by Georgie Lee
No, I can’t. I’m the governess. She couldn’t allow Frances to ruin herself, but she didn’t have the faintest idea how to separate them. Beyond what Grace had told her, lovemaking was outside her range of experience. Despite understanding the more technical aspects of the act, it was the desire part she failed to grasp, the one which had led to Grace’s predicament and was about to ruin Frances, too.
She’d learn more about the physical particulars if she didn’t stop this. Lieutenant Foreman’s hand was already beneath Frances’s dress.
‘Ahem...’ Joanna cleared her throat, her urgency increasing with their passion when it failed to interrupt the amorous pair. ‘Ahem!’
Lieutenant Foreman whirled around to face Joanna while Frances straightened the bodice of her expensive yellow-silk dress behind him. He adjusted his red coat, his sword not the only prominent weapon near his belt. Joanna tried not to notice, but it was difficult for his white breeches obscured very little.
‘Excuse me, Miss Radcliff.’ He bowed to Joanna, then bolted out of the room, leaving Frances to face her fate alone.
Joanna opened and closed her sweaty fingers over the cover of the book. She hoped this taught Frances something about the man and made her realise her mistake. She was about to say so when Frances, cheeks red with anger instead of shame, fixed on Joanna.
‘How dare you barge in on me?’
‘I didn’t barge, I was already in the room when you and Lieutenant Foreman—’
‘Don’t you dare speak of it, not to me or anyone, do you understand?’ She flew upon Joanna and slapped the book out of her hands. It landed with a thud on the floor between them.
‘No, of course not,’ Joanna stammered, startled by the command. She was supposed to be the one in charge. She remained silent, afraid to point out this fact and make things worse.
‘Good, because if you do, I’ll see to it you’re dismissed without a reference.’ Frances threw back her head of light blonde curls and strode from the room as if it was she and not her father, Sir Rodger, who owned the house. Like all four Huntford girls, Frances was spoiled by her parents. All of them had treated Joanna with nothing but contempt since her arrival.
Joanna found the arm of the chair behind her and gripped it tightly as she sank into the dusty cushions. This wasn’t how being a governess was supposed to be. The girls were supposed to look to her for education and guidance, and keeping Frances’s secret should’ve brought her and Frances closer, like it had with her, Rachel, Isabel and Grace. It shouldn’t have garnered spite from a young lady clearly in the wrong. She should tell Sir Rodger and Lady Huntford about their daughter’s compromising behaviour, but if she did, they might blame her.
I wish Rachel were here. She had a gift for dealing with the young children and even some of the older girls at the school. She’d know what to do, but she wasn’t here, none of her friends or Madame Dubois or Miss Fanworth could help her. She was on her own, just as she’d been until she was nine and Grace, Rachel and Isabel had first arrived at the school. She wished she had a copy of the drawing of the four of them Grace had done last Christmas. It would lessen her loneliness to remember how happy they’d been together and make them seem closer instead of hundreds of miles away.
She stood and plucked the book from the floor, refusing to wallow in self-pity. Her friends weren’t here and, despite Frances’s threats, it was Joanna’s duty to guide and chaperon the young lady. She’d have to find a more subtle way to go about it. There was little else she could do.
* * *
Luke strode up the steps of the Mayfair town house. The must and damp of the ship which had brought him back from France permeated the wool of his red coat. He rubbed his hand over the stubble on his chin. He should have stopped at the Army Service Club to bathe and shave, but the moment he’d landed in Greenwich, all he’d wanted to do was see Diana Tomalin, his fiancée.
He’d been brought home with instructions to marry and produce an heir for the family. The faster he made things final with Diana, the sooner he might achieve this goal and return to his regiment in Spain. It had hurt like hell to sell his commission four months after he’d risked his life to earn it and he’d be damned if he let it go for good.
Collins, the Tomalin family’s butler, pulled open the front door. His small eyes in his soft face widened at the sight of Luke. ‘Major Preston.’
‘Morning, Collins. Is Miss Tomalin here?’ Luke removed his shako and handed it to the man as he strode into the Tomalin family entrance hall.
‘She is, sir, but—’ He fumbled the army headdress, making the feather in the front waver like his voice.
‘Collins, who is it?’ Diana called from the sitting room.
‘It’s me.’ Luke strode into the sunlit room and jerked to a halt. His excitement drifted out of him like smoke out of a cannon.
Diana stood in the middle of the rug, her eyes not meeting his as she ran her hand over her round belly. The gold band on her ring finger clicked over the small buttons along the front of her voluminous morning dress. ‘Welcome home, Major Preston.’
The pendulum on the clock beside him swung back and forth with an irritatingly precise click.
‘When did you intend to tell me we were no longer engaged?’ Luke demanded. ‘Or were you hoping Napoleon would solve the matter for you?’
She twisted the wedding band, the large stone set in the gold too big for her delicate fingers. ‘Mother said I shouldn’t trouble you, not when you had so many other things to worry about. She also said I shouldn’t wait any longer for you, that five years was enough, and you might die in battle and then my youth and all my chances to marry would be lost.’
‘Yes, your mother was always very practical in the matter of our betrothal.’ It’s why he’d agreed to keep their engagement a secret until he could return from Spain with a fuller purse and a higher rank. Heaven forbid Mrs Tomalin endure the horror of a lowly lieutenant, an earl’s mere second son, for a son-in-law. ‘Who’s the lucky gentleman?’
‘Lord Follett,’ she whispered, more ashamed than enamoured by her choice of mate.
‘I see.’ Like nearly all the women he’d encountered before he’d enlisted, and whenever he’d come home on leave, she’d run after a man with more title and land than him. He watched the pendulum swing back and forth in the clock case, wanting to knock the grand thing over and silence it. ‘So it’s Lady Follett now. Where is your distinguished husband? In Bath, taking the waters for his rheumatism?’
‘With Father’s mounting bills and you possibly never coming back, I didn’t have a choice but to accept him,’ she cried out against his sarcasm. ‘So much has changed in England since you’ve been gone. The cold winters have taken their toll and, with crops failing year after year, Father began to fall into debt like so many others.’
No doubt his gambling habit helped increase it, Luke bit back, holding more sympathy for her than he should have. Her family wasn’t the only one facing ruin and struggling to hide it. His father and grandfather had spent years rebuilding Pensum Manor after his feckless great-grandfather had nearly gambled it away. The continued crop failures were threatening to send it spiralling back into insolvency. Like Diana, Luke needed to marry and well. He hated to be so mercenary in his choice of bride, but it was a reality he couldn’t ignore. However, it didn’t mean he had to wed the first merchant’s daughter with five thousand a year who threw herself at him in an effort to be the mother of the next Earl of Ingham. ‘Surely you could’ve chosen someone better suited to you than that old man.’
‘My first duty is to my father and my family, not to you, not to even myself.’ She settled back into her chair, her brown eyes at last meeting his and filled with a silent plea for understanding. He couldn’t withhold it. He’d abandoned his men and his military career to come home and do his duty for his family. He couldn’t blame her for doing th
e same.
‘It seems we’re both obliged to make sacrifices. You with Lord Follett, me as the heir.’
‘But your brother and his wife?’
‘After ten years, there’s been no child. If things stay as they are—’
‘You’ll inherit.’ She pressed her palm to her forehead, realising what she’d given up by following her parents’ demands. However, Luke knew the way of the world. A possible title at some future date was not the same as an old, wealthy baron on a woman’s doorstep with a special licence.
Not wanting to torture her further with his presence or his ire, he took the shako from Collins and tucked it under his arm. ‘I wish you all the best and future happiness. Good day.’
He left the house and climbed into the hack waiting at the kerb. He knocked Captain Reginald Crowther’s feet off the seat where he’d rested them to nap.
His friend jerked upright and tilted his shako off his eyes. He was about to crack a joke when a warning glare from Luke turned him slightly more serious. ‘I take it all didn’t go well with your fair damsel?’
Luke rapped on the roof to set the vehicle in motion. As it lumbered out of Mayfair towards the Bull in Bishops Street, he told him what had happened inside the Tomalins’. ‘This isn’t how I imaged this would go.’
‘And I can see you’re utterly heartbroken over losing her. More like inconvenienced.’ Captain Crowther threw his arms up over the back of the squabs. ‘You thought you’d marry a tidy little sum, produce an heir with the least amount of bother and be back in Spain with the regiment inside of two years.’
Luke fingered the regimental badge of a curved bugle horn hung from a ribbon affixed to the front of his shako, unsettled by Captain Crowther’s frank assessment of his plans and secretly relieved. If he and Diana had entered into marriage negotiations, the Inghams’ debts would have been revealed. Diana’s family would probably have made her cry off and all England might have learned of his family’s financial straits. His rapture for her had faded too much during their time apart for him to go through so much on her behalf. ‘Her refusing to marry me before I left and insisting we keep the engagement a secret always did rankle.’
‘Now you must give up the hell of battle for the hell of the marriage mart.’ His friend chuckled. ‘Wish I could be here to see you dancing like some London dandy.’
‘When I agreed to come home, I didn’t think I’d have to face it.’ Or the ugliness he’d glimpsed in Diana’s situation. He set the shako on the seat beside him. Worse waited for him in the country. With the future of the earldom hovering over him, all the tittering darlings and their mamas who’d ignored him as a youth because he wouldn’t inherit would rush Pensum Manor faster than Napoleon’s troops did a battlefield.
‘You don’t have to do this. Write and tell your brother to pay more attention to his wife and come back to Spain,’ Captain Crowther urged.
‘I’m sure their lack of a child isn’t from a lack of trying and it isn’t only an heir they need, but money.’ Luke stared out the hackney window at the crowd crossing London Bridge in the distance. He couldn’t have refused the request to come home even if he’d wanted to. His father had called on his old friend, Lieutenant Colonel Lord Henry Beckwith, using the connection he’d employed to begin Luke’s Army career to end it. Luke might have ignored one or two orders in battle, achieving both victory and forgiveness for his transgressions, but he couldn’t dismiss a direct command from Lord Beckwith to return home.
The carriage lumbered to a stop in front of the arch of the bustling Bull Inn. Luke tucked the shako under his arm and stepped out, as did his friend. Behind them the driver unloaded Luke’s things while Captain Crowther’s stayed fixed on top. After he visited his sister, Reginald was going back to Spain, his mission of delivering dispatches complete.
Luke flicked the dull edge of the bugle-horn badge with his fingernail. He would catch a coach to Pensum Manor, his family’s estate in Hertfordshire and take up the position of second in line to the earldom and groom-to-be to some willing, and as of yet unnamed, wife. ‘I wish you’d accepted my offer to buy my commission.’
‘You know I don’t want it, or the debt to secure it. Don’t look so glum.’ Reginald cuffed Luke on the arm. ‘We aren’t all meant to be leaders like you. Your intelligence, wit and daring will be missed.’
‘But they’ll have your ability to charm the locals, especially the gambling men.’
Reginald grinned with self-satisfaction. ‘I do have a flair with language.’
Luke snapped off the Forty-Third Regiment of Foot bugle-horn badge affixed to the front of the shako and handed the now-unneeded headpiece to his friend. ‘Stay safe.’
Reginald ran his thumb over the bare felt front, a rare seriousness crossing over his face before it passed. ‘You’re the one who needs to watch yourself. I hear those unmarried ladies can be dangerous.’ He tossed the thing inside the coach then took Luke’s hand. ‘Go on to Hertfordshire, find a wife and give your family their much sought-after heir.’
Reginald climbed back into the carriage and then hung one elbow out the door window.
‘Give Napoleon hell,’ Luke encouraged, the edge of the badge biting into his palm where he clasped it tight.
‘I intend to.’ With a rakish salute, Reginald tucked inside as the hack rolled off down the crowded street.
With each turn of the wheels, the most accomplished and contented ten years of Luke’s life faded into the past. He opened his palm, the tin against his skin tarnished with Spanish mud and rain. What waited for him in Hertfordshire was everything he’d joined the Army to escape: the oppressive weight of previous generations which hung over Pensum Manor, and his own insignificance to the line as magnified by his brother’s importance.
He slipped the badge into his pocket and strode into the inn to arrange for a seat in the next coach to Hertfordshire. He’d do his duty to his family, as fast and efficiently as he could, then he’d return to the Army and a real sense of accomplishment.
CHAPTER TWO
Joanna had never been to a ball before. The Pensum Manor ballroom was decorated with autumn leaves, straw bales, scarecrows and bunches of wheat tied with orange-and-yellow ribbons. The same musicians who played in the church on Sundays now performed on an equally festive stage at the far end. In front of them, young ladies and gentlemen danced in time to the lively music. Everyone in attendance seemed happy and carefree, except Joanna, and, it appeared, Major Preston.
Joanna glanced at the guest of honour again, admiring the dignified arch of his brows, the subtle wave in his dark brown hair where it curled over both ears before touching the smooth skin above his collar. It wasn’t only his commanding stature which drew her to him, but the discontent deepening the rich coffee colour of his eyes. He stood beside his brother, Lord Pensum, near the door, nodding tersely at each passing guest while his brother greeted them with a gracious smile and a few words. More than once Joanna saw Major Preston’s sturdy chest rise and fall with a weary sigh and she sympathised with him. Like her, he was clearly ill at ease in the midst of all this merriment.
‘Watch where you’re going,’ Frances snapped as she stopped to examine the dancers, forcing Joanna to come up short to keep from bumping into her tiring charge. Then Frances set off again on another circle of the room, no doubt searching for Lieutenant Foreman. Thankfully, they hadn’t seen him, but it didn’t stop Frances from looking. The girl was stubborn in her desire to ruin herself.
Joanna followed wearily behind her, tugging at the pale-blue secondhand dress Frances had tossed at her last night after Lady Huntford had announced Joanna would attend as Frances’s chaperon. It spared the mother the bother of hovering around her headstrong daughter. Joanna played with the small bit of lace along the thankfully modest bodice. It fit her in length, since she and Frances were nearly matched in height, but Joanna had
been forced to stay up late to take in the chest. The lack of sleep, combined with Lady Huntford having instructed Joanna to try and manoeuvre Frances to Major Preston, added to her disquiet. The young lady was as co-operative as a donkey. With Frances relentlessly circling the room and refusing to dance, Joanna had been denied the company of the other governesses sitting along the wall and chatting together. She needed some hopefully polite conversation with someone, anyone. She rarely received it at Huntford Place.
To Joanna’s luck, Frances’s hurried steps brought them closer to Major Preston and Joanna hazarded another glance at him. This time, his eyes met hers and the entire ballroom faded away until only the two of them and the soft melody of the violin remained. There were no wayward charges, laughing country squires or gallant young men to concern her. His gaze slid along the length of her, pausing at her chest which increased with her drawn-in breath.
Instead of stopping him with a chiding glance, she stood up straighter, offering him a better view of her in the prettiest dress she’d ever worn. His silent appraisal of her continued down to her feet and then up again. It kindled the strange fire burning near her centre which spread out to engulf her skin. She touched the curls at the back of her head, returning his attention to her face. With a slow, refined movement she lowered her hand, linking it with the other in front of her, each fingertip aching to trace the angle of his jaw to where it met his stiff cravat. She envied the linen encasing his throat and whatever woman he chose here tonight for his bride. She would experience the thrill of his body against hers, the heat of his wide hands upon her bare skin, the luxury of his height draping her like a heavy coat on a windy day.
‘Stop gawking at everything,’ Frances hissed, snapping Joanna out of her licentious daydream. ‘You’re embarrassing me.’
Considering the lady’s encounter with Lieutenant Foreman, Frances possessed a strange idea of what might embarrass her. Joanna held her tongue, eager to avoid cultivating any more of Frances’s ire.
