by Regina Scott
Alaric was seated behind the desk, the lamplight throwing his face in sharp relief. “Mrs. Kimball,” he said.
So precise, so cold. Had she done something to offend?
She came to a stop at her usual spot. “Your Grace. Thank you again for attending the recital. The girls are in alt.”
The tension in him softened only the slightest. “It was my pleasure.”
She struggled to continue with her report. “Everything else is going well. We spent some time this afternoon on deportment. Lady Larissa was delighted.”
He inclined his head. “I imagine she was. Where did you learn deportment?”
Odd question. She’d already told him her qualifications. “I’m the daughter of a vicar. No one needs to know more about how to behave properly in company.”
He rose and came around the desk, and she very nearly retreated. “Will you walk with me, Mrs. Kimball?”
In such a mood, she wasn’t sure she wanted to go anywhere with him, but he glanced at Parsons, and suddenly she understood. They might stroll together through the house, where anyone could come upon them, but he could not speak to her alone without tongues wagging.
“Of course, Your Grace,” she said, putting her hand on the arm he offered.
He led her out of the library, Parsons trotting behind like a loyal spaniel. Jane tried to stand tall, glide along like a proper lady, but her legs felt a bit shaky. Surely, she’d done nothing worth dismissal. She couldn’t think of anything that even warranted a scold. She’d been as good as gold of late.
He said nothing until they had climbed the stairs to the gallery and stopped before a painting. The young lady with hair as gold as Belle’s sat regally in her chair, and even though forty years must have passed, Jane recognized the serene features of the duchess. Glancing back, she noticed Parsons below in the entry, watching.
“What’s happened?” she murmured to Alaric, facing front once more.
“Mr. Mayes returned from London this evening,” he murmured. “He brought distressing news.”
“About Miss Thorn?” Jane asked, forcing herself to keep her gaze on the painting.
“And other matters. The staff at the house on Clarendon Square refuse to acknowledge her existence.”
Jane frowned. “I’d tell you her staff was merely being close-lipped to protect her, but her butler Mr. Cowls is worse than Betsy when it comes to gossip. Where could she be?”
“I share your concern,” he said. “You should also know that I spoke with my mother regarding Miss Thorn. I was under the impression Her Grace had hired the Fortune Employment Agency. She was under the impression I had done the hiring. So, how did Miss Thorn know of our needs, our situation?”
Jane shook her head. “I have no idea. Maybe she was a guardian angel, sent when I needed her most.”
“And why did you need a miracle like that, Jane?”
She couldn’t tell him about the colonel. It made her feel dirty just remembering. “My husband was gone, my position ended. I wasn’t sure what to do, who to ask for help.”
“So, you chose a stranger to see to your future?”
Put that way, she sounded daft. Desperate would have been more like it. “She seemed like a good sort. And Fortune believed in her, and in me. She even liked you.”
“You would ask me to put my faith in a cat?”
“The cat’s probably better odds than me,” Jane said.
He sighed as he moved on to the portrait of a scowling fellow who bore no resemblance to anyone, and they were likely all thankful for that. “Jane, you are such a puzzle. I’ve never met anyone like you. You speak your mind even when it’s in your best interest to be silent. You have shown my daughters love and respect even when they treat you badly. What am I to make of you?”
Jane patted his arm. “I’m an unlikely governess, I’ll grant you that. But I’ll do right by your girls. I promise.”
He regarded her, eyes the color of the tree behind the couple in the next painting. “I’ve been given a report of you as well.”
Her heart slammed against her chest. “A report?”
“It isn’t good,” he said. “I want you to convince me it’s a lie.”
Convince him? How? She took a step back. “What were you told?”
“You caused trouble in your village.”
She barked a laugh. “Well, that’s no lie. I never could keep quiet, as you noted.”
“What of thefts? Destruction of property?”
She stared at him. “Who told you that rubbish?”
“A reputable source, from your town.”
Jane shook her head. “The other Mrs. Kimball, no doubt, my husband’s stepmother.”
He nodded. “Her name was mentioned.”
Jane sighed. “She hates me. To hear her talk, I convinced her Jimmy to run away instead of the other way around. If she intends to accuse me to all and sundry of theft and other things, though, I’d like to see her proof.”
“I wouldn’t.” He caught up her hands. “Jane, you are quickly becoming indispensable to my daughters’ happiness. I cannot have rumors of scandal following you.”
“Bit late for that,” Jane quipped. “I ran away from home, eloped to Scotland to be wed without the banns, and spent years following the drum with a mess of cocky, cantankerous cavalrymen. Those are more than enough ingredients for any scandal broth. And I wouldn’t change a moment of it.”
He released her. “You wouldn’t be the woman you are without it.”
If he was anyone else, if she was anyone else, she might have thrown herself in his arms, told him how much he was coming to mean to her, how much she wanted to stay. But he was her employer and a duke. She had no right to tell him anything.
“So, what will you do?” she asked, watching him. “The only people who could confirm my statements are missing or dead. Can you accept me on faith alone?”
That polite smile was firmly in place, and for a moment she was certain he’d discharge her then and there. He had to have realized she was even farther than he’d first thought from the proper lady Larissa wanted for a governess, the submissive servant the duchess demanded, the upright lady he deserved. He had every reason to send her packing.
“I prefer evidence to faith,” he said. “But, from what I have observed, you are the woman my daughters need—strong, sure, firm in her convictions.”
Jane drew in a breath, relief cresting like a wave over her. “Thank you. Then I’d like your permission to go to London and learn what’s happened to Miss Thorn.”
~~~
Alaric stared at her. He’d been an inch away from including himself as one of the people who needed her. Already, his conscience was shouting at him to rely on Julian’s report, his father’s admonitions, not the flimsy yearnings of his heart, a little-used organ. He’d extended his trust, a place in his home, and she wanted to leave?
“I could take the girls, if you’d like,” she continued, as if she had no idea of the havoc she was wreaking to his ordered thoughts. “We could make it an educational trip, see the sights. The British Museum, the Tower, Hyde Park.” The gleam reappeared in her eyes. “Astley’s Amphitheatre.”
Something leaped inside him at the mention of the famous riding exhibition. By the way her smile curved up, she knew it. What was wrong with him? He wasn’t a boy on holiday. He was still struggling to trust her, could feel a dozen misgivings. He couldn’t allow her to leave and take his daughters with her.
Unless he accompanied them.
He dismissed the idea immediately. He had too much to do here. Willard and the tenants had presented a plan for the crops this year, and he should review it, give them his thoughts. His agents in London had sent recommendations for new investments, some of which must be decided quickly to maximize return. Mr. Harden had complained that someone had been sleeping in his barn. Alaric should request volunteer constables and set up a system of rotation to ensure the safety of his tenants. The rains would start any day, the waters rising
. He should be here to make sure the lock worked as intended.
“Your Grace?” she asked. “It will only take a week. The girls are sure to enjoy it. And the expense shouldn’t be too great; we could stay in the Clarendon Square house you mentioned.”
He couldn’t help his laugh. “Calculating the price of the silver already?”
She grinned back. “And the plate. Never forget the plate.”
Larissa was demanding, Callie pleading, and Belle a wheedler. He could have withstood any of them where his duty was concerned. Yet that grin, that gleam, and he was ready to throw duty out the window.
Dangerous thought. Dangerous feeling. All his life, he’d been taught what was expected of him. He was to lead an empire of estates and tenants, acres and farm shares, horses and cows and sheep, produce and mines. He was to do everything to safeguard them, increase them. He was to do nothing that might hinder their prosperity and wellbeing in any way.
Not even fall in love with an unlikely governess.
Everything in him demanded that he refuse, that he send her back to her own duties, that he order Julian to keep investigating until Alaric was sure of the truth. It didn’t matter that he preferred Jane’s company, reveled in her wit. His enjoyment, his pleasure was immaterial. He had never allowed them to take precedence.
Just as he’d never allowed his daughters to take precedence, until Jane had appeared in their lives.
“Five days,” he said. “To travel to London, see the sights, and return. The girls can ride in the landau, the servants and bags in a second carriage. We can return with Julian, who is visiting. Very likely Her Grace will want to join us.”
Her grin widened. “Us?”
He nodded. “Yes, Jane. Us. I intend to accompany you. Someone has to protect the silver and the plate.”
Now, if he could just find a way to protect his heart.
Chapter Sixteen
And so, Jane returned to London. The trip could not have been more different. Instead of Miss Thorn and Fortune beside her, she rode with the girls, Alaric, and Mr. Mayes, the solicitor’s horse tied behind and the duchess coming in her own coach. While Alaric was pleasant and the girls beyond excited, Mr. Mayes kept a narrow-eyed gaze on Jane, as if expecting her to pull out a pistol and rob them like a highwayman.
She supposed he had reason. He’d been the one to bring the poor report of her, after all. Mrs. Kimball had filled his head with tales of the brazen girl she’d imagined Jane to be. Jane didn’t like thinking how he would react if he heard Mrs. Travers’s complaints. She could only hope her former mistress would keep her vow to have nothing further to do with Jane.
She thought Mr. Mayes might go about his business once they reached London, but he insisted on accompanying them on nearly every outing. Trying to protect Alaric and the girls, no doubt. At least Alaric agreed to let her off her duties the first full day in London so she could search for her benefactress. He’d even left the girls with Her Grace so he could accompany Jane.
But the white stone town house on the southern edge of Clarendon Square was quiet when Jane and Alaric approached it. Now that she had seen his town house, an impressive edifice set off by itself on the northern edge, she too wondered at the proximity.
“She hadn’t lived here long,” Jane said as they climbed the stairs for the green-lacquered door. “I remember seeing boxes in unused rooms, as if she was still getting settled.”
“Mr. Mayes mentioned the house used to belong to a Lady Winhaven. An earl’s widow in Cumberland, if memory serves.” He raised his gloved hand to rap with the brass door knocker, which had a rather fierce face of a snarling lion.
Jane beamed at the elderly butler who answered, relief flowing through her. “Mr. Cowls, it’s good to see you again. Is Miss Thorn at home?”
The tall fellow blinked bleary blue eyes and trained his gaze on Jane’s face. There was no recognition. “All deliveries are to be made at the back,” he intoned.
Alaric drew himself up. “We are not tradesmen, sir.”
He transferred his rheumy gaze to the duke. “The lady of the house donates to charity only through her solicitor. Good day.”
He started to close the door, but Alaric stepped forward, card held between two fingers.
“I am the Duke of Wey,” he said, and no one seeing him in his dove-grey mourning coat, black trousers, and perfectly tied cravat could have doubted him. “Take my card to your mistress. She will want to see me.”
Mr. Cowls accepted the card, squinted at the writing, then glanced back up at Alaric. “I will place your card with the others requiring my mistress’ attention, Your Grace, but the lady of the house is not at home.”
“When will she be at home?” Jane asked, knowing that many aristocrats used the phrase to mean they refused to receive visitors but were, in fact, upstairs with their feet to the fire.
“I cannot say, madam,” he replied. And he shut the door with surprising alacrity.
They tried again later that day and at odd times the next two days, but his answer was always the same. They received a similar story at the coffee shop where Jane had first met Miss Thorn. The owners remembered the lady and her cat fondly but could not guess where they might have gone.
“It makes no sense,” Alaric insisted when he took Jane to Julian Mayes’s place of business, a neat office near Westminster. “Surely even in London, ladies cannot simply disappear.”
“They can if they know the right people,” Mr. Mayes told him darkly, gaze still on Jane.
“By the way she was able to uncover things,” Jane added, “Miss Thorn knows the right people. Something frightened her into hiding. I’d like to know what.”
“So would I,” the solicitor assured her.
So would Alaric, Jane thought. The fact that she had arrived on his doorstep with nothing and no one to recommend her had to undercut his confidence in her. Certainly Mr. Mayes suspected her of wrongdoing. But, unless Miss Thorn wished to be found, Jane was on her own.
~~~
“Another card for your collection,” Cowls said, bending to offer Meredith the duke’s calling card. “I believe that is four, now.”
Meredith hunkered down in the satin-striped armchair near the withdrawing room’s marble hearth, Fortune curled in her lap. “Throw it away or toss it in the fire. I have no use for it.”
Her butler made his slow, steady way to the credenza against the yellow wall to lay the card on a silver salver there. “They will only return,” he predicted. “Mrs. Kimball seems quite distressed. I dislike having to prevaricate to her.”
Fortune wiggled, and Meredith opened her arms so the cat could drop to the carpeted floor. “It cannot be helped. The duke brought this on when he enlisted the aid of that odious solicitor.”
Turning, Cowl gazed off in the middle distance, as if he were seeing something far away or long ago or both. “I always like Mr. Mayes. A shame he never returned for little Mary. It would have been a good match.”
Despite her best intentions, she felt the memories stealing over her as well. She’d known Julian Mayes all her life, admired him since she was a girl. How amazing to discover he’d felt the same way.
“But why must we wait to wed?” she’d asked, as eager as any sixteen-year-old for life to start now. “We have pledged our love. I’m sure Mother would allow us to marry.”
He’d caught up her hands, holding them against his chest. “I can’t support you, not yet. Give me time to make my mark in London. I’m to start work at a solicitor’s firm next week. Once I’ve established myself, I can treat you as you deserve.”
She’d believed him, had even thrown his name at her cousin Nigel the day he’d come to take her home. The sniveling weasel had only laughed.
“With no estate and no dowry? Mr. Mayes has far better choices.”
“He’ll come for me,” she’d bragged. “I’ve written to him. It’s only a matter of time.”
But he hadn’t come. The little time Nigel had given her to remain i
n her home had passed. In the end, she’d had no choice but to accept the offer of an old friend of her long-dead father, a man she had never met, to come serve his sister as companion.
Twelve years of indignities, cruelty. Twelve years cut off from everything and everyone she’d ever known. Twelve years of utter servitude. After all that, who would have expected Lady Winhaven to bequeath her such a blessing? Now she need bow to no one.
Especially not for the unreliable Julian Mayes.
“Mr. Mayes was not the man for me,” she told her butler. The words must have been sharper than she’d intended, for he blinked himself out his reverie. “Do not forget who Lady Winhaven’s nephew had represent him when he attempted to contest the will and prove me a villain.”
“Mr. Mayes has had his own firm for some time now,” Cowls reminded her, moving about the room and straightening pictures and figurines as he did so. “He may not be cognizant of what cases his former mentor has taken.”
“No, but it would require little to connect the Mary Rose he knew to the Meredith Thorn who barely avoided being accused of murder. And then where would Jane be? Where would any of my clients be? We are far safer this way.”
As if she disagreed, Fortune raised her head and stalked to the door of the room. Sitting on her haunches, she leveled a look at Meredith.
“Quite right,” Cowls said in his wheezy voice, addressing himself to the cat. “I never knew Miss Mary to lack for courage. But times change. Might I interest you in a nice saucer of cream?”
Fortune scampered out the door behind him.
Meredith eyed the fire. Surely, she hadn’t lost her courage. She was merely being practical. Jane had professed herself pleased with her situation. Why unsettle things by making a sudden appearance?
Or were things already unsettled? Did the duke doubt Jane because of Meredith? Was that why he’d brought Jane to London, accompanied her around the square? Was Meredith doing more harm than good by avoiding them?
Perhaps she should take a chance and call on Jane, just to be certain everything was fine. And she would be equally certain to do so at a time when she would avoid meeting the duke or Julian Mayes.