“I heard noises, and I settled down real quiet, waiting until Beaty was well into the room before I sprung on her. I wanted to be sure it wasn’t just a chambermaid before I jumped out. But I heard two voices when whoever it was came in the room. They both came in and shut the door behind them. There was some giggling, and then just some muffled whispers and a moan.”
May remembered the mixture of curiosity and fear with which she had edged open the wardrobe door and peeked out.
“I looked out. It was one of mother’s guests, a young man who I rather liked, for he was jolly, and kind to me. He was standing very still with his head thrown back and his eyes closed, and B-Beaty w-was . . .” May shuddered. Etienne pulled her closer, and she went on, determined to tell him everything. “His breeches were undone, and Beaty was on her knees in front of him. And she was . . . with her mouth . . . oh, I can’t say. It was too hideously embarrassing.”
Etienne didn’t say a word, but she could feel his eyes on her, and knew she was turning several shades of red and quivering just as she had that long-ago day in the stifling wardrobe. But she had committed herself to telling him, and maybe now it would not haunt her, the memory of all she had seen.
“I could not look away. It is a miracle they didn’t see me, but they were preoccupied, I suppose. Anyway, then the man pushed her down on the bed and stripped her clothes off. And then he did things to her. I thought he was hurting her at one point, and was ready to leap from the closet and save her, but then I realized she liked it. She was crying out because she enjoyed it. I waited until they were done, not knowing what to do. But then they fell asleep, and I escaped.”
They had been entwined on the bed, naked, and May had stopped and stared for a moment, at the peaceful happiness on Beaty’s face and the tangle of pale, naked limbs among the sheets.
“After that, I could not look at Beaty without remembering. I begged my mother to send me off to school, and Beaty was dismissed.” She had been so bitterly disappointed in Beaty, she remembered, because the woman she had put on a pedestal was no better than her mother. Or had that feeling only come later, when Miss Parsons introduced the notion that only tarts enjoyed male attention? All she could remember truly feeling in the days following her stunning discovery was a suffocating embarrassment at what she had seen.
Etienne was silent, but May did not dare to look up at his face. What if he was disgusted by her part in it by her watching such a thing and not leaping from the cupboard and denouncing the guilty duo.
“What were you thinking, feeling as you watched?” he asked finally.
She twisted to look up at his face. It was calm and serious. “I was appalled! Horrified!” she said.
“Were you really? Were you not the slightest bit curious about what they did?”
May swallowed, and she remembered—really remembered for the first time—what she had felt, sitting in that stuffy closet and watching through the open crack the writhing forms of her governess and her lover on the bed. “I was curious. Especially when I realized that she liked it. I was fascinated even as I was frightened. And . . .” She stopped.
“And . . . ?” Etienne prompted, moving to his side and gazing down at her as he stroked her arm. “What else did you feel? You can tell me the truth, little one, everything.”
“It made me feel hot and strange, like I had a fever coming on. I could not sleep for a long time without remembering what she was doing to him, kneeling in front of him. I wondered what it was like.”
“And you thought you were a horrible little girl for liking what you saw, yes?”
She twisted and started to move away from him. “I didn’t like it. I was appalled, horrified!”
“And then you went away to school?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Miss Parsons, the headmistress—she was responsible for our moral education at Maxwell School—she explained to us over the years that no real lady actually likes all of those bestial male needs. Only low women like it. Real ladies are above the needs of the flesh.”
Etienne gave a hoot of laughter and then he leaned down with a gleam in his eyes, and covered her lips with a soft kiss. It demanded nothing of her, it was just a sweet, soft, affectionate kiss. She lay quiescent in his arms and then laid her head against his chest. She felt in an odd way emotionally spent, as if divesting herself of that burden of guilt and fear and embarrassment had left her empty.
“And what did you think when you saw me this morning?” he asked quietly.
How could she tell him that far from being shocked or revolted as she should have been, she was curious. She longed to cross the floor and touch him, to find out what excited women like her mother and Beaty so. Was it only that so tangible reminder of the differences in male and female, or did it have something to do with what happened once the two were in bed together?
Gently, he kissed her again, and she looked up into his eyes.
Her gaze was so trusting, he thought. So open. She lay with him as if there were no danger, but any man would be liable to take advantage of her vulnerability at a moment like this. And he could, he knew it. He was skilled and she was curious. He had no doubt that with a little kissing and whispered words of love he could be inside of her before too long.
But how could he repay her sweetness thus? No matter how he ached to find completion with her, and even now the sharp stab of desire pounded through him at the story she had told, and the knowledge that she wanted to know what there was between men and women, he could not do it. He clenched one fist and fought back the desire he felt for her lovely body, the firm breasts pressed against the soft fabric, showing hard peaks that begged for his experienced touch.
Instead, he settled her closer to him and stifled his instinctive urges. “I will tell you more, my sweet, as I did the other day when I told you of the physical aspects between men and women. But now I will also tell you about what I have learned about women and their needs, as well as about men and their needs. Your Beaty was just doing what came naturally. It was not evil. Perhaps it was not well considered, but she thought you were gone, and she was harming no one but herself by acquiescing to her urges. I have no doubt that she would never have done such a thing with you in the house.”
She murmured her assent. “That is true.”
“May, if you are curious, you may . . .” He swallowed hard, and then continued. “You may look or even touch me, if you wish to satisfy your curiosity with a man who will not take advantage.”
She trusted him utterly and completely, and accepted his invitation to touch and ask.
They talked through the afternoon, as the golden light shifted and shadows lengthened across the forest floor. It was enlightening to her, but she knew that it was difficult for him, though he never once said so. He demanded nothing of her, only honesty with herself and with him.
Later, they walked back through the woods, arms about each other like lovers. They spoke of other things, things she had always been curious about, concerning his personal life. He had family, he told her, back in France. His parents were both dead, but he had two younger sisters, one married and one a nun. He had no property, though by rights he should. All had been lost in the revolution. He was lucky to still have his head when so many of his aristocratic compatriots did not.
In the course of the afternoon she had had the opportunity to see that his wound was still oozing an ugly, festering liquid. Back at the folly she redressed it with extra care. It was taking too long to heal and she worried that she was doing something wrong. As she doctored him, she finally told him about the Bow Street runners and the threatened search of the woods. “Be cautious, Etienne. They may search even though I have told them not to.”
“There are no Bow Street runners after me, little one,” he said as she did up his breeches and stood, a little flushed.
“There aren’t?”
“No. Those men . . . I know who they are.”
She stared at him, forcing him to meet her eyes. “I think yo
u should tell me what happened last spring in London,” she said. “We spoke of honesty. I would have that from you, Etienne.”
“Someday I will tell you, little one, but right now it is getting late. You must go.”
“Etienne,” she said earnestly, stepping forward and putting her hands on his shoulders. “I know you did not try to kill Baxter Delafont! You could never do something so vile; you are too fine, too good . . .”
“Stop!” he said through gritted teeth. “I am not what you think. I am bad and I deserve what they want to do to me. I did try to kill him, and almost succeeded. I will tell you all someday, but not now. Go! It is getting late.” He turned away and would not look back into her eyes.
Chapter Fourteen
Autumn had really set in, May realized, as the slanting of the sun told her it was later than she had anticipated. She had spent most of the day with Etienne, and then to be brushed off after he told her he had tried to kill Baxter Delafont! Men and their secretive nature!
At least he had told her a little of his life and his family, things she had never known about him. His mother had struggled for many years to raise them alone, as his father had died early in the aftermath of the Terror. He was only sixteen when his mother died, and for several years had taken care of his sisters alone until the youngest joined the Sisters in a convent outside of Rouen, and the middle child married at the age of seventeen. May’s heart went out to the young man who had worked at anything and everything to keep his small family together. And every word confirmed that no matter what he said, there was some explanation of his behavior that would not reflect so very badly on him. He was not a murderer.
She kicked Cassie into a gallop as she emerged from the wooded glade and had a good run toward the house. A spot between her shoulder blades itched, and May had the queer feeling that she was being watched. If those men should see her day after day going into the glade toward the folly they may wonder and explore. That was ludicrous, though, for surely she would have seen someone, if there was anyone to see. She shrugged it off as she rode up to the front portico of Lark House, and let Zach lead Cassie away. She decided she would no longer sneak through the back just because she was wearing breeches. Lark House was her home, and she would do as she saw fit.
The hall was piled with trunks. Dodo really was leaving, she realized with a pang. She would miss the tart-tongued old woman, but no doubt they would meet again. They ate dinner together, and though Dodo darted a few questioning glances her way, she never asked where she had spent the day, nor why she had come back with dead leaves clinging to her hair and clothes. She was grateful for the older woman’s reticence, and yet in a way sad that for all of the months they had spent together, they had never come closer than this.
Was that due to her own coolness or Dodo’s? In a way they were very much alike, not the kind of women to inspire strong feelings, and she could see her future in Lady Dianne’s life, the life of a spinster. It came to her then that the only people she had ever been close to were the ones who were not willing to respect the walls she had built around her heart. Beaty and Etienne: they were the only ones who had breached those walls, leveling them into rubble. They forced her to respond to their own affectionate nature, and gave her unstintingly of their gentle care.
That evening she spent some time writing a letter to Beaty, for she now felt guilty for the abrupt way she had treated her mentor and friend after the incident in her room. After all, as Etienne said, the young woman had only succumbed after being assured that May would be gone all day. Never could she have guessed that her young charge would be in a position to see the couple’s lovemaking. And who knew what she felt for the man, or what he had promised? Maybe she loved him. Maybe he had promised marriage. Or perhaps Beaty’s passion was so strong it took no promises of marriage to overcome whatever reservations she might have had. Love could do that, May thought.
Beaty never knew what she had seen, and so May’s sudden coldness to her and avoidance of her had saddened her. May left Lark House for the Maxwell School with the briefest of good-byes for the friend of so many years. Her last sight of Beaty’s face had been of tears coursing down the soft cheeks. What had happened to her governess after she left their employ? Did she find another position, or did she drift into that dangerous area for a governess with no family, the protected mistress of the man she had seen in Beaty’s room that day?
Of course she did not know Beaty’s direction after all of those years, but she wrote a letter and thought she would very much like to learn what had happened to her friend. Maybe her mother would know. It was an avenue to explore; the past did not hurt so much anymore. If only she had told Beaty what she had seen and given the governess a chance to explain, but her own painful shyness had kept her from confessing her trick and the discovery it had led to. A wall was more comfortable, and she had built a stone one between her and her governess.
• • •
Dodo, finishing up writing out the last of another knitting pattern she was leaving for Isabel Naunce, was still troubled about her young friend’s behavior. Where had she been for six hours that day? She had that folly fitted up as a hideaway, but what did she do there? There was a nagging suspicion lingering in Dodo’s mind that there was a man in the case somewhere, but that was surely ridiculous! She knew May better than that, and the girl was coolness personified. If she had been one of those flighty young chits, throwing herself at everything in breeches like her mother, then Dodo would have seriously worried, and would likely have investigated. But May? She had no use for men, and had oft repeated that very sentiment.
So if not a man, then what?
She rose the next morning with no clearer idea of what the girl could be up to, but her worry for her dear Emily was too powerful a force to allow her to linger at Lark House longer. If she had been able to, in good conscience, she would have left long ago to attend to her darling niece’s confinement. As it was she was even willing to commit the solecism of Sunday travel just to cut a day from her absence.
After a late breakfast with May and a few more last-minute details to take care of, she trundled away from Lark House with mixed emotions. She had come to care for the girl, she thought, as she waved a handkerchief out the window at her young friend. Despite May’s coolness and reticence, she had a good heart and winning ways, when she chose to employ them. She could also be stubborn, imperious and secretive, but everyone was entitled to a few quirks. Many had no doubt said the same of Lady Dianne Delafont over the years. They would meet again, no doubt. In her reticule she carried a long letter for Emily from May.
The autumn weather was perfect for traveling, cool and crisp, but warm enough when the sun chose to beam. They rolled along for a couple of hours and then stopped at an inn to water the horses. Dodo got out to stretch her legs, which kinked up too quickly for comfort. The curse of old age, she thought wryly.
She was glad Bill Connors was driving her. He was a cheerful steady sort, and Dodo appreciated May’s willingness to part with her head groom and coachman for a few days just to take her guest to Surrey. It saved waiting for her nephew to send his coach; that could take a while as his attention was understandably distracted these days.
The inn was a bustling one, a Tudor courtyard surrounded by half-timbered buildings that probably housed damp rot, Dodo thought. She entered the inn, had a weak cup of tea served by a cheeky barmaid, and then strode out into the sunlight again, smoothing down her gold carriage dress with her gloved hands.
Bill Connors was nowhere in sight, but the groom that accompanied them stood talking to a shifty-looking creature, a man of about fifty, sturdily built and with a rough sort of good looks. Something about the man made Dodo shudder. She tried to identify the cause of her uneasiness, but could come no closer than a vague feeling that the man was entirely too eager to talk to the groom, following the younger man about as he watered the horses and checked the traces.
She approached the carriage and was about to get in w
hen she heard the groom repeat to the man the name of Lark House, and its approximate location near the Kent coast. The other man asked another question, but Dodo had no intention of allowing the groom to chatter like that.
“John Groom, where is Connors?” she called.
The young man whirled guiltily and tugged his forelock. “He’ll be ’long right smart, milady. He’s jest settlin’ up wi’ the innkeeper.”
“Then what are you doing standing and gossiping? Surely you could be better occupied with the carriage?” Perhaps her voice was a bit sharper even than normal, but her uneasiness settled in the pit of her stomach and gnawed like a maw worm.
“Sorry, ma’am. Right away, milady.” He shot a chagrined look at the hostler he was speaking with and hurried to put down the step for Dodo.
She watched the man smirk, give her an evil-looking grin that displayed a row of dark, uneven teeth, and then slink away.
“What were you talking about with that man, John?” Dodo leveled a stern look at the young man before her, and he reddened.
“Weren’t nothing, ma’am. He jest was askin’ ’oo the swell was that owned this ’ere carridge.”
“And did you tell him that it was none of his business?”
The man shuffled, and his fair skin turned an even darker shade of red. “Well, ’e sed as how he thought ’e knew ’oo it belonged to, and said ’twere some feller name of Jones, an’ I sed as how it were the property of Lady Grishelda May van Hoffen o’ Lark House in Kent. An’ he sed as how that warn’t the truth, an’ I sed as how it were, but—”
“Enough!” Dodo said, holding up one hand. “So you told him everything about your mistress?” She frowned and cast the stranger a narrow glance. He was now desultorily occupied with pitching some hay into the open stalls that lined the courtyard. Why would the man want that information? He made her uneasy for some reason, but she could not think why. She had never seen him before, but something about his looks rang a warning bell in her mind.
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