Chapter 16
The bang was like an explosion, a sharp, loud report that woke Jamie out of a deep, sound, blissfully contented sleep.
“What the hell?” he mumbled, lifting his head from his pillow as his bedroom door bounced back from the wall against which it had slammed, and two very loud, carrot-headed hurricanes came rushing toward him.
“Wake up, Papa,” Colin shouted, hurling himself onto the bed, landing on top of him before Jamie could roll sideways and planting his elbows right on Jamie’s stomach.
He grunted at the impact. “I am awake, Colin,” he muttered. “Thanks to you.”
“You’ve got to come downstairs, Papa.” Owen joined his brother on the bed, landing on Jamie’s legs, barely missing his groin. “It’s an absolute disaster, and you’ve got to stop it.”
Thanks to having his body pummeled in this rough-and-tumble manner, Jamie was awake enough to remember the events of the night before. With a pang of alarm, he turned his head, but the place beside him was, thankfully, empty. To have his sons find Amanda in his bed would have been awkward, to say the least.
“What are you two on about, bursting in on me at this hour?” he asked. “What time is it anyway?”
“Half past eight, but who cares what time it is? You’ve got to get up now.” Colin pounded a fist against his chest. “She’s going. You’ve got to stop her.”
“Going?” He stiffened. “What do you mean?”
“Just what we said.” Owen poked him several times in the ribs. “It’s a tragedy, and you’ve got to stop it.”
“For God’s sake, Owen,” he muttered, rubbing his bleary eyes and trying to think, “stop prodding me as if I’m a recalcitrant sheep, and tell me what’s going on.”
Colin, clearly exasperated that his parent wasn’t already flying out of bed, grabbed him by the hair and pulled, hard enough that Jamie uttered an anguished, “Ouch!”
Colin paid no heed. “She’s leaving us,” he said with another tug on Jamie’s hair. “Quitting. Going off forever. Her clothes are packed and everything!”
Fully awake now and genuinely alarmed, Jamie pushed his sons aside and sat up in bed. “You’re joking,” he said, hearing the doubt in his own voice as he spoke. “You must be.”
“It’s no joke, my lord.”
Jamie looked up to find Samuel in the doorway.
“Her trunk is in the foyer,” the footman went on, “and she’s waiting for William to fetch her a taxi.” Samuel pulled an envelope out of his jacket pocket and held it up. “She’s asked me to give you her letter of resignation.”
Jamie was out of bed even before his valet had finished speaking. “Don’t let her leave,” he ordered Samuel, snatching the letter and tossing it on the dressing table, then bending to retrieve his trousers from the floor where he’d dropped them last night. “Keep her there until I come down.”
“Very good, my lord.”
Not bothering with his linen, Jamie slid into his trousers and began doing up the buttons as his valet departed. “Why is she going?” he asked the boys, opening the armoire to retrieve his dressing robe. “Did you two do something to drive her away?”
It was a logical question, but even as he asked it, Jamie wondered if perhaps he, not his sons, had been the one to blame. He’d broken his word to her. Granted, last night had been a mutual decision. At least he’d thought so. What if she was leaving out of regret? Or shame?
“We didn’t do anything, Papa!” Colin replied indignantly, cutting into his speculations. “We haven’t played any jokes on her in ages.”
“We haven’t, Papa,” Owen added. “It’s no fun to play jokes on Mrs. Seton because she doesn’t get upset or angry or anything. She just acts all cheerful and happy, no matter what prank we pull. But she still makes us do chores afterward,” he added woefully.
“We asked her if she was leaving because of us,” Colin added, “and she said she wasn’t.”
“It didn’t have anything to do with us, she said,” Owen added, and frowned at his father. “Maybe she’s leaving because of you, Papa.”
“Me?” Jamie’s gaze slid guiltily away as he slid into his dressing robe. “Did she say that?”
“No, but why else would she be going?”
Jamie hadn’t the least idea, but he damn well intended to find out. He took up the letter and shoved it into his pocket, then started out of the room, tying the sash as he went along the corridor and down the stairs, his sons on his heels.
When he turned at the landing, he saw Samuel standing like a stalwart sentry by the front door below. Mrs. Richmond was there, too, and facing her, seated on the chair beside the calling-card tray, was Amanda.
She was dressed to go out, a cloak around her shoulders and a straw boater on her head, a trunk beside her and a leather suitcase at her feet. Dismayed, he paused on the landing as she looked up.
“My lord,” she said.
The sound of her voice stirred him to action, and as he came down the remaining stairs, the boys still on his heels, she rose and turned to face him.
“I heard you were leaving,” he said, feeling as if the words were being torn out of him. “But I’d hoped it was just an unfounded rumor.”
“No,” she said, tilting back her head to meet his gaze, and the pain in her eyes felt like an arrow through his chest. “It’s not a rumor.”
He swallowed hard. “Might I ask why? Is it . . .” He hesitated, glancing at the boys and the servants. “I can think of only one reason why you’d be leaving, and if . . . if it’s about that, then—”
“It’s not,” she cut in. “I know what you’re thinking, and it’s not that at all.”
“Then what is it?”
She hesitated, and it was her turn to glance at the others present. “I wrote you a resignation letter giving my reasons,” she murmured, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “Didn’t you read it? Perhaps you should,” she added when he shook his head. “It would make things easier.”
He was in no frame of mind to make things easier. “Easier for me?” he asked. “Or you?”
She flinched, but she didn’t look away. “For everyone.”
He set his jaw, feeling grim. “Letter or no, I always prefer to hear things like this face-to-face. I think,” he added, meeting her pain-filled gaze with a level one of his own, “I deserve at least that much. Don’t you?”
They stared at each other for several seconds, then she capitulated with a nod. “Very well,” she said, “if that’s what you prefer, but I don’t think we should discuss it in front of the boys.”
He frowned, more bewildered than ever. “Then it is about what I thought,” he said. “If not,” he added when she shook her head, “then I think the boys deserve to know why you’re going as much as I do.” He leaned down, and took each boy by the hand, then looked at her again. “More, in fact.”
Her pale face went even whiter. “I can’t, Jamie,” she choked. “I can’t explain in front of them. Believe me, you’ll understand why when you hear my reasons.”
“I know the reason,” Colin said abruptly. “It’s that man, isn’t it? The one who offered you a post yesterday. You’re taking it, aren’t you? You said you weren’t, but you are. That’s why you’re leaving us.”
“Man?” Jamie frowned, glancing from his son to Amanda and back again. “What man?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Amanda said before Colin could answer. “He is not the reason I’m going, and I am certainly not taking any post working for him.” She turned to the boy. “I swear it to you on my life, Colin. I’d rather jump off a cliff than accept that man’s offer.”
“What man?” Jamie repeated.
“He was at Westminster yesterday,” Colin said. “He—”
“Samuel,” Amanda cut in, her voice sharper than Jamie had ever heard it before, slicing through Colin’s words like a razor, “would you take the boys upstairs, please?”
“No!” cried Colin. Jerking his hand out of Jamie’s, h
e stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Amanda. “You can’t leave us. You can’t!”
Owen tried to follow his brother’s move, but Jamie tightened his grip on his younger son’s hand.
“Colin,” Amanda began, but then, her face twisted, her calm fractured, and she gave a sob, pressing a gloved hand to her mouth.
Jamie could stand no more. “Samuel, do as Mrs. Seton asks and take the boys to the nursery—”
A torrent of anguished protest from his sons interrupted him, but Jamie overrode them. “Now, Samuel,” he said, his voice harsh to his own ears, “if you please.”
He relinquished his hold on his younger son, and when Samuel took Owen by the hand, the boy went without further protest. Colin, however, was another matter, and Jamie had to pull him away from Amanda by force. It felt like tearing himself in half, and it seemed like hours before the footman could get them up the stairs and out of earshot.
That wrenching task accomplished, he turned to Mrs. Richmond. “Have the boys had breakfast?” he asked the cook.
“No, my lord. Not yet. What with one thing and another—”
“Then would you be so kind as to go down and begin preparing it?”
“Yes, my lord.” She gave a curtsy and departed, casting a bewildered glance at Amanda before vanishing behind the green baize door at the other end of the foyer.
Once the door had swung shut behind her, Jamie returned his attention to Amanda. “Now, for God’s sake, tell me what this is about. Who is this man the boys are talking about?”
“It doesn’t matter. He’s an . . . old acquaintance. He offered me a post, but I refused it. As I said, he’s not the reason I’m leaving here.”
“Then what is the reason?” He leaned closer, lowering his voice. “Is it because of last night? If you’re worried about losing your post because of what happened between us—”
“That’s not it!” she cried. “That’s not why.”
“Then what the hell is it?”
She took a deep breath as if bracing herself. “I’ve been lying to you, Jamie. Lying to you all along.”
He tensed, suddenly wary. “Lying about what?”
“Who I really am. My father was American, yes. He did graduate from Harvard—summa cum laude, in fact—and he did go on to teach there as well. He was a brilliant mathematician, and well regarded by all his peers. But if you had written to Harvard to make inquiries about Professor Seton, you would have found that no man by that name ever attended that university or taught there.”
“But that makes no sense—”
“Yes, it does, because his name was not Seton. My father,” she rushed on before he had the chance to ask why she’d lied about her name, “saw no reason his daughter should not receive the same excellent education he had been given, the same education he would have provided a son. His dream was for me to attend Radcliffe, and go on to teach there, but when my mother became ill and we returned to England, that became impossible, and I attended Girton instead.”
“Girton?” He was startled. “You went to Girton?”
“Yes.” She smiled a little. “That day in the newspaper office when you said no woman could prepare a boy for Cambridge, it was like throwing down the gauntlet to me, because I’m a woman, and I did attend Cambridge, and I knew I could prepare your sons for a Cambridge education as well as any male tutor. I wanted, so badly, to show you how wrong you were in what you said.”
“But why didn’t you tell me all this when I discovered you were posing as a man? I realize you couldn’t have known, but I would have been delighted to have the boys taught by a Girton graduate. Why keep that a secret or lie about your name?”
She gazed at him helplessly. “Because my real name is Leighton. I am Amanda Leighton. Now do you see?”
He didn’t. She was looking at him as if that explained everything, but though the name seemed quite familiar, Jamie could not place it. “Who?”
For some reason, she gave a laugh, but he had the awful feeling she wasn’t laughing because he’d said something amusing. “You obviously don’t read the scandal sheets.”
“Not usually. Any politician who reads the scandal sheets is a glutton for punishment. What does the piffle printed in the gutter press have to do with you?” But even as he asked the question, her confession of a false name and her mention of scandal began to sink in, and an awful fear knotted his stomach. “Are you saying . . .” He paused, telling himself not to jump to conclusions, and it was his turn to take a deep breath. “What are you saying, Amanda?”
“My father was a brilliant man, but he was also a driven and determined one, and after my mother’s death, my entire life became about my education. It was his obsession. Parties, dances, meeting young men . . . I had no time for such things. I only had time for my studies. I didn’t really mind, but then, I never knew there was anything else. I wanted the same things my father wanted for me, to be well educated, to be brilliant, to be published, to teach and lecture. But a life like that, a life composed wholly of academic considerations, takes its toll.”
The suspense was killing him, but though he wanted to ask what toll it had taken on her, the question was stuck in his throat. Perhaps because he was afraid to hear the answer. “Go on,” he said instead.
“Growing up,” she went on, “I had a very small circle of acquaintance, and most of them were professors my father’s age. Later, at Girton, I was surrounded by women every bit as earnest and insular as myself. I knew enough facts to fill the Encyclopedia Britannica, but I knew nothing of life. I knew nothing of men.”
Jamie stiffened, beginning to see where this was going, and he felt suddenly afraid. He didn’t want to know any more about it. He wanted to tell her to stop, that none of what she was saying mattered at all, not to him.
“Go on,” he said instead.
“When I graduated from Girton, I decided I didn’t want to teach there. I wanted to teach children, not adults. Looking back, I think I chose that course because I knew an academic career meant I’d never have children of my own. Schoolmistresses can’t be married. My father didn’t like it, for he’d have preferred I teach at the university level, but I got my way in the end, and I accepted a post at Willowbank Academy.”
“Willowbank?” The mention of that famous school was another spark to his memory, but a vague one. “Go on.”
“I’d been there several years—still surrounded by women and girls all the time. I thought I was happy and content at Willowbank, but underneath, I know now that I was desperately lonely. And then, in my sixth year there, my father died, and I think something inside me . . . just snapped.”
She was looking at him, but not seeing him. She was staring through him, looking into the past, and he knew why he found her eyes so hauntingly lovely. The loneliness in their depths harkened to his own lost and lonely soul.
He took a step toward her. “Amanda,” he began, but when she took a step back, he stopped.
“Something happens to a girl when she’s too sheltered from the world for too long,” she said in a musing voice, as if she was talking about someone else, and curiously, her detachment made what she was saying all the more moving. “It’s not natural, you know—that sort of suppression. Raised under such rigorous discipline, with the burden of such heavy parental expectations, any girl is bound to snap one day, to break out, to rebel. I’d seen it several times among my pupils.” She paused, then shook her head, laughing a little. “I was twenty-six years old. I’d never dreamed it would happen to me. Or the price I would pay for it.”
Suddenly, in a flash, he knew who she was. All the pieces—Willowbank, Amanda Leighton, scandal sheets—came together like the pieces of a puzzle falling into place, forming a clear and devastating picture. “Amanda Leighton? Good God.”
Something of the shock he felt must have been in his voice, for she sensed it, and her gaze shifted, coming into the present, seeing him again. “Yes, Jamie,” she said simply. “I am Amanda Leighton. I am the notoriou
s and wanton schoolteacher who was caught fornicating with an earl’s son on school grounds. Yes, I was naked as a jaybird. Yes, it was the middle of the afternoon. Yes, the headmistress herself, along with several of her colleagues and pupils, came across me with my lover while they were on a nature walk.” She gave a laugh, a harsh sound that made him wince. “They got far more nature than they bargained for.”
Jamie didn’t know what to say, or even what to think. His head was reeling, but unfortunately, his memory was now crystal clear. Two years ago, Amanda Leighton had been the most talked about scandal in England, her name a headline in the gutter press for weeks, her past investigated, her career dissected, her colleagues and former pupils interviewed, and all of it served to the public for their greedy and avid consumption.
Her lover, Viscount Halsbury, the son of the Earl of Notting, had refused to marry her, adding fuel to the scandal fire by declaring that Miss Leighton had seduced him. He had been painted by the journalists as the innocent victim of a scheming harlot.
But Jamie, who’d known Halsbury slightly at Cambridge, and who now knew Amanda, and who had done more than his fair share of carousing in his own youth, suspected he had a better understanding than the gutter press or the reading public of what had really happened two years ago and who had seduced whom. He knew all about seduction, for once upon a time, he’d been pretty damn good at it.
“That day, in the park, when you mentioned the man you once loved, the one who wrote poetry, it was him, wasn’t it? It was Viscount Halsbury.”
“Yes. My love, needless to say, was not reciprocated. At least—” She broke off, giving a brittle laugh. “At least not quite in the way I’d hoped. I fell in love in a month, lost my virtue in two, and was abandoned in three.” Her face twisted, and she looked down at the floor. “Not exactly a starved spinster’s romantic dream,” she mumbled.
He studied her bent head, his chest aching. He knew about pain; he understood it well, for it had been his companion for most of his life. But what Amanda had gone through was something beyond pain, and he could not begin to imagine the agony and humiliation she had endured. He’d been behind a hedgerow with a naked girl a time or two, but had they been caught, he’d never have had to suffer the humiliation Amanda had endured, and the knowledge of that shamed him—as a former rake, as a man, and as a human being.
Governess Gone Rogue Page 26
