Then as the outer bailey came into view, he had a moment of déjà vu. To the left of the coach were a number of children engaged in a snowball fight. The sight reminded him of a similar carefree scene, in this very spot, twenty years ago. Back then a small, curly haired girl had been the instigator of the rollicking children.
Now a woman nearly as short as the children appeared to be the ringleader as she rallied her troops and launched a barrage of snowballs in the direction of the other line of children. An answering volley of icy missiles flew toward the woman and her compatriots. Squeals of delight and laughter filled the outer bailey as he rapped on the coach's roof.
Peter didn’t know how he knew who the woman was, but it was as if he had conjured her out of his memories. His driver stopped several feet from the ringleader and Peter just stared at the back of the woman. Feelings of familiarity washed over him as he stared at her. Despite having her back to him, Peter knew without a doubt that she was Mary Penrose.
She was dressed in a serviceable coat with a practical wool plaid scarf over her head and wrapped around her neck. On her hands were woolen mittens, and not the impractical fine kid-gloves genteel ladies tended to wear during the winter. And what he could see of her skirt as it peeked out beneath her coat, it was grey. Like that which the maids, governesses, and nannies wore, which Peter assumed she was. Especially as she was ordering the children around like a miniature female general.
And she was shorter than he had first thought. He seriously doubted she was over five feet tall. But her coarse coat and clothes could not completely hide her ample bosom. Nor the fact that she was voluptuous if not a bit plump, a scrumptious handful for a man like him. Just as he preferred in the few women he had enjoyed after his disastrous marriages.
But it wasn't her clothes or figure that held him captivated. It was her twinkling laughter and the infectious joy that radiated around her. That and memories he had harbored of her for so many years.
"Mary?" he called out to the woman.
The woman turned in his direction as a snowy projectile slammed into the side of her head, dislodging a pair of wire-rimmed glasses and her scarf. It fell away to reveal short brown corkscrew-curly hair. Her cheeks and nose were flushed from the cold and her eyes danced with merriment as she gazed at him with crystal clear blue eyes.
It was her, just as he had hoped. She was older but there was no denying who she was. He threw open the door and jumped to the snowy road. "My God, it is you," he said as he hurried toward her as fast as the slippery snow would allow.
Her head cocked to the side before her full lips lifted in a welcoming smile.
"Peter? Peter Hendricks? Is that really you?" she asked as he made his way toward her, the snow crunching beneath his booted feet.
He drew to a stop a few short feet from her and gazed at her as if she were a ghost come back to life. Her eyelashes fluttered up at him in what in other woman would have been coyness. But he knew this woman. She wasn't batting her eyes at him, she was trying to bring him into focus without her glasses.
Bending down, Peter retrieved her glasses and then stood up to face her once again. He pulled a clean handkerchief from his pocket, and began to slowly clean the lenses. Once they were free of the snow and moisture, he held them out to her and waited as she placed them back on her nose. While she adjusted them just so on her face, he clenched his gloved hands at his side to keep from reaching out and enfolding her in a hug.
"I'm afraid it is," he replied and then glanced around at the nearly dozen children staring avidly at them.
"You are no longer the runt, are you?" she said, and then laughed up at him.
He laughed as more memories flooded back. The last time he had seen Mary he had been shorter than she. Something he hadn’t recalled about the two of them until now. But back then, he had been shorter than any of the other boys his own age. His father had despaired that he would never grow. But Peter had fooled everyone when he shot up in just a few years to be taller than anyone in the family.
"No," he said as his eyes roamed over her. She was more beautiful than he remembered her being.
She giggled and her smile grew even wider. "I'm afraid I wasn't so fortunate. I'm still the runt in the family."
Peter grinned back at her as a thought occurred to him. "Is your father at Alnwick too?"
Her smile dipped a little. "No," she blinked her eyes as a sheen covered them. "He died some time ago."
"Oh, Mary, I'm so sorry," he replied, the sentiment sounding inane and insufficient to his own ears.
Mary shook her head and her lips tried to turn up. "Thank you, Peter. But it was a long time ago."
Another thought occurred to him; Mary's father had been gentry so his initial assumption about Mary being a servant might be wrong. In fact, it was very likely she was another guest of the Duke of Northumberland, just as she had been twenty years before. Which meant she might be married. And that thought caused a thud in his chest.
"Are you and your husband here for the house party?"
She laughed and shook her head. "No. I never married. I'm Viscountess Hurtle's governess.
The clamp in his chest loosened and suddenly the Christmas holiday didn't look as bleak as it had before.
Chapter 2
Her glasses slipped down her nose just as Mary spotted her employer making a beeline toward her and Peter. She quickly pushed her glasses back into place as she turned to greet the lady, but her words died in her throat at the furious expression on Lady Hurtle’s face.
"Your Grace," Lady Alstia Pruiett, Viscountess Hurtle, cooed, and then dipped an awkward curtsy in the snow. "I'm so very sorry your arrival has been delayed by this unruly spectacle.” She glared at Mary as if the entire situation was her fault. “Miss Penrose was instructed to keep the children away from the barbican and main drive so as to not cause this very thing."
Apparently, Mary was being blamed for the duke’s delay. Lady Hurtle was not an unkind employer, but she had very typical tonish ideas about her children and how the lower classes should conduct themselves. And paramount among those ideals was that servants never, ever mixed socially with their betters.
"Lady Hurtle," Peter acknowledged with a slight nod.
Just then Mary realized how Lady Hurtle had addressed Peter. Your Grace. That’s right. Peter’s father, the old Duke of Rollens, had died several months ago, making Peter the Eighth Duke of Rollens. And she had been standing there conversing with him as if she were his equal.
Peter spoke over her turbulent thoughts. "There is no need to apologize, milady. I was the one who disturbed Miss Penrose at her work. Professor Penrose was an old tutor of mine, and I stopped to pay my regards and my condolences on the loss of her father."
Lady Hurtle ignored her while staring at the duke suspiciously. "Your Grace knew Professor Penrose?"
"Indeed I did, milady. He was one of my first tutors. And a man I greatly admired and respected," he said.
His words held a cutting edge. He was warning her employer to tread carefully. And apparently Lady Hurtle heeded it as she plastered a bright smile on her face.
"As did I and my husband, your Grace," Lady Hurtle said. "It is why we're so happy to have hired his daughter as governess for our children."
The lady then turned toward Mary and addressed her with a haughty tone. "I believe it is time to take the children back to the nursery, Miss Penrose. It would not do to have the children get too cold and become ill. Now would it?"
A familiar uneasiness of being homeless shivered through Mary, one she was all too acquainted with. Since the death of her beloved mother and father, she had found herself jobless and homeless more than once.
"Yes, my lady," Mary said, her glasses slipping forward on her nose as she bobbed respectfully. She pushed them back in place and then turned back to the Duke and curtsied as best she could in the snow. "Your Grace, it was an honor. And I thank you once again for your condolences."
Silently, Mary added additio
nal thanks for giving her an excuse for such familiarity. He undoubtedly knew he had crossed a social line that could have cost Mary her job.
She tried not to watch as the duke waved his coach on, and then linked arms with her employer and began strolling toward the keep and the family's residence. Three other governesses and two nursemaids were rushing toward her and the children. It seemed it was time to go in after all and not just a set-down by her annoyed boss.
Turning back to her charges and the other children, she was not surprised to find all of them staring at her. Nor was Mary surprised by the myriad of expressions on their faces. The younger ones were curious about the man who had interrupted their fun. Disapproving frowns were on the older children. Mary wasn’t surprised by their censure, as she knew all too well that they had been taught at an early age that they were better than the lower classes, which included the servants that cared for them. Mary had been warned of that very dictate by all of her employers since the death of her mother and father.
Never mind that, until a few minutes ago, these same children had been gleefully engaged in a snowball fight with Mary. That could be considered part of her job. But talking to the Duke of Rollens was not. Especially in such a familiar way.
"Come along," she called to her three charges. "We'll change and then enjoy a warm lunch before we start on our lessons for the day."
She got the expected groans and grumbles from most of the children. The only ones that didn’t complain were the Hurtle’s youngest two children, eight-year-old Nelson, and six-year-old Prudence, and one of the Smithson boys. Those three loved learning while the others in the nursery hated it.
The rest of Mary's day crawled by with its usual tedious monotony. In the last several years her days and nights ran together in a repetitiveness that only those in service truly knew. Over the years most of her charges were horrible students who had no real interest in learning what she had to teach them.
But two of her current charges did want to learn. And loved learning about science and the world outside what was expected of noble born children. However, when Lord Hurtle discovered that she was teaching something other than the required French, Latin, and the classics to his children, he had been furious. From then on, she was to stick to the curriculums that he and his wife personally approved. Which Mary had done for the most part. But occasionally, she had slipped little bits of science into her lesson plans. And that made the tediousness of her life a little more bearable.
Mary’s nights were normally spent reading and dreaming about the new college her friend, the Duchess of Vanworth, was trying to get started. A women’s college, with both male and female professors. Jennifer had been one of Mary’s first students when she had become a governess. The daughter of the local vicar, the girl had been allowed to study with Mary’s employer’s children, the Vanworths. And Jenn had been the first girl Mary had helped to marry the man of her dreams, the future Duke of Vanworth.
But tonight was different in that she wasn't thinking about her lot in life, or even the remote possibility of becoming a college professor like her father. So as soon as the children were settled in the nursery for the night, Mary escaped to her favorite retreat at Alnwick Castle, the ramparts on top of the old keep.
Once safely ensconced behind the crenellations, she allowed her mind to stray to her childhood friend. Over the years, she’d pictured him as she’d last known him, an eager little boy with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. He had wanted to be a scientist. Had he been able to follow his dream, or had he become trapped by the expectations of society’s rigid constraints as she had?
However, it wasn’t Peter Hendricks’ intellect that she kept seeing in her mind’s eye, it was the day that eight-year-old Peter had proposed to her. They had gone to their favorite spot, a collection of old rocks that her father said belonged to an old Scottish keep or monastery. One that surrounded a magical pond that was now long since dry.
She had gently refused him, as they were too young to marry. Nonetheless, he had given her a gold ring that day, and she had given the young boy a promise to wait for him. Mary often wondered if he had been able to follow his dream to become a scientist. It was one of the things Mary didn't know about the new Duke of Rollens.
From the gossip sheets, she actually knew a great deal about the man's public image. Mary had followed his life in the rags for years. At the age of two and twenty, he had married the daughter of some earl. Less than a year later the woman had died in childbirth, their baby perishing as well. Mary had mourned for the boy she had known and the woman and baby she hadn't.
Then two years later Peter, the Earl of Danfort, had married the daughter of some marquess. For a year after that it hadn't been Peter she had read about in the gossip sheet, but his countess. The papers were full of the woman and her numerous scandalous affairs. Each one more outrageous than the last. Until one day Mary read that she and her latest paramour had died in a horrible accident.
Recent rags reported that he was once again in the market for a new wife. Although, perhaps not with much enthusiasm. The last one she had read called him the “Run-Away-Duke”, which didn't make a lick of sense. Either he was in the market for a new duchess or he wasn't.
"Contemplating the mysteries of the universe, Miss Penrose?" a deep mellifluous voice said from behind her.
She whirled around so fast her glasses slipped to the tip of her nose. Mary righted them and found the Duke of Rollens just a dozen feet from where she stood, leaning against the parapet. His eyes were not on her though, but on the crystal clear, starry sky above them. But something in his posture suggested that he had been indeed looking at Mary.
"Your Grace," she said and dipped into a belated curtsy. "I was just getting some air." Mary moved to the side in order to pass him as she added, "I'll leave you to it."
His gaze dropped down and he pinned her with those enchanting emerald eyes of his that she remembered so well. "Your Grace?" he asked. "You called me Peter earlier. And as I recall, you used to call me squirt, or" as he glanced over the parapet and grinned, "pain in the arse."
Mary's spine straightened so fast that a painful twinge gripped her back. "I never called you any of those things," she said in her best governess's voice.
His lips twitched and his eyes sparkled in the moonlight. After consideration, he shrugged his massive shoulders and inclined his head ever-so-slightly. "Maybe not the other names but I do recall you addressing me as Peter, and not your Grace."
“That is because you weren’t the Duke of Rollens back then, you were Lord Danfort,” she replied.
Her heart thudded painfully as the warmth of his teasing washed over her, causing the lenses of her glasses to fog over. He might not look like the diminutive boy she once knew, but his playfulness was just as she had remembered from twenty years before. Which helped to thaw the cold barrier her employer had erected that afternoon in the outer bailey. Mary removed her glasses and cleaned them with her skirt as she shook her head.
He said, "Ah, yes, but I was the runt and a pest. As I recall, I followed you everywhere that winter with a never-ceasing barrage of questions."
Mary couldn't help it, she laughed as she set her glasses back on her nose. "You were eight-years-old, as I recall, your Grace." She replied and then shrugged. "And eight-year-old boys are supposed to be inquisitive."
His even white teeth flashed in the starry night. "I was a bit more than inquisitive, as I recall. I was unrelenting in my questions." His smile softened. "And you were incredibly patient and tolerant, answering every question as best you could." His lips twitched and he glanced around conspiratorially and then turned back to her. "In fact, it wasn't your father who was my first tutor, it was you."
Mary grew warm beneath his gaze. "And you were my first, unofficial student," she said.
They continued to smile at each other as the wind whistled through the wall’s opening, ruffling her hair and causing his black locks to flutter about his head. Suddenly he sh
ifted and glanced over the top of the wall. Which made Mary feel even more diminutive. At just four-foot-ten she struggled to see between the openings in the wall.
"I was sorry to hear about your father, Mary," he said into the silence. He turned back to her. "He was the first man who ever encouraged my interest in the sciences." His lips twitched. "In fact, it was your father who suggested I ask you some of my questions."
She smiled back at him. "I know," she said as a warm glow rose in her soul. "He told me what he had done and why."
Her eyes devoured his powerful physique from head to toe and then back again. Peter Hendricks had indeed changed over the years. He was now devastatingly handsome with his raven black hair that he wore longer than was popular. His emerald green eyes were hypnotic and seem to see into her soul.
Even in his evening clothes, she could tell he was quite muscular and doubted he padded his coats as she had heard so many of the nobleman did. His face was lean with sharp angles to his cheek bones and a hard-square chin. But none of his features fascinated her as much as the play of his lips as he spoke. His lower lip was fuller and his upper one thin and long. A sudden image of him kissing her flashed through her mind and she quickly pushed it away.
"Father said he felt sorry for you because you were such a tiny little thing. But no more, are you?"
He shook his head and smiled. "No, not any longer."
Something fluttered in her stomach and rose to her chest. She covered the feeling by adding, "He was quite impressed with you, your Grace. He told me he had never met a more natural student in his life. If he’d had the time that winter, I think he would have liked to have tutored you himself."
He shook his head and glanced away. "My father would have never allowed it. He believed that the study of science was below the purview of a future Duke."
A sadness washed over Mary. "So you never pursued your love of science," she said.
The Christmas Promise (The Fallen Angels NOVELLA series Book 2) Page 2