“Hang the world!”
“Lord Deveril,” Miss Marks interrupted, “I would be in your employ for a short time, until Marina was settled and the worst of her grief and anxiousness had subsided. What I do as governess is to help those children who need me the most. And while I recognize that Marina’s need is great, I would be shirking my duty to all the children who come after her if I do this. Working for you would render me, sullied reputation and all, unemployable after.”
“I will do anything that you require, Miss Marks. I would willingly remove myself to a country estate and let you have full reign of the townhouse,” he offered.
“That would not work, Lord Deveril. Marina needs to learn to put her trust in you… your absence will never evoke that sort of connection,” Miss Darrow interrupted. “But I do have an idea on how this might be able to work. What if no one knows you are a governess, Wilhelmina?”
“I don’t understand,” Miss Marks said.
For himself, Devil didn’t understand either, so he waited for an explanation.
“Lord Deveril,” Miss Darrow began, “You have not been returned to London long enough to appreciate precisely what this school of mine does. We take in the daughters of gentlemen.”
The by-blows, he thought. Given what he’d surmised about Miss Darrow, it didn’t surprise him.
“Miss Marks is, in fact, the daughter of a gentleman you know well. It would not be unheard of for you, given your reputation, to marry outside of the conventional sort of arrangement,” Miss Darrow continued.
“You cannot possibly be suggesting that I marry Miss Marks in order to have her tend to Marina,” Devil stated, his voice ringing with shock. It wasn’t her station or the situation of her birth that made the idea untenable but their patent dislike of one another.
“Not marry,” she said, placing particular emphasis on the word. “But betrothals are broken all the time. And if it is said that Miss Marks ended your engagement due to infidelity or some other wrong you might have committed, a wrong that would seemingly be true to your known or suspected character, no one would be surprised. And if she were to reside in your home, with a proper chaperone, during your engagement and spend her days working with Marina, no one would be surprised by that either. I think it is the only way.”
“Why can I not just hire a chaperone to stay with her as a governess?” he snapped. The idea of perpetrating such a ruse seemed exhausting and unnecessary.
“Because governesses, Lord Deveril, are only a step above housemaids. Obtaining a chaperone for your governess would only raise scandal, not squash it because why would you bother, really? That and no lady of quality who would be deemed an appropriate chaperone would ever consent to do so for a lowly governess,” Miss Marks replied. “I would agree to this, under one condition, Lord Deveril.”
“And what condition is that?”
“You must, for the time that I reside with you as your pseudo-betrothed, give up drinking, gaming, any sort of immoral women, and you must be an active participant in Marina’s life. You must spend time with her and teach her that you are a man she can trust.”
But he wasn’t a man any woman could trust. If he’d been a trustworthy man, he wouldn’t have dueled himself into an exile that left his sweet sister vulnerable to a fortune hunter. She wouldn’t have been ruined, borne a child out of wedlock in a back alley hovel and died of the disease that laid claim to her there.
“That is a fool’s bargain, Miss Marks. I will have to obtain a chaperone, see you properly outfitted as a lady to whom I would be betrothed, and give up all that I enjoy in life. And for what? The promise that you might make the child not scream at the sight of me?”
“For the promise of family, Lord Deveril,” Miss Darrow said. “And I do not believe, despite what is said of you, that you are the sort of man to whom that means nothing. Otherwise, you would not be here now, pleading your case.”
Devil swallowed convulsively. “It will take some time… I have an aunt in Sussex I could prevail upon, for a price, of course. It will take some time to get her here, however. Will you still be willing to take her on in two weeks or will you have secured another position then and my efforts will be for naught?”
“If you consent to this, I give you my word, Lord Deveril, that I will make myself available to you… to Marina,” Miss Marks corrected.
The idea of her making herself available to him had merit. Despite her prickly nature and apparent dislike of him, she was a beautiful woman and he was not immune to that. In fact, their sparring seemed to have fired his blood. But under the circumstances, his own needs and desires would simply have to be ignored for the greater good. It seemed to be the order of the day.
“Then I shall consent to live like a temperance-loving and teetotaling monk, Miss Marks.”
“Then I, against all sense and better judgement, will be your cleverly disguised governess, Lord Deveril… and we shall see what we may do to bring Marina back to a place of contentment and comfort,” Miss Marks replied and extended her hand to shake his.
It was an odd gesture for a woman, but then he was quickly discovering that they were odd women, both Miss Marks and Miss Darrow. A snippet of conversation came to him then, something he’d overheard in a club. One gentleman had been advising another on what to do with the girl child he’d got on his mistress, as his own wife adamantly refused to see her acknowledged in any way. That long ago conversation explained so much.
“The Hellion Club,” Devil said softly.
Miss Darrow’s smile tightened. “Some have called us that. But we are not hellions, Lord Deveril. We are women who refuse to be gobbled up in a man’s world and used with no thought to our own honor, intelligence, or abilities.”
“In the eyes of most men, Miss Darrow, that would qualify you as a hellion,” he replied.
“And in your eyes?” Miss Marks asked.
“I wish that my sister had been a student here… perhaps then she would not have met such a dire fate,” he admitted. “I will send word to you, Miss Marks, when the arrangements are made.”
*
Effie Darrow watched Lord Deveril as he bowed and quickly left her study. Mrs. Wheaton was on him instantly, ushering the scandalous gentleman to the door and muttering under her breath about the whole house going to the devil because they’d let such a vile person in. It wasn’t necessarily directed at Lord Deveril. Mrs. Wheaton, though her past marital status was questionable at best, had always held the masculine sex to be utterly contemptible.
“Why on earth would you propose such a thing, Effie? Really! Now, I’m well and truly stuck,” Willa huffed out.
“You didn’t have to agree,” Effie pointed out gently. “I offered you a way to take the position if you desired. Clearly, you did.”
“And clearly, that will be nothing but folly. I fear we have crafted my ruin between us. Or do you have a different sense of things?” Willa asked.
Effie couldn’t explain it, but she did. Sometimes, she felt as if a guiding force prompted her to do things. She had felt compelled to make that outlandish proposal to Lord Deveril just as she’d been compelled all those years ago to take on Willa and Lillian as her first pupils. They had been her students before she’d ever had a school to usher them into.
“I cannot help but feel there is more to this Lord Deveril than meets the eye. He is not the villain he has been painted to be, Willa. And that child needs us too much to simply allow a worthless thing like propriety for its own sake to inhibit our efforts.” It was true. But it was also dangerous. Effie hadn’t just taught the girls who’d graced her halls. She’d raised them. Each and every one of them. The number of girls who attended the school was terribly small, but by design, so that each got the attention she needed and deserved. Some stayed for the entirety of their childhood and on into adulthood. Others still graced their halls temporarily until their erstwhile fathers could make other, more suitable arrangements for them. Willa and Lillian, half-sisters who had been, if n
ot abandoned then certainly never acknowledged by their scandalous father, had been the former. She’d taken them on when Willa was only eight years and Lillian had been seven. She had been a girl of only eighteen herself at the time, but she’d never hesitated. And there had been no regrets.
“It’s the right thing to do, Wilhelmina.”
“He may not be a villain as some say, but he’s hardly an innocent,” Willa protested.
“And who amongst us is?” Effie asked pointedly. “We all have our sins to answer for, Willa. But he is trying to do what is right for the child. Perhaps it is guilt at the fate that befell his sister, but he does seem to genuinely care. Isn’t that enough to prompt us to do the same?”
“It is enough to prompt our actions,” Willa admitted. “Let us pray it does not prompt regret, as well.”
Effie said nothing as Willa turned and walked from the room. On that point, they were in complete agreement.
Chapter Four
Two weeks later
Willa stood on the steps outside of Lord Deveril’s townhouse. He’d sent a carriage for her early that morning as arranged by their exchange of brief and perfunctory letters. Of course, it wouldn’t be appropriate for his betrothed to arrive on foot with her bags in tow. It was a ruse of epic proportions in an effort to maintain any semblance of respectability that she possessed and allow her to help a poor child that was clearly suffering from intense grief and melancholy expressed in the way only a child can—tantrums.
Reminding herself of the very important reason she had consented to such a thing helped Willa to steel herself. Like a man to the gallows, she climbed the same steps she had two weeks earlier and lifted the heavy lion’s head door knocker.
The heavy door swung inward and the butler bowed. “Miss Marks, we’ve been expecting you. Lord Deveril is in the library along with his aunt, Lady Carringden. I will have your bags taken up.”
“Thank you,” she said stiffly. As a governess, servants didn’t typically kowtow to her the way the butler currently was. But if their ruse was to be successful, not even the servants could know what her true purpose was. After all, servants gossiped.
Down the hall, a footman waited outside one of the many doors. She could only assume it was the aforementioned library. As she neared, he opened the door and allowed her entry. Immediately, Lord Deveril rose from his seated position behind the desk, and a woman who had been staring out the window at the garden beyond whirled toward her.
Without warning, the woman rushed at her, and it was all Willa could do not to throw her arms up in self-defense. But the woman didn’t strike her. Instead, she wrapped Willa in a fierce hug.
“Oh, my dear! I’m so glad to meet you. I cannot tell you how I have worried for my poor, dear nephew! I couldn’t do anything to help poor Alice. Her father forbade it and I have mourned the fact since! But just look at you! You’re lovelier than words can express, and now my dear, sweet nephew will settle into a happy and peaceful union instead of carousing and drowning his sorrows!” The barrage of words and the complete lack of sincerity in them were too much to take in.
“Aunt Jeannette,” Lord Deveril said, uttering the woman’s name in a warning tone. “While Miss Marks hardly thinks I am a saint, can we leave off with extolling all of my sins?”
Lady Carringden smiled tightly and stepped back. “Of course, of course! Forgive me, my dear. I’m just so terribly excited. We haven’t had a wedding in the family for ages. We will see to your trousseau immediately! And there’s no time to waste as Devil has already announced the engagement in the papers. A bit prematurely, I believe.”
“Perhaps in a day or so we can see to my wardrobe, if that suits you, Lady Carringden?” Willa suggested. She’d taken note of the avaricious gleam in the other woman’s eyes. No doubt she would benefit from the shopping excursion as well. “For now, I’d like to explore the house and make the better acquaintance of Marina, Lord Deveril’s ward.”
Lady Carringden’s smile faded altogether. Her expression appeared to be resentful and perhaps even offended.
“That child!” Lady Carringden huffed. “Children love me, Miss Marks. Children have always loved me. I don’t understand why she wails so whenever I go near her. I do hope you have better time of it than the rest of us.”
Willa smiled in what she hoped was a reassuring manner. “I’m certain I will, Lady Carringden. I’m very good with children, especially those whom others find difficult.”
“Really? Why is that?” Lady Carringden asked. Her meticulously groomed brows arched upward in an expression of challenge and disbelief.
Willa smiled, trying with all her might to will the other woman to simply be cordial. The last thing she wanted was to be locked in bloodless battle with a member of Lord Deveril’s family. “I suppose I was a somewhat difficult child myself. We are kindred spirits, I think.”
“Oh, you must tell me more! Who are your people, Miss Marks? I know everyone who is anyone!”
“No one of consequence, Lady Carringden,” Willa replied smoothly. “Shall we go and visit Marina?”
Lady Carringden’s speculative gaze moved over her for a moment longer. Finally, the woman nodded. “Come along, my dear, and I shall introduce you to the sad-eyed little beauty.”
“You’ll excuse us, Lord Deveril?” Willa asked.
“Naturally, Wilhelmina,” he said. “Will you join me later for a walk in the garden? We have much to discuss.”
Willa nodded. “Yes, I will be happy to join you. We do have much to discuss, after all.”
Following Lady Carringden out of the room and up the stairs to the third floor, she could hear Mrs. Farrelly singing softly to the little girl. Easing the door open, they simply stood there and watched. Marina played with a doll, bouncing it along the edge of the table as if it were dancing a jig to the jaunty tune Mrs. Farrelly sang for her. Her head turned with the doll, following its progress, until at last her gaze landed upon the door and the people who stood there watching her. Immediately, the child’s slight smile faded into nothing and her expression grew dark, her lips parting to emit that terrible screaming. But then it seemed that the memory of their previous encounter returned. Rather than scream at Willa and risk being screamed at in return, the child’s lips clamped shut and she glared at them.
“Hello, Marina,” Willa said softly. “That’s a very pretty doll you have.”
The child remained stonily silent. But she did pull the doll in tightly to her chest and cling to it as if Willa had threatened to take it away.
“I’ve no wish to take your doll from you. Only to tell you how pretty it is. It has lovely dark hair just like you,” Willa continued. “I’ve always thought dark hair was so much prettier than my own color. Not quite blonde and not quite brown.” She wasn’t talking to be understood but simply to allow the child to become accustomed to the sound of her voice.
“I had a doll very similar when I was young,” Willa said in the same neutral tone. “Older than you, of course, but still young enough and happy enough to play with such things. My sister and I played together often. Do you ever get to play with other children?”
There was no response, but Marina did clutch the doll slightly less tightly. She even twirled one of the doll’s dark curls between her fingers.
Emboldened, Willa stepped deeper into the room and crouched on the floor near a small table set with various other toys. In truth, there was every kind of toy imaginable in that nursery, and most of them looked quite new. Was it an attempt by Lord Deveril to appease the child? To buy her affections perhaps? To offer her some comfort?
“What an interesting set of figures,” Willa exclaimed as she picked up an intricately carved horse. There was a tiger, as well, with the same elaborate markings. But they were not wood. “What are these made of? It isn’t wood.”
“Ivory, Miss,” Mrs. Farrelly said. “His lordship carved those himself while he was in India. Said he saw such a creature himself, right up close, he did!”
&nbs
p; Willa looked back at the tiger that Mrs. Farrelly had gestured to. “Dear heavens, I might have been scared to death to have encountered such a beast! Would it not scare you, Marina? Though I daresay you are a very brave girl. Much braver than I would have been.”
As Willa watched, Marina reached out with her small hand and touched the tiger’s tail etched so carefully that it appeared as if it would swish in agitation at any moment. Such carvings were something that many soldiers did to pass the time, but what he had done with those was quite simply art.
“Have you ever seen such a beast, Marina?” Willa asked, widening her eyes for effect.
The little girl looked at Willa as if she’d taken leave of her senses. But it was a response, and Willa would take what she would get. Hoping to continue the progress, Willa made a silly face at the little girl. Marina’s eyes lit up and a slight smile cracked her lips but it was immediately squashed and hidden beneath a manufactured frown. But it was the chink in Marina’s armor, so to speak. The child was afraid, grief-stricken, and angry. She’d been taken from a poor life, but it had been a life she knew and was comfortable with. Being removed from all that was familiar to her had likely only increased her discomfiture.
“Perhaps we could go to visit the Royal Menagerie and see one together. Would you hold my hand, Marina, if I were to become very afraid?” Willa asked.
The child said nothing for the longest time. But then she gave the very slightest of nods. It was a victory. Wilhelmina smiled. “Then we shall plan such an excursion very soon, I think.”
Willa rose and walked toward the door and the waiting Lady Carringden who was looking at her as if she’d grown two heads.
“Why, you spoke to her as if she were fully grown!” Lady Carringden protested. The woman appeared to be utterly scandalized by the thought of it.
Willa was aware that her methods were unconventional, but they were hardly that shocking. “Indeed, I did, Lady Carringden. Marina is not a typical child. She is intelligent and perceptive. Her life has been beset with tragedy, and that will have altered her in ways we cannot fathom.”
A Rogue to Remember Page 3
