A Very Unusual Governess

by Sylvia Andrew

  ‘You shouldn’t listen to gossip, Mr Barraclough. Nor should you try to flatter me. Casual acquaintances, remember? In fact, I’m not at all sure I ought to come with you tomorrow, in spite of my sister’s intervention. It is almost certain to cause remarks.’

  ‘Oh, no, you can’t change your mind now! And I’ve been thinking about this casual acquaintances business. It won’t work. Sooner or later London is going to hear about your “visit” to Wychford, and will wonder why we have pretended not to know each other. Let us say rather that we are distantly connected. That makes it respectable, surely?’

  ‘Connected?’

  ‘Through Mrs Carstairs! Have you forgotten that your aunt was a great friend of the Barracloughs? That I am still renting the house she left you?’

  He watched as she absorbed this idea. ‘You may be right,’ she said doubtfully. ‘London is bound to hear something sooner or later…Very well! We were about to settle on a time to meet tomorrow.’

  ‘Richmond is a fair distance, and we shan’t want to hurry. We’ll call for you at eleven. Or is that too early?’

  ‘Not at all. I’ll be ready!’

  The music came to an end and Octavia made to go.

  ‘Not so fast,’ said Edward, keeping hold of her hand. ‘I want to take you to talk to Lisette.’

  ‘But my sister—’

  ‘Your sister is at present enchanting Charlie Stainforth. Look at her! She wouldn’t welcome you. Come!’

  He led her to where Lisette was standing surrounded by a bevy of young men. But when she saw Edward and Octavia she abandoned them all.

  ‘You found her!’ she said. ‘Lady Octavia, I’m so glad I can talk to you at last! At the opening of the ball I hardly saw anyone, I was so nervous! Such a long line of people waiting to meet me! I want to thank you for this.’ She touched her hair, which was held up with a delicate silver clasp.

  Edward watched as Octavia smiled fondly at Lisette. He had never before realised quite how sweet her smile could be. Octavia’s green silk dress was a perfect foil for her colouring, and its low cut, so very different from her Wychford dresses, revealed the lovely lines of her throat and bosom…He stood, not really listening to what they were saying, but watching the two of them talking animatedly to one another, the one so dark and the other so fair…He had been quite right about ‘Miss Petrie’s hair’. Tonight, of course, the loose knot on top of her head, the tendrils framing her face, had been artfully arranged by an experienced maid, and diamonds sparkled among the honey-gold curls. They were not hanging halfway down her back in the rain, or tumbled in disarray, reflecting the light of leaping flames…He drew a sharp breath as his body responded to the sudden memory. It was just as vivid, just as exciting, as it had been all those weeks ago…and he had thought he had mastered it!

  Lisette had been claimed by someone else, and, with a smile of apology, she let herself be carried off.

  Octavia turned to him, and said with determination, ‘And now we shall return to my sister!’

  Edward pulled himself together and shook his head. ‘Wrong, Lady Octavia!’ he said. ‘Even the most critical tabby allows a young woman to have two dances with the same partner in an evening. I intend to have my second now!’

  ‘But I promised Sir Richard…’

  ‘What a pity. The poor fellow will have to wait.’ Relying on Octavia’s sense of propriety not to make a fuss at his high-handed behaviour, Edward took her firmly by the arm and led her back to the floor. This time it was a waltz. He took one of her hands in his, his other arm went round her waist, and they set off.

  After a moment he said, ‘Do you not find the ballroom remarkably chilly, Lady Octavia?’

  She frowned at him. ‘No.’

  ‘Strange. I could have sworn there was an icy draught blowing down my spine. A Lady Octavia sort of chill.’ An involuntary chuckle escaped her and he said, ‘That’s better! I had begun to think my fingers would drop off with the cold.’

  ‘What do you expect, sir? I have pleaded with you to treat me as a casual acquaintance—’

  ‘Distantly connected.’

  ‘Distantly connected! But here you are singling me out! You may have stopped calling me by my given name, but you still treat me with a lack of ceremony, which will soon set tongues wagging if it continues.’

  ‘That is nonsense! It’s all in your imagination, Oct—Lady Octavia! What could be more unexceptionable than that Lisette’s uncle should pay some polite attention to a friend who has done so much for his niece? His nieces! Pip would have been far easier to deal with if you had been there today. Julia has no idea how to handle her. Now, have you any more complaints, or are you ready to enjoy this waltz?’

  They danced for a while in silence, and, whatever their differences might be, their steps were perfectly matched, their bodies moving as if by instinct in harmony with each other. Edward drew Octavia imperceptibly closer. She looked up and smiled. For a moment he forgot the music, forgot the other dancers, forgot everything but the enchantment of having her in his arms.

  ‘Octavia,’ he murmured, his eyes warm as he gazed down at her.

  Octavia, too, had felt the magic, though she wanted none of it. Firmly suppressing her wayward feelings, she decided to open the subject of Lisette’s secret worries. He might be receptive enough to listen sympathetically.

  ‘Mr Barraclough,’ she said, uncharacteristically nervous, ‘I’ve been thinking about Lisette…’

  Edward was disappointed. He had thought her smile was one of pleasure, shared pleasure. Apparently not. Suppressing a sigh, he said, ‘What is it?’

  ‘Before I left Wychford I had intended to talk to you about her, but…but there was no time. Has she told you that, after she had met my brother, she and I had a long talk?’

  This time the disappointment was sharp. Had he been wrong about her after all? The English aristocracy spent half their lives looking for suitable matches, by which they meant rich matches, for their sons. Or in this case, brothers. Why had he believed that Octavia was different from the rest of her kind? He said with resignation, ‘I suppose I ought to have expected this. Have you any idea how many other young men would like to marry into the Barraclough wealth, Lady Octavia? You might say your brother has a head start on all the others, but that doesn’t mean I shall look with any greater degree of approval on him. I’d like Lisette to be happy, but I’m not at all sure she should throw herself away on a good-looking young soldier who has already persuaded her to meet him in secret!’

  Octavia gasped and began, ‘I didn’t—’

  He brushed this aside. His eyes were no longer warm as he continued, ‘I’m disappointed in you. However beautiful you look tonight, you surely can’t have thought you could charm me into changing my mind on such a serious matter as this!’

  Angry colour flooded Octavia’s cheeks, and she pulled away from him. ‘I doubt I could charm you into doing anything at all!’ she said, and started to walk off the floor. He pursued her to the end of the ballroom, where they had left her sister. She was not there. Here Octavia stopped and turned. She said in a low voice, ‘For your information, sir, I wanted to talk to you about something quite different! I am as anxious as you that Lisette should be happy, whatever her choice. But she would not be “throwing herself away”, if she married my brother!’

  Irritated at the turn the conversation had taken, he said coolly, ‘Unlike the rest of the world, ma’am, I do not believe a title immediately bestows virtue on its possessor, so please don’t quote your brother’s prospects of an earldom at me!’

  ‘I was not about to! You are impossible, sir!’ Eyes sparkling, twin flags of colour in her cheeks, Octavia faced him angrily.

  Edward felt his own anger drain away. ‘Octavia—’ he began ruefully.

  ‘And don’t call me by my given name!’

  ‘Ah! There you are!’ They both looked round. Gussie was making her way towards them. She looked from one to the other, and raised an eyebrow.

 
‘Have you arranged a time?’ she asked. ‘As far as I remember, Richmond is more than an hour’s drive. You’ll need to be up early, Octavia.’

  Edward decided that discretion was the better part of valour. He had a feeling that Octavia was in such a temper that she would cry off their excursion if he gave her the slightest opportunity. He said briefly, ‘Thank you for the dances, Lady Octavia. I shall call for you at eleven. Duchess, do you by some miracle have the next dance free? May I?’

  He led Octavia’s sister on to the floor, and afterwards stayed well clear of the Petrie family for the rest of the evening.

  The next morning Edward collected Pip and drove to St James’s Square. In spite of her anger the previous evening, he was reasonably sure that Octavia would accompany them to Richmond. Pip was a powerful draw. And he felt a spurt of pleased relief when he saw that she was dressed and ready for them. He wanted to talk to Octavia—their quarrel the previous evening had left unfinished business between them, and it needed to be cleared up.

  Pip greeted Octavia with her usual enthusiasm, then settled down between her and Edward, eagerly watching the sights as they drove out down the Bath Road towards Brentford and the bridge at Kew.

  Once at Richmond they left the carriage in charge of the grooms and walked. Pip was delighted. ‘Miss Petrie! Look! Do you see the deer?’

  ‘Lady Octavia will get annoyed with you, Pip, if you fail to call her by her correct name,’ said Edward.

  ‘No, I shan’t, Pip! But I behaved very badly in pretending to be simply Miss Petrie. I shouldn’t like the world to know about it all sooner than it has to.’

  Pip fired up in her defence. ‘You didn’t behave badly at all! It was my fault. I told Edward you’d come to be our governess, and that was when it started. But I shall really try to remember to call you Lady Octavia now!’ She added mournfully, ‘It’s just that “Miss Petrie” was friendlier, somehow.’

  ‘I’m still your friend, Pip! I always shall be.’

  Edward said wryly, ‘You’re a lucky girl, Pip. You should have heard the dressing down I got from Lady Octavia for forgetting her name. Now, why don’t you go and take a look at those deer? Go quietly, mind—they’ll run off if you startle them.’

  ‘I’ll go with her—’ began Octavia.

  ‘No! Wait! Off you go, Pip! I need to make my peace with Lady Octavia and I’d rather do it in private, if you don’t mind. I don’t want you to see my authority undermined.’

  He said this so lightly that Pip laughed at the idea and went off quite happily, to begin stalking the deer. He looked at Octavia.

  ‘I’m glad you came,’ he said quietly. ‘I was afraid you wouldn’t.’

  Octavia stared coldly back at him. ‘I wouldn’t have, if it hadn’t been for Pip.’

  ‘I guessed as much. I was sorry for last night. I was wrong to leap to conclusions—’ Edward stopped and took a breath. ‘Heavens above, I seem to do nothing but apologise! What is it about you? I would say I’m normally a very even-tempered man, but you bring out the worst in me!’

  ‘That’s easily explained. It’s because you secretly despise me.’

  ‘What?’ For a moment Edward was so surprised he could hardly speak. Then he exclaimed, ‘Despise you? What for? Of course I don’t despise you. What a damned stupid idea!’

  ‘It’s quite obvious you do! You must! After the shameless way I behaved that…that afternoon. And the lies I told. Of course you do!’

  Edward was stunned. ‘Octavia—No, I will call you Octavia for this, so don’t scowl at me like a cockatrice.’ He took her hands in his and said earnestly, ‘Octavia, I swear, I have never, not for one moment, despised you. How could you think it? Scorn is perhaps the one emotion you have not roused in me! I seem to have suffered from most of the rest. Suspicion, annoyance, fury, delight. Disapproval, admiration, respect, and…and yes, desire. And, of course, jealousy.’

  ‘Jealousy? When was there any cause for jealousy?’

  ‘I was choking with jealousy when I spoke to you that last morning at Wychford. That’s why the accusations I made were so bitter.’

  Octavia tried to pull her hands away, but he wouldn’t let them go. ‘No, you must let me finish. You think I despise you for what happened between us? You couldn’t be more wrong. Your vulnerability, your innocence were all that stopped me from taking you completely there and then in that tower room. Your instant response to me, the passion I had roused in you, went to my head. You can have no idea how hard it was to resist temptation. Yet I knew I had to—’

  This time Octavia wrenched her hands out of his grasp and put them over her ears. ‘No! Don’t say another word! I don’t want to hear! If you knew how ashamed I am every time I think of it…’ She put her hands down again and faced him with proud desperation. ‘I can’t expect you to believe this, but I had never…never before given way to such a disgraceful display of emotion. I had never before experienced it. And I was sure you must despise me for it.’

  ‘The shame would have been mine if I had betrayed you, Octavia. We were both in the grip of a very powerful force in that room. How could I condemn you?’

  ‘But the next day—’

  ‘The next day, after hearing Julia’s accusations, and hearing what the maid at the inn had to say—’ He shook his head in angry rejection of the memory, and went on, ‘The thought that you might already have had a lover, that you were not the innocent I thought you, was driving me wild. I was furious with jealousy. And that is an emotion that I have never before experienced.’

  He waited for a moment. When she stayed silent he said, ‘I hope you can forgive me. I hope we can put it all behind us, and begin again, as if I had met you as Mrs Carstairs’s niece, and the owner of the house I happen to be renting. But whether we can, or whether we can’t, you must believe that I have never despised you.’

  Octavia looked at him uncertainly. ‘Begin again?’ she said. ‘Forget what happened? If I only could…Would it not be better to forget that we ever knew each other at all? Go our separate ways?’

  Not in a thousand years, was the sudden thought that came unbidden into his mind. But he said quietly, ‘Is that what you want?’

  She hesitated, and he waited stiff with tension, watching her conflicting thoughts cross her face. When she said, ‘I think it would be very difficult, if not impossible. What would Pip and Lisette say?’ he let out a sigh of relief.

  ‘Exactly. I don’t think that’s the solution at all. So, we’ll begin again? This time as friends? At least, as something more than casual acquaintances?’

  ‘I’ll try. But not if you leap to false conclusions about me again.’

  ‘I don’t always seem to be rational when you are near, Octavia, so I won’t make rash promises. But I’ll certainly try not to! Now, what was it that you wanted to talk about last night? You sounded nervous.’

  ‘I was afraid you’d tell me it wasn’t my affair. I talked to Lisette about the man she knew in Antigua.’

  ‘Ah! Ricardo Arandez. She said something of the kind. I gather you tried to help her.’

  ‘The trouble was, I was working in the dark. You said once that Lisette’s father found out something he didn’t like about Arandez. That was why he withdrew his consent. Was it serious?’

  Edward’s face clouded over. ‘Very.’

  ‘So it’s unlikely that your brother would ever have changed his mind again?’

  ‘More than unlikely. Impossible!’

  ‘Don’t you think it would have been better to tell Lisette what was wrong?’

  ‘Certainly not! She was a child.’

  ‘But she’s not a child now, and though she knows she is not betrothed, she is still half-convinced that Arandez was telling the truth when he said it was her father’s last wish that she should marry him.’

  ‘I thought we had scotched that!’

  ‘No, your sister-in-law merely told Lisette she was never to mention Arandez again. She didn’t say why.’

  Edward was sil
ent. At last he said, ‘I see no necessity for bothering Lisette with the details of the story. She isn’t in love with Arandez, and she has plenty to occupy her mind at the moment. If she hasn’t yet forgotten him she soon will. Besides, in spite of Julia’s fears, there hasn’t been the slightest sign of him. No, I won’t tell Lisette! It really isn’t necessary.’

  ‘I think you’re wrong.’

  ‘Then I’m sorry. But I won’t change my mind.’

  ‘Would you tell me instead?’

  ‘Certainly not!’

  ‘It’s to protect Lisette! How can I help her when I don’t know why her father wouldn’t let her marry Arandez? You must tell me!’

  Edward’s expression darkened. He said stiffly, ‘There’s no question of it! I’d like you to leave this subject alone, Lady Octavia. Lisette is protected by those whose business it is! If Arandez ever dares show his face I’ll know what to do, believe me!’

  He sounded so fierce that Octavia saw any further effort would be wasted. She tried a different argument. ‘But if he does, wouldn’t it be wiser to let Lisette herself see him again? Isn’t it better for her to face him, to discover what it is she really feels about him? She won’t be happy until she does, you know.’

  ‘Lady Octavia,’ he said forcefully, ‘you don’t know what you’re talking about! I would not willingly let that man anywhere near my niece!’ Some demon made him add, ‘Believe me, this is a much more serious matter than keeping at bay all those sprigs of the English aristocracy who simply have their eye on Lisette’s inheritance.’

  Octavia was already annoyed at his refusal to trust her. Now she was angry. ‘I suppose you include my brother among those sprigs?’

  ‘Yes, if you must know, I suppose I do!’

  Octavia turned on him. ‘That’s enough! When will you realise, sir, that the Petries don’t need anyone else’s wealth. You do justice to no one—neither yourself nor my brother, nor Lisette—with such suspicions! I think I shall go to find Pip. I prefer her uncomplicated honesty to your pig-headed cynicism.’