“Have… Have my services n-not been adequate, my lord?” she stammered, discovering she wasn’t entirely acting, as the thought of being dismissed had her nerves leaping with anxiety. “I had hoped that… that the girls were happy in m-my care, but if that is not the case—”
“No! I mean, yes, yes the girls are very happy,” Lord Cheam said in a rush.
“But if you have doubts about me….” Gwenn tilted her head up to him and one tear slid down her cheek.
“Oh, lord, Miss Wynter, please….” He stepped closer, too close, and reached out, wiping the tear away with his thumb, his big hand cupping her face. “Don’t cry,” he said, his voice soft. “Please, don’t cry.”
Gwenn gasped, and she was unsure if that shaky intake of breath in response to his hands on her had been fake or genuine as his touch made her knees tremble. Her mouth parted a little, and she stared up at him, into eyes of dark blue, and suddenly, it was no game, hazardous or otherwise. She didn’t give a damn if Wychwood was outside or not. All she could think of was that he would kiss her, and she wanted it. More than anything. She wanted to lean into him, into that strength and warmth.
His hand still cupped her face, and she closed her eyes, turning into it. Gwenn heard his breath catch, felt him move closer, and then heard the door swing open.
Chapter 7
“Wherein Sampson has a narrow escape.”
Sampson leapt away from Miss Wynter just as the doorknob turned. He spun around, snatched up his glass and stared down at the fire as he tried to get his breathing under control.
Daring a quick look, he saw his Aunt May and the twins enter the room. His aunt gave him a rather sharp glance, but when he stole a glimpse of Miss Wynter, she looked as composed and demure as ever. He’d moved away from her before his aunt could have seen anything, he assured himself.
Anything like him making improper advances towards the bloody governess!
Hell and damnation.
What had gotten into him? One minute he was demanding she explain herself and the next… the next….
He’d made her cry, and the anguish in her eyes had struck a pain deep in his heart. Only the worst kind of brute could feel nothing in the light of that beautiful face marred by tears. It was like… like kicking a kitten!
He’d just wanted, no—needed—to make it better. Except then he’d touched her and that had been a mistake, a terrible, terrible mistake. Desire still thrummed under his skin.
Though he didn’t believe for a moment that she was a real governess, she was doing a wonderful job with the girls. His sisters were happy, he could see that, and they were behaving themselves. Well, they were as close to behaving themselves as they ever were, and that was miracle enough in the short time she’d been with them. More than that, though, she needed this position.
Sampson wasn’t sure what he’d seen in her eyes, but there had been uncertainty there, vulnerability… and desire. Oh, yes. There had been desire, and the knowledge of her desire for him would plague him without cease for as long as she remained with them.
Bloody, bloody hell. He was a fool. If he’d only kept his distance as he’d planned, but then she’d burst into the room and closed the door, as if she was running from something. Sampson frowned as he recalled her expression in the moments before she’d seen him. She’d looked… afraid.
“I’ll see what’s keeping Samuel,” he said, setting down his glass once more and hurrying outside before his aunt could stop him.
There was no one in the corridor now, but he could hear Sam, and followed the sound of his brother’s voice.
“Sampson, look who I found,” Samuel exclaimed as Sampson drew closer to see him in conversation with Lord Wychwood. “I just came down the stairs this minute and there he was! He’d almost made it out the door but I caught him.”
“Well met, Pelham,” Lord Wychwood said, holding out his hand. His face fell. “Oh, but no, it’s Cheam now, isn’t it?”
Sampson nodded with a grimace and shook Wychwood’s hand. The name had been associated with his father for so long that it felt tainted, as if the taint had been transferred to him after his father’s death.
“I’d say I was sorry for your loss, but….”
Samuel snorted as Wychwood trailed off, looking awkward. “No one is sorry, believe me. Least of all us. It’s the only decent thing the bastard ever did, though he couldn’t even die decently.”
“Sam,” Sampson snapped, glowering.
Not that he disagreed, but he hated their dirty linen being aired with such ease. He knew damn well everyone was talking about it, but he didn’t have to like it.
“Are you staying here?” Sampson asked the earl. “We’re about to dine, if you would care to join us?”
“Ah, I’d love to, but I have a prior engagement,” Wychwood said with regret. “I was just leaving when Sam here caught me. I’ll be here for a few days, though, if you’re about?”
Sampson shook his head. “No, we’re on our way to Scotland for Christmas to stay with family. We’ll be off early, I’m afraid.”
“Ah, yes. Captain Moncreiffe, your new half-brother. I spoke to a chap that served with him not so long ago. He said Moncreiffe was something to behold in battle. Brave man.”
“Sounds like Ross,” Samuel said with a grin. “All brawn and belligerence.”
Sampson rolled his eyes. “He’s a very decent fellow. As well you know, ingrate,” he said to Sam. “Unlike some of my brothers.”
Sam gave an unrepentant smirk and bid the earl a good evening, before following Sampson back to the private dining room.
***
After dinner, Sampson and his brother remained in the dining room, sharing a nightcap. Try as he might, Sampson could not get his idiotic brain to think of anything else but Miss Wynter and the almost kiss. Every time he thought of it—which was every second since it hadn’t quite happened—he felt a shiver of desire rush over him. He saw the sweep of golden lashes as her eyes closed and she lifted her face to him like a sunflower towards a summer sky. Her lips had looked soft and lush and….
“What’s wrong with you?”
Sampson jolted and felt a surge of guilt. Damn him. He was thinking lewd thoughts about the blasted governess. Again.
He tugged at his cravat, trying to loosen it. “Nothing,” he replied, aware that such a terse reply rather indicated it was a lie.
“What happened, did Miss Wynter reject your advances?”
If he’d have stopped to think about it, he’d have remembered that Samuel was a rather good investigator, the kind of man who could wheedle the truth from a fellow without him even knowing it was happening. Samuel knew damn well that suggesting his big brother could not do something was almost guaranteed to get a rise out of him.
Sampson placed his foot firmly in the trap.
“No, she did not reject them,” he growled, and then cursed himself as he fell into a deep hole.
“I see,” Samuel replied, with the faintest lift of one eyebrow.
“Nothing happened,” Sampson said, annoyed with himself for having to say that, for having revealed that, and with Sam for being as irritating as ever. Blast him.
“Ah, so she did reject you,” Sam said with a satisfied smile. “What a pity. Never mind, old fellow. I think she prefers me anyway. I shall have to try my luck.”
“Damned if you will!” Sampson snapped, sitting up ramrod straight and glaring at his brother. “She did not reject me. I already said that. She practically issued an invitation.”
“Oh, come on, Sunny. If she was so mad for you, why did nothing happen? You can’t have it both ways,” Samuel drawled, staring at him over the top of his glass.
Sampson huffed and decided he may as well get it over with. Perhaps if he confessed, he’d feel ashamed of himself and do better… or perhaps he was staking a claim, because the idea of Samuel trying his luck made him want to throw things. “Because we were interrupted, you dolt. Aunt May and the girls burst through the door.�
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“Oh, Sunny,” his brother said, giving a sad shake of his head. “You never tried to seduce her in the parlour before dinner? When you knew you would be interrupted? And you call me a dolt,” he added, indignation all over his face.
“I didn’t try to seduce her,” Sampson ground out. “I didn’t even mean to seduce her, it… it just—”
“It just happened?” Samuel finished for him with a sceptical lift of one eyebrow.
“I know!” Sampson retorted, feeling like an idiot. “I didn’t make a move, I’m sure I didn’t. Not at first, anyway. I don’t know how she did it, but she did. I had every intention of treating her with the utmost respect, well, like ice in all honesty, I really did, but… but she’s like… like catnip.”
“Well, you’re certainly doing a fine impression of a ginger tom,” Samuel said, his green eyes glittering with amusement.
“One thing I know, she’s no governess,” Sampson grumbled, pressing his glass against his temple.
“I already told you that,” Samuel said. “Though, whatever she is, she’s the best governess we’ve ever had. Lord, if I’d had a governess like that, I’d have worked a damn sight harder, I can tell you.” He sighed wistfully.
“You haven’t had a governess since you were five, when you went sent to school like the rest of us.”
“Don’t spoil my daydreams.” Samuel glowered at him.
“There will be no daydreaming about Miss Wynter.”
“You said nothing happened. If that’s the case, she’s not made a definitive choice.”
“Dammit, Sam,” Sampson said, sitting forward again. “She’s in our employ, under our protection. I thought you didn’t want to be the kind of man our father was?”
Samuel narrowed his eyes at him. “Oh, that was low, Sunny,” he muttered. “I’d rather die than be the man my father was, and you bloody well know it, but that doesn’t mean I have to be a damned saint. I will not seduce her or pretend I’m offering anything I’m not, and I’m certainly not going to force her. I’ll only flirt a little. If she wants me, she’s of age and can make her own decisions who she takes to her bed. I doubt I’d be the first. None of us need you to nanny us, no matter what you think.”
Sampson got to his feet, staring down at his brother. He tried hard to tamp down the irrational anger that was clawing at his chest, but his words were still harder than he’d allowed for.
“You’ll leave Miss Wynter be, Samuel.”
Sam stood too, the brothers toe–to-toe. “What, so you can have her to yourself, you mean?”
“No, I don’t mean!” Sampson said, hoping he wasn’t lying to both himself and his brother. “We must stay out of her company as far as possible. I shall chaperone you and, by all means, you chaperone me. Miss Wynter deserves more than the two of us bickering over who will have her, no matter who or what she is.”
He watched as Sam studied his face and then let out a sigh. “God, you’re annoying, Sunny. Why must you be such a bloody killjoy?”
Sampson shrugged. “I’m trying to be better than he was, Sam, that’s all. I’m not saying I’m any good at it, but I have to try.”
Samuel stomped to the fire, glowered at it for a moment and then straightened. “Fine,” he said. “But if I find you so much as looking in her direction all bets are off.”
“Fine,” Sampson agreed. At least under his brother’s scrutiny he’d be forced to behave himself.
“Ugh, I’m going to bed,” Sam said with a huff, and left Sampson alone.
Sampson stared at the fire and crouched down to put another log on, the heat of the flames making his face burn. I doubt I’d be the first. The words circled in Sampson’s head. He could see why his brother thought it. There were occasions, like the almost kiss earlier, when it seemed Miss Wynter was a great deal more knowing than one might expect of an unmarried young woman. She had a past, that much was clear, but was it a past?
None of your business, he told himself. Perhaps Miss Wynter was trying to make a new and respectable life for herself, just like he was. He could admire and understand that. As long as that past in no way tainted his sisters, he ought to allow her the privacy and the opportunity to move on. Yet, there had been something in her expression in the fleeting moment before she’d closed her eyes and lifted her face towards his. It had caught at his heart and made him wonder if he was wrong, for she’d looked like an innocent girl, her eyes full of hope and anticipation for her first kiss.
The image stayed with him, burrowing into some tender part of his soul that he’d left unprotected. Try as he might, he could not shake it off. She was young and lovely, and he thought perhaps she needed protecting, needed someone to care for her—needed him. No, no. She did not need him as anything but her employer, he amended. He urged his thoughts to reroute themselves but it was no good. Miss Wynter was an enigma, and the more he glimpsed of the puzzle the more he wanted to unravel it. He wanted to do as his aunt had suggested and get to know her, to discover what she was running from and to make it all right. Not to get her into bed, but to take that anxious, vulnerable look from her eyes.
Impossible.
If there was one thing he knew, it was that Miss Wynter could ruin all his plans as easily as he could ruin her. There was only one answer, and that was to keep as far away from her as possible.
***
Gwenn lay in her bed and tried to sleep. She ought to be asleep already. Her eyes were heavy, and she’d been longing for her bed this past hour, yet sleep eluded her.
Sampson Pelham, drat the man, was all she could think of.
Lust. That’s what it was. She knew that, had heard her mother warning against acting on it when good sense told you otherwise. Many a fine courtesan had thrown it all away when she’d lost her head over a man. It started as lust, and sometimes that was all it was, and—her mother had counselled—a good tumble was all it took to rid yourself of the need for the object of your desire. Sometimes, but not always. Women were too often ruled by their hearts, and a clever whore understood and avoided such instincts. Lust and desire could all too easily become liking, and regard and even love, and love… that was dangerous for a woman in such a position.
Gwenn’s mother had loved the Marquess of Davenport, so much that she’d grown careless and born him a daughter. Marie had known Davenport did not treat his by-blows kindly and would quickly tire of her if she fell pregnant, but fate had other plans. Marie had held his attention throughout her confinement. Indeed, the marquess had been a devoted lover, until Marie had needed a little time to devote to her newborn babe. He’d immediately begun an affair with one of Marie’s rivals… and broken her heart. Gwenn had heard the story often. An illustration of men’s loyalty and love.
Marie had retaliated, of course, and in style. The marquess had allowed her to borrow his wife’s ruby parure to wear to a private dinner, which Marie had given in the months before her confinement, but he neglected to get them back. More fool him. Marie had decided they would do nicely in compensation for her heartbreak. She took them and her daughter, and seduced Davenport’s younger brother on the way out. They’d run to Italy and had a lovely time until Napoleon had made a nuisance of himself and Marie had judged it safer to return to England and find a new and more powerful protector.
That was what lust did for you, Marie had told her. It got you a bellyful of trouble and a broken heart. Use your head, girl, and leave other parts of your anatomy for business. It wasn’t as if you had to choose an ugly man and get no pleasure from life. Desire and lust were fine, so long as they weren’t the kinds that threatened to overwhelm reason and good sense, the kinds you needed to run from as soon as you recognised them, before it was too late, for they would lead you to nothing but ruin.
Gwenn remembered the moment she’d realised Lord Cheam meant to kiss her, and shivered with longing. With dismay, she suspected that this was exactly the kind of thing her mother had warned her about.
If only he was a bad man, it wouldn’t be so
difficult, but she knew he was trying hard to look after his family. She’d watched him with his sisters when he wasn’t aware of her doing so, and it was clear from his demonstrative manner that he adored them, and that the feeling was mutual. Yet whilst Mr Pelham had kept the teasing, affectionate role of big brother, Lord Cheam had become a de facto parent. She wondered if he resented it, resented having the role of father forced upon him on top of all the other responsibilities his feckless parent had heaped on him by leading such a dissolute life and dying in a brothel?
Aunt May had confided that the girls had begun stealing things, and that was why he’d leapt at the invitation from his half-brother to get them out of London. It accounted for the worry she saw in his eyes when he looked at the girls. Aunt May said he was desperate to rid himself and his brothers of their infamous title, though Gwenn could not help but wonder how well he’d earned his share of it. He was trying his best, though, that was clear. She knew how badly he desired her, that had been obvious from the first, but he’d tried to keep things cool and formal between them, he’d been doing well too, until she’d spoiled it. Guilt rose in her chest as she remembered how she’d manipulated him, seducing him with her whore’s tricks when he would have treated her quite as he ought, given the opportunity.
Yet, he’d not grabbed and helped himself as many a man in his position would have. He’d been tender—oh, and the look in his eyes when he’d begged her not to cry—that had been the look of a man who’d fight dragons if he had to. Gwenn sighed and then cursed herself for being a thousand times a fool. Was she stupid enough to think Lord Cheam would marry a governess? Pffft! What if he did and then discovered he’d saddled himself with the illegitimate daughter of a nobleman and a courtesan? The scandal would humiliate him, and his family, and he’d despise her for it.
Melting Miss Wynter (Rogues and Gentlemen Book 17) Page 7