“Yes, Sebastian. I would be glad of it.”
He sighed, as if relieved. He then gently pulled her into his arms, and she came to him willingly, tipping her face up to be kissed.
His arms were warm and strong, yet they trembled as if with poorly restrained passion. Lillian felt herself trembling as well, all of her womanhood focused upon this truly gentle man who embraced her.
He broke the kiss, and cradled her in his arms for just a moment. She rested her cheek against his shirtfront. His heart thudded beneath the crisp linen. “Good night, Lillian. I’ll not ask for more tonight. Truly, I have asked to pay you court at this time, not for anything more.”
Lillian swallowed. Would I allow him more? I would, but for my secrets. Waiting is best, waiting until I know if I am free of accusation.
“Thank you, Sebastian. You have given me much to consider. Good night.”
She knew her cheeks were flaming as she picked up her workbox and fled to her chambers.
Chapter 17
Sebastian looked after Lillian’s departing back, and made no move to stop her as the door closed behind her. Every part of him yearned to charge after her, wrench open the door . . . and then what? She had given him leave to court her, not anything more.
She had been so light in his arms, her slender body vibrating with tension. Could it be possible that she might consider him? What did he want? For a Duke to marry a governess was nearly unheard of, but if she was of gentle birth and fallen on hard times? It should not matter. She is beautiful, intelligent, kind, witty . . . I could find no one better. And she has that something that I have not found in any other. It is an air about her. I hope I have not overstepped.
He frowned at the closed door.
“Seb?”
Sebastian turned. “Yes?”
Nick stood in the door to the boys’ room. “Seb, I think you ought to see this. Mr. Stableman found it in a stick of firewood.”
When he saw what they had found, Sebastian began to laugh. “It’s a slow worm. She probably curled up in the wood, thinking it a safe place to spend the winter.”
“What shall we do with her, Seb? Should we make her a cage and keep her in the schoolroom?” Two young faces looked at him hopefully.
Seb considered it. Then he said, “No. She thought she had found a safe place to winter. I would say put her outside, but she would not survive at this season without a warm den. We’ll talk to the gardener, and see if he can think of a safe place for her.”
“Can we show her to Miss Doyle first?” Nick pleaded.
“Yes, can we?” Luke added his entreaty.
Sebastian thought of Lillian’s retreating back, as she quickly closed the door. It would give him an excuse to discover her mood, and to see if she was all right. “Yes, we can. But then she must go somewhere that she can hibernate safely.”
Sebastian gently picked up the slow worm. Her color and the slight bulge in her center made it clear that she truly was a female, and would probably birth eight little slow worms in the spring.
The boys dashed out of their chambers, the tails of their nightshirts flying out behind them in their haste. Sebastian and John Stableman followed more slowly.
“She’s truly harmless?” Stableman asked.
“Yes, indeed. She…” but he got no other words out of his mouth, before the boys started pounding on Lillian’s chamber door, and setting up a clamor of excited calling.
“Just a moment,” Lillian called from within. She opened the door, and emerged, clutching her wrapper about her.
“Miss Doyle! Miss Doyle! Guess what we found! Sebastian says it’s harmless but he says we can’t keep her.” The boys talked over the top of each other, each too excited to wait for the other to stop speaking.
“Wait! Wait, slow down. I can’t understand what you are saying. What did you find?”
“Sebastian has it,” Luke announced.
“Has her,” Nick corrected.
Lillian looked beyond the excited boys at the creature cradled in Sebastian’s hands. The slow worm, which had been rather sluggish with cold at first, now coiled herself around Sebastian’s finger. “A snake?” she asked. “Did someone try to frighten the boys?”
“No, Miss Doyle,” Stableman said respectfully, “I found her in one of the logs of firewood. The boys thought you would like to see her before we call the gardener to take care of her.”
Lillian stepped between the boys, and looked closely at the slow worm. Although she seemed to be waking up, she appeared to be content. She blinked in the firelight, and snuggled a little deeper into the center of Sebastian’s palm.
“It’s a slow worm,” Sebastian explained. “She probably thought she had found a safe place for the winter. Mr. Stableman found her in a stick of wood.”
“Clearly she is not dangerous. Is she to be another classroom animal?”
“No, I don’t think so. They don’t do well in captivity. But if I give her to the gardener, he will find a safe place for her. Probably in one of the greenhouses.”
“Will she eat the plants?” Nick asked.
“She’s not fond of plants, but she will eat her weight in snails and slugs.”
Lillian stretched out one hand and gently stroked the slow worm’s skin. “She is soft. Would it frighten her for me to hold her?”
“I’m not sure. We can try.”
Lillian imitated the way Sebastian was holding the slow worm. The legless lizard wriggled a bit, then wrapped its tail around her wrist. “What an odd creature. Thank you for showing her to me. But I am glad not to have her in the classroom. I have no idea what we could feed her.”
“That might be a problem since slugs are in short supply this time of year. But the gardener will know of a good place for her, I am sure. Mr. Stableman, will you do the honors of taking her out?”
“Of course, Your Grace, if I am not needed to watch the young gentlemen?”
“I’ll see to them. Thank you, Mr. Stableman, for noticing this little lady before she was placed on the coals.”
Then the boys each had to hold the slow worm one more time before John Stableman could make good his escape.
“Perhaps we can find something about slow worms in your natural history book and we can read about them before you go to sleep,” Sebastian suggested, hoping to coax the twins into bed without a fuss. “Would you care to join us, Miss Doyle?”
“Not tonight I think, since I am already in my night dress. But thank you for inviting me. Perhaps tomorrow we can learn more about animals that live near here. I know more about city sparrows, mice, and the mangy cats who skulk around in London than about the local wildlife.”
“I will be sure to make time to come talk with you and the boys about the creatures who live in our woodlands and fields. But the boys can probably tell you a great deal.”
“We can some,” Luke nodded.
“But we didn’t know about the slow worm,” Nick put in.
“Tomorrow, then,” Lillian said, and gently closed her chamber door.
Sebastian herded the boys back into their room. After they had all three washed their hands, he settled them back into bed.
“How did you learn about slow worms, Sebastian?” Nick asked.
“From our father. He was very interested in the natural world, and drew many lessons from it.”
“I wish we had known him,” Luke sighed. “Do you miss him?”
“Every day, and more than I can tell. But sometimes, when I look at the two of you, I see little bits of him. And sometimes I see him in my shaving mirror.”
“You mean like a ghost?” Nick’s eyes got big and sparkled with excitement.
“No, silly,” Luke reached across the space between their beds and poked a finger at Nick’s shoulder. “He means that he looks like our father. Which should be no surprise, since it isn’t hard at all to tell that we are brothers.”
“But what about our mother?” Nick was determined not to go to sleep. The question game was one
of his favorite ways of staying awake.
Sebastian forced himself to be patient. It wasn’t easy tonight, when he would rather look at the moon outside his window and dream. Or better yet . . . no. He had promised to court the lady, not to lay siege to her. So he smiled at his young brothers and said, “Luke looks a bit more like her than like our father. She had bright blue eyes and honey brown hair. Our father had darker blue eyes, like yours Nick, and hair so dark it was nearly black.”
“But not quite,” Luke yawned, having memorized all the answers by now. “Don’t be a gudgeon, Nick. Can you not see that Seb is tired?”
Nick sat up, clearly prepared to protest, then his eyes focused on Sebastian’s. “You are tired, are you not, Seb? I am sorry. I will be good and go to sleep now.” Nick snuggled back down under the eiderdown coverlet.
“It is all right, you rascal. But I am tired. There is too much snow, too soon this year. It makes extra work.”
“Say good-night, Nick.” Luke’s voice was muffled by the covers.
“Good-night, Seb; Good-night, Luke,” Nick said, with unexpected good humor.
“Good night, Luke,” Sebastian straightened the covers so that Luke’s mouth and nose were no longer covered.
Then he went to Nick, and gently straightened out the abused bedclothes. “Good-night, Nick.”
Then he went out, and quietly closed the door. A candle burned low in Martha Louisa’s room, where she sat patiently stitching. John Stableman sat on a tall stool in the hallway between the schoolroom and the nursery maid’s and governess’s rooms.
Sebastian turned toward the schoolroom, intending to bank the fire. “Unless you tell me nay, Your Grace, I will keep the fires going,” Stableman said. “It was already really bitter in the outer hallway when I came in. If we allow these rooms to chill, no telling how long it will be before they are warm.”
“Thank you, Mr. Stableman. That is very thoughtful. Allow it to burn low, but not out. We must also conserve the wood.”
The footman bowed. “Understood, Your Grace.”
Sebastian let himself out of the schoolroom complex, and closed the door behind him. It was cold in the hall, and he felt as if he had not only closed himself out of the warmth and light, but also away from all he held dear.
She gave me leave to court her. I must take comfort from that. My own rooms will not be so chill as this, all will be well on the morrow. Resolutely, he turned away from the schoolroom door and headed toward his own quarters.
Chapter 18
Lillian stared at the canopy above her bed. Sebastian had asked to pay court to her. What could this mean? As a governess, she was socially far beneath his status, hardly marriageable. As a gentlewoman of reduced circumstances, she would be marginally eligible. As the widowed Lady Lillian Newman, she would be nearly his equal. But in that role, she was an alleged murderess.
Terror gripped her. If she agreed to marry him, there was certain to be public attention. But they were not at that stage yet. Perhaps it would be safer to become his mistress. There were worse fates than becoming a kept woman. But what would become of her if Sebastian tired of her or if something happened to him? If anything, her marriage to Charles had taught her that life was full of uncertainty.
One moment she had been financially secure in marriage. It had been a loveless marriage, and she was just beginning to understand how impoverished her life with Charles really had been. But then, within one breath and the next, she was a widow and fleeing for her life. If that were not enough of a demonstration, their visits to the village widows were another kind of lesson. Some had been left secure, some seemed bewildered with children clustering about them, and then there was the poor Widow Holcomb. No, marriage was not the complete answer to security, far from it.
But neither was becoming a rich man’s mistress. Once that step was taken, she would be forever outside the social pale. Oh, some had made it work. Lady Armistead had become Mrs. Fox, and apparently lived in happy marital bliss. Or perhaps she would be more like Harriet Wilson. She had seen her once, holding forth in a box at the opera. Several gentlemen had been in attendance.
I don’t think I would like that. I am far happier as a governess, helping Sebastian teach Luke and Nick the true meaning of being a gentleman. I like it here; I am far more at peace than I ever was with Charles.
This is nonsense. It is getting me nowhere. Lillian closed her eyes and willed sleep to come. But it eluded her. Irritated with herself for allowing her thoughts to run in useless circles, she sat up, stuffed her feet into the warm pair of slippers that had come from the attic, and shrugged into her wrapper.
The fire had burned down to two or three glowing embers, so she lit a candle from the coals then got a newspaper and some kindling from the fire box with the intent to rekindle the fire. She pulled off the first sheet of the paper, making it into a twist that she tucked between the coals. Next, she laid some small twigs across it, and blew on the smoldering paper.
The paper caught, flared up, but perversely only blackened the twigs, and burned back down into ash. Lillian picked up two more newspaper sheets, preparing to try again. As she did so, an article caught her eye. It was titled “Lady Murderess.” Lillian scanned the article with a growing sense of horror. In the most sensational way possible it recounted the events of her last evening at home, seemingly from her sister-in-law’s point of view. “ . . . certain that the little minx was responsible for . . .”
Lillian ripped the article from the page, lit it with the candle flame and held it over the embers until the burning paper singed her fingers. Then, heedless of possibly destroying the precious coals, she stirred the ashes vigorously with the poker. Now she needed a fire, a real fire to cover up the evidence of having burned the page.
Quickly, she made two more twists of the pages she had just removed from the paper, examined the available tinder more carefully, and built what she hoped would be an effective layering of fine material over them. Since the coals were too deeply buried to be of any use, she lit the ends of the paper using the candle.
This time the kindling, which had a bit of pine pitch in it, caught with a whoosh. It caught in some loose tendrils of hair that had drifted around her face, and the fine lace trim on her night cap. In terror, Lillian snatched the cap from her head and dunked it and her face in the wash basin that stood on a cabinet beside the fireplace.
Face dripping and eyes stinging from the smoke, Lillian lifted her head to look at the fireplace. She was surprised to find only a merry blaze on the hearth, not a rampaging house fire. She sighed with relief, sat down and took the rest of the folded paper on her lap.
That was a near miss. I wonder how many other copies of this paper are in the castle or in the village.
Trembling, Lillian opened the top drawer of the cabinet and drew out a small looking glass to discover what damage she had done to herself. There was one small burn on her forehead and one of her side curls was shriveled and blackened. She realized then that her right hand hurt. Looking down at it, she discovered that the tips of her fingers were blistered, and so was an area on the inside of her arm.
She whimpered a little as the shaking in her insides wore off and the pain began to make itself known. “Oh, saints preserve and keep me,” she whispered to herself. “Whatever shall I do? How can I explain this?”
As she looked at her hand, she realized that the burned fingertips were from holding the fatal part of the paper as she set it alight, but that the burn on her palm and wrist was from snatching the flaming nightcap from her head. Oh, dear Lord, what a near thing that was! I nearly went up like a torch. Would they have thought it spontaneous combustion? Perhaps that I had burst into flame because of my guilt? Lillian giggled a little hysterically, then began to weep with the pain and fear.
I need help. But who can I ask? Then she realized that someone was knocking on her door, frantically. “Miss Doyle? Miss Doyle!” John Stableman, she realized. “Miss Doyle, if you don’t answer, I’m going to ope
n this door!”
“Come in,” she tried to call out, but her voice seemed to catch in her throat. Then she called out in a firmer voice, “Come in, Mr. Stableman. I need help.”
John Stableman opened the door, and looked about at the carnage. “Miss Doyle! What happened?” he gasped.
“I tried to start a fire,” Lillian said. She could feel the heat rising in her face.
“Holy . . .” he said harshly. “You must have set yourself alight. Miss, I’ll be more than happy to start a fire any time you need it. You could have been badly hurt.”
“Thank you, Mr. Stableman. I will certainly call upon you if I need the fire started again. This one misadventure is quite enough.”
The Untold Tale of the Winter Duchess: A Historical Regency Romance Novel Page 9
