Her stomach gave a sudden, nervous lurch, and she looked away, feeling as transparent as glass. Fortunately, however, Samuel reentered the dining room, saving her from having to come up with a reply, and as the footman cleared their dinner plates and wineglasses, replacing them with dishes of syllabub and glasses of port, his presence was a welcome distraction. By the time he had set a bowl of fruit and a plate of cheese on the table and departed again, Amanda felt once more in command of herself.
“If what you say is true,” she said, “then why did my cheek in our first interview offend you?”
“It didn’t offend me, precisely. It’s only that it reminded me of someone.” He paused, his hand holding his spoon poised above the crystal dessert dish in front of him. “My wife was always exceedingly blunt in her opinions,” he murmured, smiling a little, as if remembering. “Cheeky as hell, that woman.”
Amanda stared, dismayed and rather chagrined. “I remind you of your wife?” she blurted out, then wanted to kick herself.
He looked up, his smile widening into a heart-stopping grin. “I’d hardly go that far,” he drawled. “No offense, Seton, but my wife was much prettier than you.”
Amanda ought to have been relieved by that remark, but instead, she felt a wholly feminine desire to toss her syllabub in his face. Fortunately, he lowered his gaze to his dessert, and she managed to refrain. “I’m sure,” she muttered, and decided to return to the subject they’d been discussing. “So, what made you change your mind?” she asked as she picked up her dessert spoon. “Why did you hire me?”
“Pure desperation,” he confessed. “Not a very good reason, I know, and I only appreciated that I might have put my sons in a harmful situation after I was halfway to York. I’ve never hired anyone to oversee my children whom I know so little about.”
“If it’s any comfort to you,” she said before he could work to improve his knowledge on that score, “many parents—servants, too—have inadvertently put a child in harm’s way. One moment’s inattention in a shop, for example, and your child vanishes. Parents, like everyone else, are human beings, and prone to human error. Not that hiring me was an error,” she hastened on as he raised a brow. “My point is that you’re bound to make mistakes. The only thing to do is the best you can.”
“You’re right, of course, though I confess, I take little comfort in it. I don’t . . .” He set aside his spoon and looked up. “I’m not a particularly good father, Seton.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” she demurred, thinking of her conversation with Colin. “You’re a neglectful father, certainly, and far too indulgent. But you could be a very good father, I think, if you took a little trouble.”
“God,” he muttered, laughing a little, “you really don’t mince words, do you?”
“No,” she admitted. “Besides, it does your boys no good for me to give you false opinions of your abilities as a parent. Far better for me to tell you the truth.”
Those words were barely out of her mouth before she appreciated the blatant hypocrisy in them, and she hastily reached for her glass, gulping down half its contents, shivering a little at the port’s burning sweetness.
“Really, Seton,” he murmured, picking up the decanter on the table and leaning forward to refill her glass, “if that’s how you drink an excellent vintage port, I shan’t bother having Samuel open a second bottle.”
Lovely, she thought with an inward groan. Now he’ll think I drink like a fish. “A second bottle,” she mumbled, “wouldn’t be wise anyway. I’m not used to spirits.”
Unexpectedly, he grinned. “Given your profession, I’m glad to hear it. Speaking of which,” he added when she didn’t reply, “we’ve gone a bit far afield. The purpose of this dinner was for me to find out more about you and your teaching. But we’re almost finished with dessert, and all I’ve managed to learn is that I not only neglect my sons, I also spoil them.”
Acutely self-conscious, she suppressed the urge to wriggle in her chair, but she refused to soften her critical assessment in order to pacify him. “Do you disagree?” she asked instead.
He looked away. “I’m hardly in a position to disagree. But, I confess, I find it hard to know what to do with them. One of life’s little ironies, that.”
She frowned, puzzled. “Ironies?”
Leaning forward, he plucked an apple from the bowl on the table and picked up a fruit knife. “One would think,” he said meditatively as he began to peel his apple, “I’d know exactly how to handle my sons. Acorns, after all, don’t fall far from the tree.”
“You were wild as a boy?”
He paused and looked up. “That seems to surprise you.”
“It does,” she confessed. “You don’t seem the least bit wild to me.”
“No? How do I seem to you?” he asked, tilting his head as he looked at her. “Don’t pull your punches now, Seton,” he added when she hesitated. “I’m curious to know.”
Had he asked that question two hours ago, her honest opinion would have been that she thought him one of the coldest men she’d ever met. Now she didn’t know what to think, or what to say. “You always seem fully in command of yourself,” she said at last. “Not wild at all. Self-controlled, even rigid. But then, it’s hard for me to know what you’re really like,” she added, lest he take offense. “You’ve got such a poker face that most of the time, I have no idea what you’re thinking or feeling.”
“I see.” He looked down at the apple in his hands, frowning thoughtfully. “It’s a trick I learned as a boy,” he said softly. “Not showing how I really felt about anything. In our household, I learned very early that was one’s safest course.”
“Safest?” she echoed, struck by the word, suddenly uneasy. “What do you mean?”
“It doesn’t matter.” He looked up, giving her a shrug and a careless smile, but she wasn’t fooled, for the mask was plain to her now. “But just because I didn’t let anyone see how I felt, it didn’t mean I wasn’t wild as hell.”
“But were you as wild as your sons?”
“Worse, I’m afraid. Far, far worse.”
She thought of herself this morning, tied to a desk and watching in dismay as Colin had climbed the stepladder with scissors in hand, grinned down at her—the devilish little imp—and cut the bellpull. “Oh dear,” she murmured. “Your poor parents.”
“My mother died when I was three—cholera. As for my father . . .” He paused again, and he was silent so long, Amanda feared he wasn’t going to finish what he’d been about to say. But at last, he spoke again. “As for my father, you need not feel any compassion for him. God knows,” he added with a laugh as he resumed peeling his apple, “he’s never bothered to feel that emotion for anyone else.”
There was no humor in his laugh. Quite the contrary, for it seemed to underscore the biting cynicism of his words. “My father, you see, believed with absolute conviction in the maxim, ‘Spare the rod, spoil the child.’”
Appalled, she stared at him, the words he’d spoken to her at the lodging house echoing through her mind, words fraught with a new, more sinister significance.
I will tolerate no form of physical punishment, so if the willow switch or belt is your idea of discipline . . .
“I see,” she murmured. Physical punishment was not unknown to her, of course. It was quite a common practice, and she’d known many parents and teachers who employed it, but she never had. Just the idea of it never failed to make her slightly sick.
“I, of course, responded to my father’s notions of discipline by learning to pretend I didn’t give a damn. And by being as ungovernable as possible, of course,” he went on, his voice so matter-of-fact that he might have been discussing the weather. “The more he tried to control me, the more harshly he punished me, the more I rebelled.”
This was not the time, she decided, to point out that his own method of parenting, the antithesis of his father’s, came with its own set of problems and had a similar result. It was clear he already knew that.<
br />
“But you’re not wild anymore,” she said instead, watching him as he continued peeling the skin from the apple with his knife in a long, curly strip. “You’re a responsible Member of Parliament, and you don’t have a rake’s reputation. So, what changed you?”
His hands went still. “I met my wife.”
At that simple declaration, Amanda’s heart twisted in her chest, though what emotion she felt was hard to define. It was compassion and understanding and something else—a little tinge of envy, perhaps. Lady Patricia Cavanaugh had not only captured the heart of a rake, she had also reformed him, proving that a common female fantasy could, once in a blue moon, become reality. In Amanda’s case, the result of loving a rake had been ruin. “I see,” she said, unable to think of anything else to say.
With an abrupt move, he set aside the knife and sat back with his peeled apple. “Why I’m rattling on this way mystifies me, for I’m not a talkative man, as a rule.”
“Yes,” she agreed, smiling a little. “I’ve appreciated that point.”
“I’ve told you more about myself and my family than I ever tell anyone. Hell, I’ve even told you about my father, and that is something, I can assure you, I never do.”
“Never?”
“Never.” He looked up, studying her as he took a bite of apple, then he said, “You’re remarkably easy to talk to, Seton.”
Considering the fact that she had been striving to keep the conversation on him and his sons rather than herself, that wasn’t as surprising to her as it might be to him. “Well, as you said, you don’t really know me, and it’s often easier to talk to someone you don’t know.”
“True. And it helps that you’re a man.”
She gave an involuntary laugh, but it was not, sadly, a masculine-sounding laugh, and she hastily covered it with a cough. Reaching for her glass, she took another swallow of port and strove for something manly to say.
“For my part,” she said at last, setting down her glass, “I find women extraordinarily difficult to talk to. But,” curiosity impelled her to add, “I wouldn’t have thought a man like you would have that problem.”
“No?” He ate another bite of apple as he considered that. “I’m curious what makes you say that.”
She thought of his laughter of a short time ago, and her toes curled again in her shoes, heat unfurling in her body. “Just an impression.”
“An erroneous one, I assure you. At least, nowadays. I have found that my present life is much easier if I limit my conversations with women to the bare minimum—especially when it comes to the women of my own set.”
“You mean women of the ton?”
He grinned, a charming grin that sent her stomach plummeting. “Well, a man doesn’t really have to worry about what he says to a woman of the demimonde.”
She blushed again, making him laugh. “I take it,” he added, “you’ve had no experience in that regard?”
Amanda looked away, her face hot, and she feared if she didn’t turn this conversation, he’d be offering to take her to a brothel.
“But you,” she said, feeling a bit desperate, “you’re a man of the world. You grew up among the aristocracy. You’ve been married, and to a duke’s sister no less. Why would conversing with women of your own set discomfit you?”
He made a face. “It didn’t used to do.”
“Ah,” she murmured, remembering his conversation with Galbraith in the newspaper office. “As a second son with a small allowance and a new MP with a minuscule salary, you’ve been considered a poor marriage prospect, but now that you’re the heir . . .”
“Just so. You grasp the point admirably. Because I was so damnably wild, my father had disinherited me, and I showed no signs of wishing to heal the breach, making it unlikely I’d ever receive more than the minimum income the estate is required to pay me. I also had no desire to marry—I was having far too much fun for that. So, the women of my set left me in peace.”
“Yet, you did marry.”
“Had anyone tried to force Pat on me, I’d have run for the door, but we met quite by accident. I never expected to fall in love.” He paused, a faint smile curving his lips. “It hit me like a ton of bricks the first time I saw her face. And somehow, despite my wild reputation, I won her over.” He gave a laugh. “I can’t think how.”
Amanda wouldn’t have understood it either two short hours ago. She understood it now. She tore her gaze from his laughing face and took a swallow of port.
“The rum thing is . . .” he said, and paused for another bite of apple. “After I married, I became much more intriguing to other women—the married ones anyway. I’ve shocked you,” he added as Amanda made a stifled sound.
“I’m not shocked. Well,” she amended as he raised an eyebrow, “maybe I am, a little.”
“I didn’t reciprocate, if that’s what’s you’re thinking,” he said dryly. “As I said, I loved my wife. She was laughter and sunshine and music—everything that was good in the world. And when she died . . .”
He paused, set aside his half-eaten apple, and reached for his port. “Sorry,” he said lightly, and took a drink. “Being maudlin at dinner is in terribly poor taste. My apologies.”
“There is no need to apologize, my lord.”
“As I told you, you’re a good listener, so that’s my excuse.” He looked down at his glass, running his finger idly up and down the stem. “The point is, now that I’m set to become the Marquess of Rolleston, set to inherit a lucrative slew of estates and investments, I have become the thing every man dreads.”
“Wealthy?” she guessed jokingly.
He gave a shout of laughter. “No, Seton.” He paused, lifting his glass in a toast. “A desirable parti,” he corrected, and took a drink.
“Even though you already have a son to inherit after you and a second son as well?”
His smile faltered a little, taking on a brittle curve. “It appears there are quite a few women who care more about money for themselves than they do about securing future titles for their sons.”
“There can’t be that many women so mercenary,” she said, compelled to defend her own sex, momentarily forgetting that she was supposed to be a member of the opposite one. “There can’t be,” she amended. “I refuse to believe it.”
“You’re so young,” he murmured.
“Or perhaps you’re just terribly cynical.”
“No perhaps about that,” he agreed at once. “But I don’t want to shatter your ideals about the fair sex before you’ve even had the chance to appreciate their finer qualities—of which there are many. But for my own part, I often find the company of women exhausting. You, Seton, have been more enjoyable company than any woman could possibly be.”
It was meant to be a compliment, but Amanda couldn’t say she found it so. In fact, it had the curious result of making her feel rather depressed.
“But,” he added before she could manage an expression of thanks that didn’t include a healthy dose of sarcasm, “we’ve talked about me long enough.” He leaned forward, setting down his glass, making her fear that the interrogation was about to commence. “One of the main purposes of this dinner was for me to find out more about you, and we’re nearly done and I haven’t uncovered a thing. You’re an oyster, Seton.”
She pretended not to understand. “I thought you would prefer to discuss the boys. They’re far more important than I am.”
“You said yourself there’s not much to report in regard to the boys, and God knows, I’ve bent your ear long enough about me, so we’ve come to you by default. Your father was American, I believe you said. What brought you to England?”
She might have known she wouldn’t be able to avoid talking about herself all evening. “My mother was English. She fell gravely ill when I was twelve. She wanted to return home,” she explained, glad she’d decided from the start to stick to the truth as much as possible. Telling lies, she was only just beginning to appreciate, was an exhausting business. “So, my father r
esigned his chair, and we came back to England. Mama only lived six months after that—it was cancer, and it overtook her very quickly. But at least she was able to see her homeland again, be reunited with a few of her relations, and be buried here, as she’d wished. Papa and I were both glad of that.”
“I’m sorry about your mother. Cancer is quite painful, I understand.”
His voice was offhand, but not perfunctory. Nor was it gushing with sympathy, and yet, its very lack of pathos caused Amanda’s throat to constrict. “Yes,” she said at last, surprised by the catch in her own voice, and how hard it was to talk about her mother’s death, even after almost sixteen years. “Very painful.”
“If your mother’s relations are here, why are you not with them? Why are you out in the world alone at your age, earning your living?”
“Probably for the same reason you don’t live with your father,” she quipped, reaching for her port.
She’d meant it as a joke, but he didn’t laugh. He jerked upright in his chair, his expression suddenly the hard, remorseless one she was used to, and she felt a jolt of fear, wondering if she’d somehow given herself away. But his next words obliterated that notion.
“What did they do to you?” he asked, his voice low, fierce, and vibrating with anger, and she realized that he was not angry with her, he was angry for her.
Amanda’s chest tightened, and though she opened her mouth to answer, no words came out. She could only look at him, pleasure flooding through her, the simple pleasure of knowing he cared, however superficially, about her well-being. That a man would express such concern for her welfare was like a balm over the wounds of her past experience, and she was lost for a reply.
“Did they abuse you?” he demanded. “Beat you, hurt you—what the devil?” he added, sounding confounded as Amanda shook her head and began to smile. “God, Seton, why are you smiling, in heaven’s name?”
At once, Amanda wiped the smile off her face and looked away. Reaching toward the plate between them, she picked up a crumbled bit of Stilton and ate it, not sure how much to say. Her mother’s relations hadn’t abused her, they simply refused to have anything to do with her now, but she could hardly tell Lord Kenyon the reasons for that.
Governess Gone Rogue Page 13
