were some who might think it immodest of the governess to dine with them without a chaperon.
‘Are you concerned about your reputation?’ he asked. ‘I must apologise! I never gave the matter—’
‘Oh, no, not that,’ she interrupted, her smile, to him, seeming a bit strained. ‘Some might consider a governess was acting above her station if she dined at her employer’s table on anything other than a major holiday. I should not like to be thought...grasping.’
‘You are certainly not that,’ Stephen said indignantly.
‘Thank you, kind sir,’ she replied. ‘Owing to that country gossip you mention, the neighbours may eventually learn that I joined the gentlemen for dinner during Mr Saulter’s visit, but I should not like to advertise the fact. And you needn’t worry, Colonel. A female in service has no reputation to protect.’
‘Even if she is a gently born lady of good family?’ Stephen asked.
‘Even then. Once she hires herself out as a governess or companion, she is no longer considered eligible, so her reputation—or lack of it—is of no consequence.’
‘That hardly seems fair,’ Stephen said, releasing her arm as they entered the salon and she took her seat on the piano bench.
Miss Overton merely shrugged. ‘It is the way of the world. So, gentlemen, what would you have me play?’
Hugh had not previously considered that in taking up her position, Miss Overton had forfeited the deference that she’d been accorded since birth. It did indeed seem unfair, he thought, frowning. And in her obvious haste to change the subject, he detected that she was not so indifferent to her devalued status as she wished to appear.
How could she be? It had changed her entire world.
And now he was once again fretting about matters he could neither change nor wished to dwell on.
‘You played that complicated Beethoven piece so wonderfully, I should like to hear it again,’ Stephen was saying.
‘Beethoven it shall be, then,’ she said, pulling out the sheets of music.
While Stephen remained by the piano to turn the pages for her, Hugh took a seat. Having always found music soothing as well as delightful, he forced himself to set aside all his questions, concerns and problems and let the power of the music wash over him. How magnificent it was!
He was as hearty in his applause when the last note faded as Stephen.
‘Wonderful!’ Stephen exclaimed. ‘Now we gentlemen owe you a treat. And if you try to tell me a lady as graceful as you does not love dancing, I shall accuse you of uttering falsehoods.’
Laughing, she gave him her hand as she stood up. ‘I will not even attempt to utter such a falsehood. On the contrary, I adore dancing.’
‘You heard the lady, Glendenning,’ Stephen said. ‘Dancing we must have. Here,’ he said after a moment of rummaging through the sheet music atop the piano, ‘I found these pieces and set them out earlier. Nothing as complicated as Beethoven, so you should have no problem.’
Though he made a token protest, in truth, Hugh was happy to sit down at the instrument. He was by no means as accomplished a musician as Miss Overton, but he’d always enjoyed playing. As Stephen had mentioned, he’d often been called upon to perform for his fellow officers, sometimes even at evening entertainments when the ladies were present. But, like everything else he associated with light and joy and peace, he’d given it up after Drew’s death.
He’d been a fool, he thought, delight at the melodious notes beginning to ripple through him as he played a few scales to limber up his fingers. His stark self-denial wouldn’t bring back Drew or Lydia.
As he played one reel and then another, the healing balm of the music seeped into the still-ragged places in his soul, until he felt almost...tranquil. However deep his guilt, in future he promised himself that he would definitely allow himself this pleasure.
Was that promise another gift for which he owed thanks to Miss Overton—and Stephen, of course?
As the dance concluded, Stephen halted with his partner beside the piano. ‘The reels were fine, but now I’d like a waltz. Here—I found the music for one,’ he said, placing it on the music stand.
A waltz? Hugh’s expansive sense of well-being abruptly ended. It was one thing for Stephen to perform the complicated figures of a country dance opposite Miss Overton, take her hand to turn her, or skip her across the room in a reel. But to wrap his arm around her waist and hold her close, their two bodies moving as one to the music?
Stephen Saulter was an attractive g
entleman—and he obviously liked Miss Overton. Hugh could only be selfishly glad that his friend’s life and career were established far away in India. He wouldn’t want her exposed to the dangers there—and he felt a strong protest rising within him at the idea of her going off with any man, even Stephen.
Which was ridiculous. He had no claim on her. If he admired her and regretted the unknown circumstances that had robbed her of the chance to become mistress of her own household—and he did—he should welcome the idea that a man of upstanding character like his friend might value her enough to overlook her lack of dowry and consider courting her.
Just because he had promised himself never to take on the responsibility of a wife again didn’t mean his friend should deny himself the pleasure.
And from the way Stephen was gazing at Miss Overton admiringly, Hugh suspected his friend’s thoughts might already be turning in her direction.
Why did he find the idea so distasteful?
True, it would be difficult to find another governess as competent and protective of his wards as Miss Overton, or one to whom the girls had taken so quickly. But surely what would be best for the governess ought to sway him—
‘The waltz, Hugh.’ Stephen’s voice interrupted his musing. ‘Some time this century would be good.’
Suppressing all his contradictory and turbulent thoughts, Hugh set his lips in a thin line and played, trying to keep his eyes on the music and not on what a handsome couple the two made as Stephen twirled her around the room. Then played the song again when, after the first rendition, Stephen called for a reprise.
Finally, his friend guided Miss Overton to a halt. ‘As delightful as it is to waltz with you, I’m in need of a break. Shall we pause for some refreshment, Miss Overton?’
‘I would certainly enjoy some,’ she replied.
Tearing his eyes from the enchanting picture she made, with her face flushed and her dark eyes sparkling, Hugh walked over to ring for the tea tray.
The Tempting of the Governess Page 12