by Edith Layton
She’d not been sleeping well, no, nor eating well either since he’d seen her, he thought after his first look at her when she entered the room. She wore the same blue frock he’d seen, but he thought it fitted a bit more loosely around her slender frame. Although hers was not a beauty composed of contoured cheeklines and strong bones, and would never be, still her round cheek was paler and her fair complexion had a more translucent look. And though the earl doubted anything short of plague itself could dim her beauty or take the glow from out those odd, tilted golden eyes he remembered so well, he worried for her, this female he scarcely knew, and cursed the circumstances that had brought her to this pass.
And she, irrationally, thought only that temper suited him, and that she’d rather see it than the smooth sardonic look he quickly assumed as she gave him good-day. She’d known who he was at once. Not only were earls not thick in her acquaintance, but it would have been impossible to forget that distinctive form and countenance. Lord Malverne was a fairly tall and reedy youth, but his cousin, though equally tall, and certainly not heavyset, was a substantial man. The gentlemen of fashion that young Lord Malverne and his cronies aped were languid fellows, all airs and graces, and if they had expertise with sword or fists, they practiced to make it both subtle and discreet. The earl was not cut to that pattern. His muscularity was clearly deliniated by his fashionable clothes; strong passions flickered beneath the surface of those knowing onyx eyes. Withal, Corinthian or not, she’d never seen his like before.
Then she lowered her own eyes, for he was addressing her and she was a servant and he a gentleman, and she knew her place, and it was not for her to judge him, at least not here, beneath his very gaze.
“My graceless cousin was supposed to have visited with you again, Miss Dawkins,” he said, and she noted with surprise that it was a warm and soothing voice, with a small odd endearing slur in its sibilants and a soft Welsh burr to give it weight and timbre. When he had spoken to her in the street, she’d not heard a great deal above the echoes of her own guilt crying out for discovery, except, unfortunately, for every embarrassing comment from the enthralled crowd that had gathered about them.
“He was supposed to right matters, and in far less public and far more comfortable fashion that he did when he surprised you in the marketplace,” the earl continued. Then he paused, and she glanced up to see why he’d done so. A smile which quite transformed his face caused her to drop her gaze in confusion, as he said ruefully, “I don’t know half the details, I confess, his mama sings one song, he another, but from what I’ve ascertained, our family’s done you a disservice, and I’m here to remedy it.”
He reached into his jacket and withdrew an alarmingly large packet of banknotes and held it out to her.
“Not half enough, I know,” he said with regret, “but there’s never been a way insult and inconvenience can be paid for. I hope, however, that this illustrates, at the least, our earnest intent.”
She couldn’t move for a moment, she was so fascinated by the amount of money before her. But then she whipped her hands behind her back before they could escape her vigilance and snatch the bills from his hands. Perhaps, she was later to think, if he’d been stout, or ancient, or laughably mannered and effete, she would have taken it without a second thought. But he was so very attractive to her, he was so magnetic and powerful a personality that she found herself reacting as no servant ought. Perhaps, she attempted to excuse herself later by imagining, she’d wanted at that moment to be an equal in his eyes, perhaps that was why her wretched pride had been stung. It might have been the way the money had been proffered; had it been decently shrouded in a parcel, she was to think afterward, she could have taken it, counted it, and then demurred. But then it would have been in her clasp, and once there, she knew for a certainty she would not have parted with it.
But the bare, naked notes he held out to her so negligently in that large tanned hand…at that moment she could only think that was how he would pay off a tradesman, a hackney driver, it was how she’d seen the ladies of joy in the district being negotiated for, though none had ever commanded so much money, no, not for a month’s services. But it was how a person would reimburse a servant, and in that odd, prideful moment she did not want him to think her a servant. Which was, of course, as she recalled later as she damned her stiff-necked arrogance, what she was.
“Not enough?” he asked, mistaking her gesture, and raising one dark, already arched brow in amazement.
“No, no, too much,” she said, when she could, after she’d licked her suddenly dry lips. “I’ve only been unemployed six weeks. And no,” she said at once as he began to speak, cutting him off although she knew that too was not done by an inferior when her master spoke, “one cannot pay for insult. I don’t expect it.”
“And so you infer that I incur another debt even as I seek to pay one?” he mused, but he withdrew his hand and held the bills before him between two hands then, turning the packet over and over, before he asked bluntly, though in pleasant tones, “What is it you want, then?”
She hesitated, still staring at the notes, for at that moment she wasn’t sure. She surely wanted the money, and employment, and her independence back again. But just then she didn’t want to be merely a pitiable governess in anyone’s employ. Then she became distraught when she suddenly saw that she could never have pride in herself so long as she was ashamed of what she unalterably was.
“A good character,” she blurted then, seizing on her utmost hurt, “my reference of character from Mrs. Colfax. Lady Malverne advised her not to give it to me,” she explained to his look of puzzlement. “I cannot find employment without it.”
At that he sighed. “But, Miss Dawkins,” he said gently, “you increase my debt. There’s the reason I’ve come armed with so much blunt. I’m afraid the lady’s taken herself off to Bath with her family in tow, leaving our Theo temporarily orphaned and in my care. I doubt his reference will suit, nor will mine. And as you might guess, Mrs. Colfax, who I understand is a socially thrusting person, won’t lift a pen without the lady’s permission. Our interference with Mrs. Colfax would only blacken your name further with her, I suspect, so I’m afraid it’s the money or nothing, at least until Lady Malverne returns.
“I can convince her to have Mrs. Colfax write an unexceptionable one for you,” he said, staring down at her consideringly as he weighed the packet of bills in his hands, “but,” he sighed, “it’s never the sort of thing to do by post. Even if she complied, it wouldn’t do. No, she’d have your last employer damn you with faint praise and play the innocent when I objected. We’d have letters whizzing back and forth, up and down the Bath road for weeks. She believed you were after dear Theo’s name or protection, and she’s renowned for her firmly held principles. Which is,” he said, smiling that curiously gentle smile, “another way of saying that she has the flexibility of a slab of pine. Come, Miss Dawkins, take the money until matters are mended.”
It was an eminently reasonable argument, a clear and logical request. Victoria swallowed down a bitter taste, which must have been the dregs of her pride, and reached for the notes, which this time he laid down carefully upon an adjacent table for her. And then he said, as her fingers closed over them, in oddly light and unconcerned accents:
“It scarcely matters, you know. Only for my own information. But why the devil did you pen those verses?”
“He,” she said, drawing back, with the money in hand, in her surprise omitting young Lord Theo’s title, “that is, Lord Malverne, said there was a Frenchwoman he wished to impress, but that he didn’t know the language, nor any poetry suitable for her.”
“The jingling of coins is the most poetic thing Lucille LaPoire ever heard.” The earl laughed. “Come, Miss Dawkins, I’ve said it makes no difference now. It’s over. When Theo told me of it, I assumed you were an elderly female nearing retirement, willing to do anything for a sum to add to your nest egg, even to copying out passionate sonnets for boys to deliver to
demireps. Theo said nothing to dissuade me. Thus when Lady Malverne bent my ear, I believed her addled, or overprotective to the point of mania. Had I seen you first, I would have believed her completely. You’re all of what…twenty-one? Less? And entirely lovely. It can’t have been easy for you.”
He said this with seeming sympathy, he said it with such concern in his deep, soft, slightly slurring accents that she forgot what he’d called Lord Malverne’s ladylove. But for all his charm, she could not forget, as he seemed to wish her to, that he was no less than an earl and she no more than a servant, and money was changing hands between them even as they spoke.
“But no, I should have disbelieved Theo’s mama as well,” he commented, gazing down at her with troubled eyes. “You’re entirely too wise to stalk him. It’s ludicrous, only a mother could think it. If you’d tried, you could have nabbed far better. But what I can’t understand is why on earth you aided him in his pursuit of his expensive demimondaine. Money must certainly have been a consideration. No matter,” he sighed, shrugging, “we all make mistakes. As I,” he breathed as if to himself, “may yet prove.”
He remained silent for a brief moment, collecting his thoughts. He’d given her the money, he’d settled accounts as best he was able, and yet she still stood and stared at him as though she were awaiting something he’d forgotten to say. There was something he’d not said. But it wasn’t that he’d forgotten it, for the thing hadn’t been far from his mind or his lips since she’d entered the room. It was only that she was such an accomplished actress she’d almost defeated her own purposes, he realized, playing the innocent so well he’d begun to doubt himself enough to refrain from broaching the matter entirely.
But she never belonged in this dingy, dusty parlor in this low slum, he thought, she was as incongruous as a rose in a rubbish heap here. The thing was so obvious it was no wonder she stood hesitantly, waiting to give him the chance to realize the truth of it. She’d noted him as a man; he was no peacock, but when there was so much tension between a man and woman there was little doubt of it, he knew he couldn’t be wrong in that. Even now as she waited for him to speak she chanced a glance to him, and what she saw in his returned and interested gaze caused her to veil her eyes with her lashes and close her hands spasmodically over his money. It was then he realized she obviously wanted him to take the initiative, she’d some idea of the refinements of the matter.
After all, he thought, she’d had enough discretion to forego young Theo’s protection, despite her obvious pressing financial needs. Theo was very young and callow, and an experienced female of taste, or certain tastes, might well pass over such an unformed youth, no matter what his worldly endowments. But was she puzzled now about what gave rise to his own hesitancy in the matter? he wondered with rising desire, as he decided that further shilly-shallying was unnecessary and impolitic, for not only might it make him lose esteem in her eyes, it might even win him her mockery. Since he found himself disliking the idea of that very much indeed, he decided to proceed immediately, but warily.
For all he appeared to be unique, when he wished he could disguise all emotion upon his expressive face like any other well-bred gentleman of fashion, she thought, because he wore an unfathomable look as he spoke again.
“Miss Dawkins,” he said hesitantly, “in the ordinary way of things, I suppose I could go about this much more delicately, but we’ve neither time nor opportunity. I should not like to visit here again; I’m convinced you’re used to better as well. So I’ll be straightforward about it, though I should rather, if circumstances were different, put my proposition to you slowly and by tender and sensitive degrees. In short, it’s clear your career as governess has hit a considerable snag. You can’t have found any of it pleasant or profitable in any event. I don’t doubt you’ve just earned more for being summarily dismissed than you ever did when you were employed.”
She could not reply to this, for it was entirely, disgracefully true. She only continued to gaze up at him, turning his bundle of bills in her hands mindlessly, and it was as if her silence satisfied him, for he seemed easier in his mind, and he nodded and went on,
“I find you, as I said in a more roundabout way, lovely, clever, and personable. I can claim to be none of those delightful things, but neither am I perverse, cruel, or unhealthy. And I’m quite wealthy. Ah, this is not easy, perhaps that’s why I’ve not attempted just such a formal arrangement since I’ve come to London, though Lord knows,” he murmured, shaking his head, as though he spoke half to himself, “I’ve been told often enough that it’s expected of a man in my position.
“Briefly then, Miss Dawkins, I should like to offer you the position of companion…to me. That is to say,” he said carefully, as she gaped at him, “ah, a house in a good district, a carriage, footmen, butler, clothes, and a quarterly stipend, shall we say,” he said ruminatively, and then he quickly mentioned a number which caused Victoria to gasp almost louder than Mrs. Rogers did at her hidden station behind the door.
“And,” he said, smiling tenderly at her now that he’d done with recounting the details of his offer, “I don’t require any letter of reference. It is enough that I’ve heard you and seen you.”
He stepped close to her and touched her cheek gently.
“I’m very attracted to you,” he admitted. “I don’t know when I’ve ever felt such an instantaneous longing for any female. Come, Miss Dawkins—absurd name, Victoria, isn’t it? Well, then, come, Vixen, admit half as much to me, I’ve been a gentleman, but I’ve not been insensible to your reactions to me. Although I can’t promise anything, of course, without sounding like a braggart, I can’t help but feel we’ll deal very well together. And though I mentioned I haven’t set up just such an arrangement here in town before, I’m not at all inexperienced in dealings with your gender, rather the reverse I should say.
“But why am I listing my achievements”—he grinned—“when it’s you, in all fairness, who’d be expected to present credentials to me, which right I waive, and when there’s a far simpler way to make my point, that I’ll be delighted to demonstrate.” And then, as Mrs. Rogers held her breath at the prettiness of the gentleman’s speech, he stepped forward, took the dazed Miss Dawkins, still clutching the money to her breast, into his arms and kissed her with a concentration and thoroughness Mrs. Rogers had only ever dreamed upon. Until Miss Dawkins erupted like a fury, spitting and clawing, and tore herself from his clasp.
“How dare you?” Miss Dawkins cried, several registers higher than her usual dulcet, modulated tones. “How could you say such things, offer such things, when I have never, ever done such things before?”
But, “Obviously,” was all the gentleman commented dryly, crossing his arms in front of his wide chest and looking, Mrs. Rogers thought at least, from her keyhole vantage point, a good deal more ill-at-ease than his cynical tones let on.
This brief comment, rather than fueling the fire, as her hidden landlady hoped, seemed rather to achieve the reverse, and Miss Dawkins grew very still. A dozen vile epithets flew to her lips, a half-hundred accusations hovered at the edges of her consciousness, but all she said then, having rapidly reviewed them all and found them all wanting, was, “Oh!”
Then, “Take your money,” she cried, making a gesture as if to fling the packet of banknotes to the floor, and only then noticing that she must have somehow dropped them all during his embrace.
So then, “Bother me no more,” she shrilled, turning on her heel.
“Wait!” the earl commanded coolly. “My card,” he said calmly, presenting it to her, “for though you may have rejected one offer, we still have unfinished business.”
“Ha!” Miss Dawkins replied, unimaginatively, even to her own ears. She methodically tore the small white placard into tiny bits and tossed them, like an insult, if not into his face, for she had an upbringing she couldn’t surmount, then into the air, so that at least they fluttered down very nicely, she thought, between them. Then she spun round and flung ope
n the door, shouldered past Mrs. Rogers, and then fairly flew up the staircase. Everything they said of the Quality wasn’t quite true, Mrs. Rogers thought glumly, for they clearly weren’t blind to expense, since the earl thought nothing of promptly stooping and calmly gathering up all the bills the ungrateful ninny had dropped at his feet. But still, there was everything to be said for breeding. For then he gave another card to Mrs. Rogers, along with one of the notes, and said, so aloof and icy that it thrilled her to bits, “Here, my good woman. She may yet change her mind. Keep this for her against the day.
“Yes,” he added so cynically, just as he ought when addressing an inferior such as herself, that it made her heart swell with happiness, “just the card, the money’s for you. This time,” he added obliquely, before he donned his high beaver hat, touched it in a sort of salute, and left her, impressed to near tears, and wondering at how any mortal girl could be so hardhearted and stupid as her lodger Miss Dawkins.
*
The seventh Earl of Clune had left an enormous, gloomy, lavishly furnished multiroomed town house in the heart of London for his successor, so naturally the eighth Earl of Clune passed most of his time in a smaller, comfortably furnished, and cheerful town house several blocks away. The smaller house was actually the more expensive one, the Earl of Clune’s entailed property being in a neighborhood that was not quite so newly fashionable as the one he’d bought for himself shortly before he’d come into the title, and its simpler furnishings being more expensive because they were in the highest kick, his architect had assured him, of the latest fashion. But what he’d actually paid for was the comfort of chairs not so antique that their embroideries repelled booted feet, and carpets and furnishings that needed no protection from the sunshine his high wide new windows admitted, and paintings not so elderly that they refused to celebrate the same light and air he considered vital to his comfort.