The Reluctant Governess

by Maggie Robinson

  As Eliza’s lids fluttered shut, she remembered she hadn’t telephoned Oliver to get extra staff or check on the progress of hiring a real governess. She would. Later.

  ***

  An insistent hand was shaking her shoulder. “Miss Lawrence. Wake up, please.”

  Eliza struggled through the fog. She was having the loveliest dream, sitting at a neat desk beneath a sunny window, surrounded by ledgers filled with columns of numbers that did not need reconciling. Everything was perfect, bright and fresh, the paper white, the ink black, the wood grain on the desk gleaming and scented with lemon polish.

  “I do beg your pardon, Miss Lawrence, but it’s time for me to go home. Past time, really.”

  Eliza sat bolt upright. Her room was in near darkness, a spill of light coming from the electric sconces in the hallway. “I beg your pardon, Mrs. Daughtry! How long have I been asleep?”

  “It’s just gone on seven o’clock. I’ve brought you a cup of tea and some bread and butter. You’ll be happy to know things are much improved downstairs, and if you are hungry later, Mrs. Quinn is up and about. Nothing I said could stop her. Fortunately, she’s not been as affected as Sue or little Domenica. What a delightful, intelligent child, by the way. A touch impertinent, but then I like children who have spirit.”

  She would love Jonathan Hurst, Eliza thought.

  “They’ve all had their dinner down below, and the girls are almost asleep already. Mrs. Quinn assures me she can take care of anything they require. So, it’s just Mr. Raeburn that needs tending to. He should be able to be left to sleep soundly around midnight.” The nurse cleared her throat. “What an unusual young gentleman.”

  Wasn’t he just?

  “He drew a lovely picture of me,” Mrs. Daughtry confided. “I’m going to take it home and have it framed for Mr. Daughtry’s dressing room.”

  Good heavens. Mrs. Daughtry wasn’t undressed in it, was she? Eliza would put nothing past Nicholas Raeburn.

  “I saw the sketch he began of you,” the woman continued. “He’s a very talented artist.”

  Another female conquest for her employer, although the plump and motherly Mrs. Daughtry was surely not his type.

  “Is he? I’ve seen nothing but his photographs, and those are . . . shocking.” Eliza knew she sounded like a Puritan, but she couldn’t help it. She was a Puritan, if not by religion, then inclination. She was a sober, respectable woman and intended to remain that way, nude portraits be damned.

  “Well, dear, I’ll give you a few minutes to eat and get dressed, and then I really must leave. Mr. Daughtry will want his supper.”

  Poor Mrs. Daughtry. She had arrived here before dawn, worked all day, and was still expected to put a hot meal on the table for her husband. Why wasn’t Mr. Daughtry cooking for her after the day she’d had? It was unfair, but then marriage often was.

  Eliza reflected on the conversation she’d had about the wedded state with her employer. If a wife was supposed to jump through hoops for her husband, catering to his every whim and bestial appetite, he’d better be faithful or he deserved to be hit on the head with a roasting pan.

  Goodness. She was not generally so violent. A day spent in the company of the argumentative Nicholas Raeburn had corrupted her.

  Eliza chewed her bread and swallowed the scalding tea as quickly as she was able, finished dressing, then scraped her hair back into a tight bun. She wasn’t vain, nor did she wish to appear attractive to someone as wicked as Nicholas Raeburn undoubtedly was. He would have to take her as she was, sleep wrinkles and all.

  He was sitting up in bed, holding an ice pack to the back of his head. Competing with his pallor were bruises of epic size and color. Somehow he still managed to look handsome, even with his scruffy red beard and black sutures. Mrs. Daughtry had found him a nightshirt, and he was more dressed than she had seen him in the scant two days she’d been here.

  “Ah. There you are. I trust you had a restful day. I’m afraid mine wasn’t restful at all.” He looked past her shoulder. “Is that horrible woman gone?” he whispered.

  “If you mean Mrs. Daughtry, I’m sure she’s a saint for putting up with you.”

  “I swear, every time I shut my eyes she stuck me with a pin, and then she talked my ear off in that nurse voice. ‘How are we feeling?’ I can’t know how she’s feeling, can I? We don’t share the same skin.”

  “She was just doing her job. You should be grateful,” Eliza said, sitting in the chair by the bed. “Can I get you anything before I get too comfortable?”

  Mr. Raeburn shuddered. “If I have another cup of tea, I’ll drown. No more soup or liquids of any kind unless we’re talking about Raeburn’s Special Reserve, and I’ve been told that desire is premature.” He gave her a rueful grin. “That doctor of yours came back this afternoon and lectured me. I felt as if I were back in the nursery.”

  Eliza felt a stab of guilt. She never slept in the daytime. “I’m sorry to have missed him. What did he say?”

  “That despite my lack of abstinence, I have a hard head and the luck of the devil. Tell that to my innards.”

  Eliza rolled her eyes. She didn’t wish to contemplate Nicholas Raeburn’s digestive system. If she had wanted to train as a nurse, she would not have taken secretarial classes.

  In a just world, she could have inherited her father’s place in his accounting firm. She’d have the vote, too, and not be hobbled by a so-called health corset. Eliza was ready to foment revolution right here and now, but Mr. Raeburn probably had even more advanced ideas than she and would take all the fun out of it.

  She smoothed her skirt, wishing she had something to do with her hands. Knitting, perhaps, although all she did was make wooly lumps that unraveled at the slightest provocation. “I’m sure you’ll feel better soon. Things are improving downstairs.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. I’ve worried about Sunny—the others, too, of course. But she’s had a lot of upheaval lately, and getting sick is no picnic. Maria would have known how to cheer her up. Her old nurse, you know.”

  Eliza nodded, reminding herself not to be offended. It wasn’t as if she wanted to cheer children up all day long, after all. She was not a governess. “The one who died.”

  “Right next to her, if you can believe it.” Mr. Raeburn’s voice rasped with emotion. “On the train. Sunny’s had enough loss in her life. I want to make sure she doesn’t suffer any more.”

  “An admirable goal, but we all suffer one way or another, Mr. Raeburn. It’s a sad fact of life.”

  “But one needn’t go actively looking for suffering. I’ll not have Sunny raised as a martyr, keeping her head down and her opinions to herself.”

  My goodness. He was a revolutionary. “I’m not sure you’ll be doing her a service. Outspoken women are not very popular.”

  “Is that why you’ve never married?” he quipped.

  Eliza felt her cheeks grow warm. “My marital prospects, or lack thereof, are none of your business, sir.” She would not divulge that her only offer had come from a man old enough to be her grandfather.

  Eliza had led a sheltered, middle-class life, caring for her mother and running the household for her father, then training to be a secretary and working after his death. She didn’t have time for friends, hadn’t had any since her school days, and they all had married almost immediately upon graduation just as they were supposed to do. She had nothing in common with them now—they had children of their own while she merely minded the Hursts and now Sunny. Eliza quashed a pang of self-pity and focused on the Chinese jars on the mantel instead of the good-looking, disheveled devil in the bed.

  “Well, you’re pretty for an Englishwoman. Has no one ever noticed?”

  “I thought I wasn’t your type,” Eliza said, wishing to bite her tongue. She didn’t want to let him know she hadn’t forgotten his careless statement and how it annoyed her. Not that
she wished to appear affected by him.

  Not at all.

  “It’s true I’ve always been partial to brunettes. And as there seem to be so many red-headed models since the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood made them all the rage fifty years ago, they have been inescapable. I can’t recall the last blonde I—”

  “And I’m sure I could not be less interested,” Eliza said quickly. “Really, Mr. Raeburn, even if you are ill, your deportment in regards to conversation with a decent lady wants improvement. I don’t see how the agency is going to be successful in finding a governess for you if you continue to discuss your ramshackle philosophy and lack of morals.”

  Mr. Raeburn lifted his unstitched eyebrow. “Ramshackle?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I don’t believe I do, Miss Lawrence. Explain.” There was a mischievous glint in his dark brown eyes.

  “You are—you are discussing your conquests. It’s very improper.”

  “Am I? I thought I was discussing subjects for my paintings and photography.”

  “Oh.” Could this day get any worse? “Then I misunderstood you. I’m sorry.”

  He waved a hand. He had long fingers, the nails of which were not quite clean. “Apology accepted. I’m not a total villain, you know. After all, I believe in women’s suffrage—why shouldn’t you vote? I daresay, despite jumping to conclusions, you are reasonably intelligent and can make as good a decision as any man.”

  Reasonably intelligent. How condescending could he be? “I don’t jump to conclusions!”

  “Oh really? What was I doing last night, Miss Lawrence?”

  “No jumping is necessary. I know perfectly well what you did—after all, I found you on the floor, sir, unable to stand on your own.” Eliza ticked off his transgressions on her fingers. “Carousing with your friends until the wee hours. Drinking. Fighting.” She folded her hands back on her lap and gave him a superior look, or as close to as she could manage when she saw his crooked smile.

  He sat up a little straighter in the bed. “I hosted a dinner party for three gentlemen whom I haven’t seen in ages. Old, old friends, which proves my loyalty and theirs. There wasn’t much carousing, just a lively discussion to catch up. I drank no more than any of them—somewhat less, I should think, for I had an engagement to beat someone to a pulp after the party broke up.”

  “You planned to fight?” Perhaps he belonged to one of those secret gentlemen’s clubs that kept peculiar rules, one of which was never divulging the truth of their nefarious activities.

  “In a manner of speaking. Like an idiot, I went to rescue one of my models from her abusive lover. He beat her so badly she could no longer work, and that isn’t very sporting, is it? A great hulk like that using his fists on a girl. However, they both took exception to my chivalry. I was the one beaten to a pulp—and stabbed, I might add—and here I am with my reward.” He pointed to the purple and blue blotch on his face.

  Eliza swallowed. If Mr. Raeburn was to be believed, he was rather heroic.

  “Oh.” Her response was wholly inadequate, but it was all she could muster.

  “‘Oh’? Not ‘How brave!’ You could talk me up sweet if you put half a mind to it—I’m very vulnerable. Injury to my brain and all that.”

  “Your brain seems in excellent working order if you can put words in my mouth as well as yours,” Eliza said. And she had no intention of talking him up sweet, tonight or any other night. The sooner she could leave Lindsey Street, the better.

  Chapter 8

  Nick hadn’t meant to tell her anything, but he was damned tired of her sniffy disapproval. Miss Lawrence looked at him as if he had horns. While it was true his auburn hair grew in curly disarray, as far as he knew there was nothing lurking underneath to indicate he was a devil.

  She sat there in judgment, her hands folded on her lap like a schoolgirl, her perfect nose in the air as if he stank. Well, he didn’t. He’d had two serious washups today—baths were prohibited because of the stitches on his thigh—and had perfumed himself with sandalwood. His nightshirt was fresh—hell, it was brand-new, as he never wore such a thing to sleep in. He wasn’t even sure where he’d come by it; it could even belong to Daniel Preble for all he knew. Mrs. Daughtry had been insistent that he cover himself up. She’d clucked when she’d seen the ouroboros on his bicep, called him a wicked heathen even after he explained its mythological significance. The nurse had no poetry in her soul, although she’d held his head gently when he cast up his accounts again sometime this afternoon.

  Perhaps she wasn’t so bad after all, just boring. Nick was not used to boring women. He’d chosen to leave his dull upbringing behind, not that his parents had been especially conventional. They, like so many of their class, had left their three sons and a series of hapless governesses to fend for themselves at Raeburn Court while they found amusement elsewhere.

  Nick’s mother hadn’t started off as a member of high society—she’d been the daughter of a tenant farmer on the Raeburn estate in the Highlands. But once she became Lady Raeburn there was not a woman around who could match her for self-consequence and propriety, except when she was tossing valuable objects at Nick’s father, who deserved the many direct hits he received. Nick had gotten tired of avoiding flying crockery, his older brothers’ fists, sheep, and snow-covered mountains, and had escaped as soon as he possibly could.

  He was beginning to regret his return to London, for it was starting off in a most inauspicious manner. First poor Maria, the attack, and now this indisposition. He did not believe in Highland curses, but there were times he wondered what the Raeburns had done to displease the gods. His brother Alec had recently been under a cloud of suspicion for murdering his first wife—although, in Nick’s opinion, she more than deserved it—and his other brother Evan was doomed to toil in the family’s distillery like a sexless drone. Nick had tasted freedom, and he wasn’t going to let some little blond prude condemn him without knowing the facts.

  She sat there, her cheeks flaming. Nay, flaming was not the right word. The blush flowed over her face like a pink watercolor wash. Nick preferred to work in oils, but Miss Lawrence’s looks cried for pastels, as he’d thought before, or watercolors, where the intensity could be adjusted. Muted. Yet even with her pale English-rose beauty, she was surprisingly attractive to him.

  As long as he didn’t have to listen to her.

  “I—I suppose you think I owe you an apology.”

  “Far be it for me to put more words in your mouth.” It was a lovely mouth—lush, unenhanced by any artificial assistance. If he kissed her, those plump lips would darken and swell. No doubt she’d be surprised and grateful—a girl like Miss Lawrence probably did not come into contact with many men who would think to kiss her, the idiots. There she’d been, buried by briefs in that attorney’s office, then dealing with his sticky children, now at Nick’s sister-in-law’s reception desk. Drudge, drudge, drudge.

  She deserved a bit of fun, didn’t she? It wasn’t as if she’d be underfoot here for very long—someone else would take her place soon and she could go back to her telephone and typewriter and files. Her proper, bloodless life.

  “But I have an idea for a way to make up for your insult.” He leaned forward, spurred on by some maggot in his throbbing head. Nick could always chalk this up to fever or mild insanity, couldn’t he?

  Her blue eyes widened in alarm, but he was too quick for her, even in his bed of pain. She was too far away at first, sitting in that chair like a plaster statue. Somehow he managed to slide her forward into his arms, right up against his chest. If only they were skin to skin, but Nick would have to accept the current circumstances, even if they were not ideal. He was doing her a service, was he not? Defrosting her ice queen persona. Teaching her a thing or two. He was a man of considerable experience, winner of hard-won skirmishes in several European countries. Ladies loved him and succumbed to a delightful degree
, and he loved them right back.

  Love was perhaps too extreme a word; let him just say that there was mutual affection between him and the several willing women who were participants in his amorous adventures. More than several, actually. He had not been entirely indiscriminate, was nothing like his brother Alec chasing after empty-headed actresses for the better part of a decade. Nay, Nick had pursued his art, and with it some of his models and those patrons who had supported him. That couldn’t be helped, could it? Propinquity. Opportunity. It was only natural. They had shared his vision, understood who he was.

  But what a dog he was contemplating other women when he had a shocked Miss Lawrence in his arms, whose lashes batted fiercely at such close quarters, her mouth open, ready to protest. Perfect.

  Nick licked her lower lip and felt her go rigid, then covered her mouth with his own. He tasted tea and . . . butter? Nick was a sensualist, and even something so prosaic had its charms. She smelled of soap and lemons. No doubt the soap was scented—he couldn’t imagine Miss Lawrence squeezing lemon juice all over her naked skin, although that image had possibilities. He could follow the trail of liquid wherever it happened to drip, enjoying the sweet tartness of her body, breathing citrus and woman deep.

  He inhaled now, clouded his aching head with Eau d’Eliza—that was her name, was it not? His tongue probed hers. If he’d thought she was shocked before, her sharp hiss told him she had no idea what he was doing. Had she never been kissed? What a bunch of slow-tops these Englishmen were.

  He gentled her along, hoping she wouldn’t have the wits to bite any part of him. Well, someday perhaps a nip or two would be quite pleasant, depending—but he mustn’t get carried away. This was just their first kiss, after all, and it mightn’t lead to anything of significance, although his cock definitely was hopeful. He toyed with her tongue, coaxing it to curl and seek his. Her mouth shifted under his the merest fraction—she was kissing him back, her artlessness appealing, her hands no longer in her lap but pressed against his belly. Dear God, just a few inches lower, he prayed, but Eliza Lawrence was oblivious to his prayer. His own fingers were busy at her throat and in her tidy hair, feeling her throbbing pulse and pulling pins.