Mrs. Fairfield had tried to teach her that, but all it took to make Adele forget herself was a loaf of white bread.
She faced the looking glass, took stock of herself. Somber riding habit, severe hair without even a hint of curl, all to match the severe, somber expression she was wearing. There was nothing there to tempt a man.
But Mr. Coyne had proven he had an unusual notion of temptation.
She ran her hands down her waist, smoothing nonexistent wrinkles from the fabric there. He would touch her with those hands today, exactly as she had done. Chills moved across her skin as she imagined the rough clasp of them around her waist, the slide of them along her calf as he set her foot in the stirrup.
It would be agony to go through that after last night, to remember the circles his thumbs had made. She pressed a finger to just above her hips. Right there. He had made them right there.
But there was nothing to do but face him today and try to regain the ground she’d lost last night.
When she arrived at the stable yard, Mr. Coyne was in close conference with Mr. Ford, the land agent. Mr. Coyne looked grimly angry, while Mr. Ford wore an air of resigned apology.
“But Colin, I can’t…” Mr. Coyne stopped, his jaw going tight.
“I know,” Mr. Ford said. “But there’s nothing I can do, not with the estate tied up in knots like this.”
Mr. Coyne nodded but kept his mouth clamped shut.
“Whichever horses you think we can spare we’ll sell,” Mr. Ford went on. “I don’t want to see them starve any more than you.”
“I understand.” Mr. Coyne’s voice was reluctant, his shoulders rounded in defeat. “I’ll… I’ll see which animals we can get rid of.”
“We don’t have to sell yet,” Mr. Ford said. But this was clearly a sop.
Mr. Coyne knew it too. “Winter will be here before we know it, and we’ve no idea who the new duke is. No, we’ve got to plan for the worst.”
What will you try to save in the end?
He wouldn’t be able to save his horses. Not if things continued on as they were.
He lifted his head, his gaze finding hers for half a moment, a spark passing between them. Then his attention swung back to Mr. Ford. “I’ll draw up a list along with what they ought to fetch. You likely won’t get what they’re worth, not in this climate, but we’ll try to fetch as much as we can.”
“If you want to leave the estate, go to York or Grafton… Well, a place more settled than this, I’d understand.” But the heaviness in Mr. Ford’s voice told how reluctant he was for Mr. Coyne to do that.
A similar weight settled in Adele’s chest. She waited for Mr. Coyne to answer.
His gaze flicked back to her, again for the barest moment. “I can’t answer now; I have to go,” he told Mr. Ford. But he came no closer to her. His “Miss Vere” was coolly correct, his gaze barely touching on her.
When Joey led Dove to the mounting block for her, Mr. Coyne stayed well back and simply said, “Mount up, if you please.”
He wasn’t going to touch her.
For half a moment she stared at him, her skin tingling as she remembered all the other times he’d helped her on. Each and every time.
But not today.
She clambered on all on her own, settled in the saddle by herself. That was what she’d always wished for, wasn’t it? That he would stop touching her?
Dove went forward with a nudge of Adele’s heels, and she waited for him to mount Clarion. They set off on their usual path, him half a length ahead of her. There was no ease in his limbs today, no insolence in his motions. She couldn’t see his face, but she had the impression his eyes were no longer laughing.
This was an entirely different kind of awkward than she’d been expecting. Him pulling away was… well, she’d been bracing herself for more teasing, more knowing looks, but now that he’d taken liberties he was leaving her alone? How was she supposed to keep up with him?
“We’ll do trot poles today.” Brisk. Impersonal.
“As you like.” But it wasn’t as cold as she might have done. Closer to confused.
The silence kept on, even the birds muted today. The clouds threatened rain—again. A miserable day to match her miserable mood.
Foolish, contrary girl. He’s left you alone. What more do you want?
Him. She wanted him. And she mustn’t have him.
Adele certainly had her share of desires. Her share of wanting. Perhaps more than her full share, considering the force of her urges at times. But she’d learned to curb those needs, smother her hunger. Sometimes she could even pretend that she didn’t want, that such things repelled her.
Judging by the hollow gnawing in her middle when she stared at Mr. Coyne’s back, she’d have to relearn all that where he was concerned.
The clearing came into sight, the dreaded trot poles lying across the path. She didn’t wait for his command—she collected up the reins and drove Dove forward, putting her useless wants into her will to control the horse.
Dove went over perfectly, not too fast, not too slow, with no telltale thunk from her hooves hitting the poles. When they sailed across the last pole, Adele pulled Dove into a tight turn and went right back over the other way. Over and over and over again, every time perfect.
And not a word from Mr. Coyne.
Adele went so many times she lost count, until both she and Dove were panting from the effort.
But Mr. Coyne didn’t say to stop, so she didn’t.
One more time over, once more pulling Dove into a hard turn, but this time Adele was grimly exhausted. She could feel Dove beginning to flag beneath her, the mare’s steps not as quick as they’d been. But still Adele pushed them both forward.
This time, Dove’s hoof hit the first pole with a thunk that made Adele’s teeth rattle. The horse stumbled, and Adele pulled her up.
“Enough,” Mr. Coyne was calling. “That’s enough for today.”
Finally, a reaction from him. Perverse man, to not even praise her when she’d done something right.
“Are you certain?” A challenge from her. “You haven’t snapped at me once.”
The blue of his eyes flared hot, and he rode over to her, catching up Dove’s bridle when he was close enough. “Do you want me to?” He looked to be asking if she wanted something very different.
“You always snap at me.”
Triumph flared in his gaze. “I didn’t last night.”
She sucked in a breath. So that was his scheme—to provoke her into losing her temper, this time by ignoring her. But to what end?
“No.” She pulled Dove’s head free of his grip.
“I hope you don’t think I make it habit to seduce the governess.”
He regretted last night? He was the one to tempt her with that loaf of bread. She tried to pull back her anger, to curb it as she would Dove, but it fought free of her control. “I don’t think of you much at all.”
“I do.” The blue of his eyes went melancholy. “Think of you, that is.”
“You shouldn’t.” This was dangerous, the hint of longing in his eyes. A danger that made her heart race and her skin flush. “A governess must be beyond reproach. You have a freedom I don’t.” She backed Dove away from him. She didn’t want to talk about this—she’d meant only to needle him, not to stir up all these emotions.
His mouth tightened. “I’ve no iniquity planned today.” He spread one palm wide, as if to remind her he hadn’t touched her once.
“But tomorrow?” Her chest ached at the thought that he might not touch her then either, that she might finally be cut off from the only physical contact she was granted these days.
“Tell me, where are you from?”
She went rigid. How did he know? “I—I grew up near London.” The truth. But only a piece of it.
“Then where did you learn to speak French like a native? And don’t say your governess.”
My mother. I learned from my mother. “I was Mr. Fairfield’s ward.” Too wood
en—he’d see right through that. She pushed more animation into her voice. “They very kindly took me in, provided for me. I was the daughter of one of their dearest friends.” Her father’s intimate friend. “That’s all I am. That and a governess. Nothing more.”
He shook his head. “No. There is more.” Urgency crept into his voice. “I can see it, trapped behind the gray of your eyes, pinned beneath that severe hairstyle. Something waiting to burst free.”
“There isn’t.” But she knew she lied. That something had put the bread in her mouth, had dragged her fingertip along his throat. It had kissed him back in those stables.
And only he seemed to see it.
“Come on, Adele.” How had he known her name? “Give in to it.”
“I mustn’t.” And yet she turned Dove back toward him. He touched her, he knew things about her she’d tried so hard to conceal… and she was so tired of fighting. Herself and him.
“That’s my girl,” he went on, his accent going to a syrupy liqueur. “Come on.”
It was how he might cajole a horse—but she knew how much he loved these horses. She nudged Dove closer to him, the blue of his gaze calling to her. She came alongside Clarion, close enough for him to reach out and grab her.
He simply grinned at her. “There, was that so bad?”
“This is dangerous.” She kept her voice low, anxiety dancing across her skin. She wanted to speak openly with him—but she didn’t want to be caught doing it.
“I won’t touch you.” No, instead he used his voice to caress her, sending it low and rough. “Tell me,” he went on. “Tell me who you really are. I know there’s more.”
Sometimes she believed there was more, that behind her manufactured façade a living, breathing creature still existed. But most of the time it seemed her interior had been hollowed out, carefully scooped away by Mrs. Fairfield’s unceasing corrections.
Today though, the creature was there. She’d been awakened by his kiss, and she wanted to speak. Just this once.
“I was born in Paris.” Hardly loud enough for her to even hear herself, but she had the sense that he heard anyway. “My mother was a dancer. And a singer.” She swallowed hard. “And… and an entertainer of gentlemen. She named me Adele and taught me how to sing.”
Her chest twisted at her betrayal of Mrs. Fairfield by speaking of her true mother—of all the things her mother had taught her in France, and nothing of what Mrs. Fairfield had taught her. And weren’t Mrs. Fairfield’s lessons more valuable? Adele wouldn’t be here now if not for them.
“I see.” There was no censure in his voice—only confirmation. “How did you end up here?”
If there had been triumph, slyness, even a hint that he found this titillating, she would have stopped right there. But his expression was still and clear, as refreshing as the surface of the lake on a clear day.
So she went on and confessed all. “Mr. Fairfield is my father.” A relief to finally say that—no betrayal there. He had fathered her, but never truly claimed her. Well, she would lay claim to him, here with Mr. Coyne, where no one else would know. “My mother, she became consumptive. She knew she wouldn’t have long, so she sent me to him.” It had been a terrifying journey, across rough seas with only her nurse for company. The longing for her mother had been a sickness deep within her. “He wanted nothing to do with me, but his wife…”
She stopped, gathered herself. It was difficult to shape these words for the very first time. She’d never had the practice. “They had no children, and I must have been quite the painful shock, appearing on their doorstep. But she raised me as”—Adele swallowed hard, unable to say daughter; she couldn’t claim that, not even now—“as her companion. When she died, I came here. To become a governess.”
She took the measure of his expression again, now that he knew all. It remained quiet, solemn. No censure. No leering.
If he meant to take advantage, this would be the perfect moment, when she’d revealed the sordidness of her roots. But the blue of his extraordinary eyes was the color of sincerity. And sympathy.
“I am so sorry,” he said. “For the loss of both your mothers.”
Only when he said that did she realize that no one had ever said such a thing to her. Not when her mother had died, not when Mrs. Fairfield had died. Adele hadn’t been a creature with feelings to consider in the aftermath of those events—she was only a bit of baggage to be shipped off to the next destination.
She was grateful he wasn’t touching her or she might have broken down completely. Because for all his supposed coarseness, Mr. Coyne had recognized her sadness. Recognized it and offered her sympathy.
Which was a bigger temptation than his kisses had ever been.
The church bell in the village rang sonorously, spurring Jock to bark madly. The mood between them dissolved, tolled away with the tones of the bell.
She turned Dove back toward the stables. “I think the lesson is over.” Rueful and a little shy. Now that the revelations were done, she needed to retreat back into prudence.
“Is it?” A burr, meant to snare itself in her thoughts and stick hard next to his hands, his mouth, his teasing blue gaze.
A shiver ran across her skin—a pleasant one. But still cold. Because the further she went with him into this lesson of theirs, the murkier his end designs became. She’d given him a powerful weapon today. He could spread the tale of her origins to all the servants, who would spread it beyond Beckworth—and then her future prospects would be endangered.
But she didn’t sense such malice in him.
So if he didn’t mean to seduce her into ruin… then what did he mean? He couldn’t simply want to know her. She wasn’t that interesting.
What was his aim?
She puzzled on that for the rest of the day.
Chapter Five
“Thomas, where is your mind today?” Adele rapped her knuckles against her desk, trying to call the boy back to his lesson. “You’ve been fidgeting all day.”
The boy flushed, straightened in his seat. “I am sorry, miss.”
“Not sorry enough to actually apply yourself to your lessons.” Too sharp, she knew, but she was too much on edge today to practice much patience. She couldn’t stop thinking of Mr. Coyne, of the information she’d so willingly given him this morning. Couldn’t stop imagining that he’d told everyone. That Jane, the upper maid, was smiling so because she knew Adele was nothing more than a bastard. That Mrs. Pemberley’s quick nod of greeting was especially short because the housekeeper knew how wanton Adele truly was. That the footman’s slow glance over her was because Mr. Coyne had detailed how that body had felt beneath his hands.
But no one had actually said anything, and she hadn’t been handed her dismissal… so perhaps she was imagining it all.
She drummed her fingers against her desk. Perhaps Mr. Coyne was biding his time, waiting to use this to compel her into something wicked. Although he had asked her about herself after she’d kissed him. She drummed her fingers harder.
Away from him, from that luring blue gaze of his, it was easier to believe he meant her harm.
Tomorrow though, if he put his hands around her waist again… She swallowed hard. She didn’t know what she would believe then.
Tap tap tap went Thomas’s toes beneath his desk.
“Thomas!”
He jumped, then stammered, “I’m sorry, I forgot.”
She spread her palm flat upon her desk and took a steadying breath. They were both too skittish today. And the hurt pulling his mouth down pricked at her conscience. He mustn’t bear the brunt of her unease.
“It’s all right. Perhaps… perhaps we ought to stop there.” A bit early, but there was no point going on like this.
Thomas nodded, keeping his gaze on the floor. Something more was bothering him than simply her snappishness.
“Are you… Have you been thinking of what we spoke of the other day?” she asked. “About what might happen when the new duke comes?” Whoever or wher
ever he might be. She didn’t want to think of it herself, but if another conversation could calm her pupil, then she owed it to Thomas.
His made a small frown, as if puzzling out his feelings. “Yes.”
Adele wanted to sigh, to rub her face with weary exasperation. But she must remain calm and resolute so that Thomas would be the same. “Are you happy here?”
“I am.” He smiled and Adele wanted to smile in return. “With you and Mr. Coyne and Joey and… and everyone.” His voice went solemn. “And my pony and my puppy. I can’t leave them.”
Adele hid her smile. She suspected he’d miss his pony and dog more than any human here. But he was still such a sweet boy. “Well, there’s no sense worrying about the future. That won’t solve anything.” Advice she ought to be taking to heart herself regarding Mr. Coyne. “I’ll make you a bargain. If you can be properly attentive for the rest of your lesson—no more fidgeting!—you can go to the stables and play with your puppy for the rest of the afternoon.”
There. She’d salvage something from this day and give Thomas a treat as well. She wasn’t entirely terrible at this governessing business. She rather enjoyed it, especially since she saw so much of her own childhood in Thomas’s. If she could ease his worries, provide him a comforting refuge, then she would.
Thomas nodded quickly and bent his head back to his work without another word.
Half an hour later, the two of them made their way out doors. It was as dreary a day as it had ever been—not even a hint of sunlight or warmth—but Adele still welcomed the fresh air on her cheeks. She pulled her cloak more tightly around her, resolving to brave the weather anyway.
She left Thomas at the stable yard and went for the path that wound around the lake. The surface was still and sullen, even as the clouds churned slowly overhead. But the air was bracing and the path under her feet solid as she tramped along, the surface of her thoughts becoming as still as the lake, even if beneath darkness continued to lurk. No sense worrying, as she’d told Thomas, yet she continued to in spite of herself.
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