As she moved away, Georgeanne noted with pride that Marissa accepted Olivia’s company. Then, the odious woman tried to force Marissa to give her a kiss.
“Really, Marissa, do give me a kiss like a good little girl,” cooed Olivia, bending down and proffering one faintly rouged cheek.
But Marissa ignored Olivia and continued to eat her ice in stony silence.
“Marissa.” Raynor gave his niece a stern look. “Cousin Olivia has requested a favor of you. It is impolite to pretend you didn’t hear.”
From the next table, Georgeanne watched Marissa lower her ice and look mulishly from one adult to the next.
“Come, Marissa darling. Be an angel and give me a kiss.” Olivia took the tip of the child’s nose between two slender fingers and gave it a slight twist.
Georgeanne’s eyes widened as she held her breath. If Lady Cosgrove meant it as a playful gesture, it was completely lost on Marissa. The child pulled away from the woman, hopped off her chair, and stood with one little fist flying upward.
*** Chapter 6 ***
It was sheer luck that Raynor intercepted the child’s balled up hand before she connected it with the Olivia’s proffered cheek. Seeing the murderous glint in Raynor’s eyes, Georgeanne quickly jumped up, gathered Marissa’s pelisse and bonnet, and hustled her charge outside to finish their Italian ices while waiting for the others to emerge from the shop.
“She hurt me, Georgie,” said Marissa, her doe-like eyes seeking her governess’s support.
Georgeanne released a deep sigh. She could hardly blame the child for refusing to cooperate and wondered why Raynor had insisted his niece do the vixen’s bidding. True, it was wrong of Marissa to have tried to wallop the woman, but it did serve Olivia Cosgrove right for tweaking the little girl’s nose just because she wouldn’t give up a kiss.
“Yes, dear, but striking someone just because you do not like what she did is not acceptable. You must promise me to never do such a thing again.”
“She is not a nice lady,” Marissa protested, brown eyes swimming in tears.
Georgeanne silently admitted her little charge had an excellent point. “But you are nice, dear. So you must give me your word.”
Georgeanne looked up at the sound of Lady Cosgrove’s voice. “No, Anthony, that . . . governess has allowed Marissa to become a horrid little brat. Do you see how she . . . coddles the child?” sputtered Olivia, standing at the shop door with Raynor and Townsend behind her. Olivia’s face contorted in a vicious sneer. “She should be dismissed at once.”
“Enough, Olivia!”
With brows drawn together, Raynor looked murderous, and Georgeanne was undecided toward whom his anger was directed. But Townsend, Georgeanne noted, had no problem laying the blame. “Maybe you shouldn’t have pinched Marissa’s nose, Lady Cosgrove.”
“I suppose you cannot really blame the child, Anthony,” she said, ignoring Townsend. “A decent governess would have beaten that sort of hoydenish behavior out of your niece by now. Oh, you simply must get rid of her!”
“I said enough, Olivia.”
Raynor’s voice was low and sounded truly menacing to Georgeanne’s ears. Fortunately, Townsend stepped past Raynor and Olivia, making a flimsy excuse about checking on his horses. Once at their side, he suggested Georgeanne and Marissa head back to Curzon Street and solicitously handed them up onto the high seat of the curricle.
They rode in silence for some distance before Townsend glanced down at the child and remarked her woebegone expression. “Don’t let Lady Cosgrove upset you, Marissa,” he said kindly before a frown creased his brow. “Though, must admit, can’t say I’m overly fond of her myself, even if she is your cousin.”
No other mention was made of Marissa’s indiscretion, but when Townsend made his good-byes after depositing them on the front steps of the townhouse, Georgeanne saw the troubled look in their escort’s usually smiling eyes.
Leaning closer, he whispered, “Keep the little pugilist out of sight for a couple of days, heh?” Then, his amiable nature reasserting itself, he gave them both a conspiratorial wink before abandoning them to fate.
Unfortunately, when Raynor arrived home an hour later, he made straight for the schoolroom. Both Georgeanne and Marissa were seated at the long trestle table, applying themselves to schoolwork, and heard his heavy-footed approach. Georgeanne took one look at the child’s pinched expression and knew Marissa genuinely dreaded her uncle’s punishment.
In the next instant, he appeared at the door, seeming to fill the entire entrance. He glowered down at his niece for a long, poignant moment.
“Marissa,” he called out. His tone was harsh, unyielding. “Do you realize just how terrible your behavior was at Gunter’s? You leave me with no choice but to punish you with a good spanking.”
In a state of panic, the child let out a sudden cry and flung herself at Georgeanne, clutching wildly at her.
Never could Georgeanne remember being so exasperated with two people. Marissa reverted instantly back to the screeching child-monster she had been when Georgeanne first arrived. The child was truly frightened by her uncle’s threat while, Georgeanne knew, inwardly Marissa was upset with herself for inciting his anger. She cried over and over, “Please don’t beat me. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.” All the while, Raynor towered over the two of them and expounded platitudes about the punishment suiting the misbehavior.
It was more than Georgeanne could tolerate. “How can you possibly think that a spanking could make right the horrid scene in the confectionery shop? Besides, if you are so bent on chastising someone, it ought to be Lady Cosgrove,” shouted Georgeanne in order to be heard over Marissa’s ranting. “That catty snob was as much in the wrong as your five year old niece.”
“Again, Miss Forsythe, you forget yourself,” he said, turning his scowl on her. “Marissa’s conduct was reprehensible and, therefore, she must bear the consequences of her actions.”
“And what of your conduct, my lord?” she retorted without thinking. “Were you not as much at fault for allowing the conniving female to harass your niece?”
Raynor stepped toward Georgeanne. “Have a care, Miss Forsythe,” he warned. His hand fairly itched to throttle the woman’s slender neck. Her words held the ring of truth. Still, Olivia’s charges concerning an unfit governess rankled. He wondered what inner devilment had prompted the child to react so violently toward her.
“I would have thought your first duty would be toward your own flesh and blood.”
“Where did your duty lay as a governess?”
“With my charge—until I was exiled to another table.”
Speechless, Raynor glared down into searing green eyes. Then, disgusted with himself and sick of Marissa’s sobbing as she clung to Georgeanne, he turned and stomped out.
~~~~~
Much later that night, after Marissa had fallen into an exhausted slumber, sleep continued to elude Georgeanne. Reaching for her yellow silk wrapper, she decided to fetch a Gothic mystery from the library and read. At least, she’d have a good excuse tomorrow for the dark circles under her eyes.
With bare feet, she treaded noiselessly down the hall. She carried only one taper with her to light the way. Once in the library, she used her candle to light a three prong candelabra which provided enough light to read the book spines in front of her. Listlessly, she browsed the shelves for several minutes. Not watching where she stepped, she stubbed her toes on a chair and let out a cry of pain.
“Who’s there?” came the unmistakable brusque voice of Lord Raynor from the gloomy shadows across the room.
Georgeanne momentarily froze, then began blowing out the flickering flames of the candelabra. She prayed he had not seen her. Still upset over the day’s events, she didn’t want to face him again so soon. She had extinguished the first candle when he called out again.
“Stop what you’re doing!”
Squinting into the murky gloom, she made out his tall figure looming toward her
like some sort of ghoulish specter and hastily blew on the second taper. But the candelabra was snatched from her hand before she could put out the third candle.
“What are you doing, plunging us into darkness?” he demanded. “Did you think to make yourself invisible?”
Actually, as silly as it sounded, she had hoped to do just that, melt into the shadows and flee to her room. He was watching her closely as she looked guiltily about, desperately searching for a means of escape.
“Are you afraid of me, Miss Forsythe?” When she didn’t answer, he put the candelabra with the one taper still lit on a nearby table and reached for her, only to draw back when she flinched from his touch. He let his hands drop to his sides and studied her disheveled appearance. Looking down, he smiled at her bare toes peeking out from under the yellow wrapper. A heat spread through her body with a fluttering in her stomach as his eyes moved upward in a slow, lazy fashion. They paused at the wrapper’s matching sash tied about her waist, and again where the wrapper formed a vee at the top of her bosom. His gaze continued upward to the glossy auburn tresses tumbling down her back and about her face.
Then he began speaking softly. “You’ve nothing to fear from me, Miss Forsythe. . . Georgeanne. I may act the ogre from time to time with my damnable temper, but I swear I would never hurt you. You must believe me.”
“Oh, I do,” she replied with sincerity.
“Then why are you trying to run away from me?”
She tilted her head sideways and gave a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders. “It is really not you but me I want to hide from.”
“I’m afraid you will have to explain,” he prompted gently.
“I cannot. That is, not without making you angry.”
“If I keep a rein on my temper and promise not to dismiss you?” he asked, giving her a crooked smile.
She looked at him for a long moment before releasing a sigh. “My lord, I am still cross with you for wanting to spank Marissa this afternoon. Do you not understand that has only compounded the problem by making the child fearful of you? The trust we built up over the past few weeks has nearly been destroyed. Besides, it was not really all her fault.”
As Raynor listened, his eyes remained focused on her lips. Still Georgeanne was not prepared when he pulled her roughly into his arms and brought his own mouth down possessively on hers. At first she resisted him. Then as his passion rose and his hands seductively massaged her back, she began to relax, feeling secure in the circle of his embrace, yet expectant as she responded to his ardency. Slowly her arms inched up around his neck, and one hand played with the curly tendrils of hair at the nape of his neck. When he gently parted her lips with his probing tongue, deepening his kiss, an insatiable yearning possessed her to be closer to him, and she clung to his hard muscular body more tightly. That deep warmth increased, invading her very core, and she felt as if she were melting in his arms. She was lost in time, mindless of all else but him.
But when she felt the heat of his hand inside of her wrapper against her bare skin, fondling her breast, the glorious spell broke. Suddenly, she was hit with the implications of the compromising circumstances, and she panicked.
Pushing him away, she brought the heel of her foot forcibly down on his arch with the weight of her body behind it. “Owww!” Her cry of pain echoed his.
“Are you trying to break my foot, woman?” he bellowed after stepping out of striking distance from her.
Hopping around on her other foot, Georgeanne asked, “Just what do you think you were doing?”
“I was not raping you, that’s for sure. There was no need to cripple me.”
“Huh! You could never prove it by your actions.”
Raynor glared at her before hobbling over to a chair. “Forgive me. I got carried away. But you have no business being down here at this hour of night.” His eyes roamed her from head to toe. “Particularly in a state of undress.”
“I came for a book to read and I am not naked.”
“You might as well be in that flimsy outfit,” he said.
“Well!” she huffed, hugging the bodice of her wrapper closer to her throat as she felt her cheeks burn with mortification. Turning on her uninjured heel, she flounced out of the library, ignoring him when he called out her name. She scurried up the stairs to the safety of her own bedchamber.
Once back in her own bed, pummeling her pillow again, she was thoroughly bemused. Raynor had been so angry with her earlier during the day, and just now in the library, he certainly had not been pleased to see her. Yet, moments after she had rung a peel over his head for his boorish behavior chastising Marissa, he’d taken her in his arms and passionately made love to her.
Georgeanne understood there was a basic difference between men and women, that men were driven by a more primitive sexual desire than their counterparts. Why, even society was far more tolerant of men and their peculiar dealing with the opposite sex. After all, it was well known that many married men took mistresses with little or nothing thought of it.
Still, Georgeanne mused, Raynor would have to like her more than a little bit in order to be able to kiss her like that, wouldn’t he?
*** Chapter 7 ***
In the schoolroom, Georgeanne sat curled up on a window seat. Her chin was propped on her arm where it rested on the wide sill as she gazed down on the garden at the rear of the townhouse. She didn’t see the small boxwood hedges that separated the brick walkway from the rose bed nor the coming and going of grooms and stable hands that took place daily in the mews.
Life just didn’t seem fair. She and Marissa were confined to the schoolroom for a whole week, all because of one small lapse of social etiquette. The fact was Georgeanne sympathized completely with her little charge. She found it impossible to be upset with Marissa for trying to strike Lady Cosgrove at Gunther’s.
Georgeanne turned her head and looked at Marissa’s melancholy expression as the child sat at her feet playing with a doll. “You shouldn’t let that woman upset you,” she said to Marissa. “Think of her as a stone in your shoe, dear. You can always shake it out and go along your merry way without much fuss.”
Marissa’s little brow creased in concentration. “I can’t walk when there’s a rock in my shoe.”
“I am thinking of just the very tiniest pebble, the kind you have to tap on your slipper to get rid of it,” Georgeanne clarified.
“I don’t like big pebbles or tiny pebbles in my shoes, Georgie.”
Georgeanne sighed. “No, dear, none of us do.”
“If I can shake Cousin Olivia out of my shoe, why can’t I hit her?”
Confused by the child’s simplistic logic, Georgeanne shook her head. “You cannot do that, Marissa. She is an adult.”
“But you said I could shake her out of my shoe,” Marissa insisted.
“Never mind, dear. We will simply avoid being around her in the future.”
In truth, Georgeanne wouldn’t have wanted to kiss that cold fish either. Besides, everyone knew the insufferable witch didn’t like children. The only reason the woman paid Marissa the least bit of mind was to impress Lord Raynor.
Furthermore, according to the servants’ grapevine, Marissa hadn’t been the only one to throw a tantrum that day. Georgeanne later heard from Hattie, who had it from Cook whose cousin worked at the confectionery shop, that Olivia Cosgrove had been in high dudgeon after they exited the shop. She had demanded Raynor punish the brat and fire her worthless governess on the spot. After hearing that, Georgeanne feared she might be temped to smack the woman herself if they came face to face again. No, the circumstances definitely weren’t fair.
There, too, was the matter of who was actually being punished. Two days had passed since the interview with Lord Raynor on the morning following the incident. It was in the library, the very same room just hours after they’d shared kisses. Georgeanne had been so nervous when his lordship’s summons came via Bivens and without a clue of what to expect. How could she face him, she had wondered, embar
rassed that her lips still tingled as she remembered his bruising kisses. But she need not have worried, for his imperious manner had set the tone the moment she entered the library.
He was ensconced behind that monstrous desk and neither rose nor asked her to be seated. Instead, he had kept her standing in front of him like some lowly servant. Which was what she was, she had to keep reminding herself. Drat the man, anyway! He had been so impersonal, so cold and intimidating.
“The entire scene was most unfortunate,” Raynor expounded in bored tones. “We both know that unseemly behavior in a young miss cannot be tolerated.” Just which “young miss” he was referring to, Marissa or Georgeanne or both of them, he didn’t say.
His cold blue eyes never left her face, and never once did she try to interrupt him. Finally, he metered out the punishment.
“Therefore, I deem it best to curtail all outings for one full week, along with temporarily suspending the afternoon teas. I hope these strictures will impress upon the young lady the seriousness of her actions.” For a long moment he had stared at her hot face before curtly saying, “You may go.”
No mention was made about her opinions--or the passionate embrace they had shared. No “Thank you for the kiss last night, Miss Forsythe,” or “Please forgive my own despicable behavior last night, Miss Forsythe.” Not that she actually expected an apology from the heartless brute anyway. But it wouldn’t have hurt the man to acknowledge she had feelings to consider as well.
Over the past two days, she’d reviewed his lecture a hundred times, and each time she seethed at the unfairness of being unable to properly defend either her charge or herself.
Letting out a frustrated sigh, she swung around to check on Marissa, now seated at the trestle table, diligently practicing her letters. She had decided to say no more about the incident, thinking it best that the whole affair be forgotten. Besides, the child had been so very good, doing everything she and Hattie asked without any complaints. But how she and Marissa could be expected to endure a whole week of forced inactivity was beyond her understanding. She would go mad if something didn’t happen to break the monotony and soon.
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