He drew slightly nearer, studying her eyes beneath the glass of her spectacles. “And what classification would I put you beneath, Alice?”
Her gaze met his, and her lips parted. “I haven’t any idea, sir. Something small. Inconsequential.”
He shook his head, the movement slight. He leaned closer. “Never that. Perhaps the Polyommatus coridon. They are butterflies, with soft, white-tipped wings, though they are a bright blue at the center. They flutter above the low-growing flowers, bringing notice to themselves and the beauty people too often ignore.”
She tipped her head upward, her lovely eyes studying his. “They sound enchanting.”
“As are you, Alice.”
Before he could breathe another word, a door down the hall clicked open.
Alice sprang backward, making him realize they had stood near enough to kiss.
He took a step back, too, before looking over his shoulder. It was Miss Felton, backing out of the room where her charges likely slept. She turned around and raised both eyebrows, seeing them together in the hall.
“Thank you for bringing Lord James back, Mr. Gardiner,” Alice said, her voice firm and impersonal. “I hope you enjoy the rest of your evening.”
Rupert turned his attention back to her and bowed. “Good evening, Miss Sharpe.” Then he had no choice but to leave, nodding at Miss Felton as he went. He said nothing to her, and he schooled his features into the mask of a proper gentleman.
But for the rest of the evening, all he could do was debate whether or not it had been a good thing that someone had interrupted the moment between Alice and him.
Because he was fairly certain he had been about to kiss his beautiful blue butterfly...
Chapter 15
Alice didn’t so much as glimpse Rupert for a week after the children’s performance. He sent flowers, sketches, and an impersonal note wishing her well. She returned the sketches to his valet when she completed them.
The duke’s guests left after the ball, which Alice heard about from Lady Josephine and Emma when they came for tea in the schoolroom.
They had both danced with Rupert, they informed her, and found superb entertainment when he told them he had been categorizing the ladies at the event into different insect families.
Otherwise, the routine went back to what it had been before the guests’ arrival, but the reprieve was brief. June arrived, and with it more preparations for the duke to receive visitors.
“Simon is coming home,” Lord James announced one morning after his return from his father’s study. With the guests gone, the duke made time every morning for his youngest child. “Papa has had a letter from him, and he is bringing his friends.”
Talk of the duke’s eldest son returning home had come up nearly every day since Alice’s arrival.
Lady Isabelle and Lady Rosalind exchanged enthusiastic smiles. “Simon’s friends are always attractive,” Lady Isabelle said.
“You are both far too young to worry over such things,” Alice said without even looking up from her inspection of Lady Isabelle’s drawing of a Spanish mosque. She had copied the building from a book on the subject of the Moors in Spain. Alice had hopes that Lady Isabelle’s interest in religions would lead to some interest in architecture, or at least provide the girl with more understanding of the subject dear to her mother’s heart.
Lady Rosalind emitted a dramatic sigh, putting her chin in her hand and her elbow upon the table. “Someday we must pay attention to gentlemen. We will have to marry. Eventually.”
“Papa has said he will give us at least a little freedom to choose.” Lady Isabelle fiddled with the pencil in her grasp, twisting and turning it. “I think I should study gentlemen now so I will know what I like before I am made to wed.”
Alice looked up at the young woman. “Will your parents play a part in arranging your marriages?” She had not heard the girls speak of such a thing, though she knew that the highest ranks of the nobility were mostly populated through arrangement rather than affection.
“To an extent,” Lady Isabelle answered with a shrug. “Josephine is expected to make an advantageous match before she is five and twenty.”
“Oh.” Given that Josephine was only eighteen years of age, that gave her lots of time to settle on her choice. “What constitutes an advantageous match for the daughters of a duke? One would think you outrank every gentleman in the kingdom, excepting any princes.”
Lady Rosalind flipped a page in the book before her. “Money. Land. Any other title, I think, if Papa found the nobleman suitable.”
Lady Isabelle nodded her agreement. “Especially if the man was from another kingdom entirely. Papa is always saying that after the business with Napoleon that England must befriend more nations.”
“I do suppose that all makes sense.” Alice pointed to a spot on the sketch. “Here, I think you have curved this spire in too dramatically, Lady Isabelle.”
The girl set about correcting the mistake without complaint. She intended to paint her drawing, guided only by description of the building in the text.
“I don’t see why you are more excited about Simon’s friends than the fact that Simon is coming home.” Lord James dropped into a chair with a scowl. “We haven’t seen him in an entire year.”
The duke’s eldest son and heir, holding the honorary title of the Earl of Farleigh, had been on a tour of Greece and Italy, from what Alice had gathered. He had visited Spain, France, and Prussia in the last year, too.
Lady Rosalind poked her younger brother with a finger. “Oh, hush. You know we are excited to see Simon. But we have had more than enough letters from him.”
“You’re only hoping he brings you presents,” Lady Isabelle added with a knowing grin at her brother.
Lord James folded his arms. “I know he will, and you want presents as much as I do.”
The girls laughed, but before they could tease their little brother into a foul mood, Alice pronounced a break in their work. “I think we ought to go for a walk in the gardens before dinner. I have had quite enough of this room for the day. Do you agree, children?”
Their response was immediate approval, and they all rushed from the room to gather hats and parasols, and whatever things they wished to bring to the gardens with them.
Alice tidied the things upon the table and left the rest of the room for the maids. The servants would not touch their school things but could be depended upon to set the rest of the room to rights before the next morning. That left Alice more time to see to her own tasks, thankfully.
She had been with the family for an entire month, and each day made her feel more at ease in her position. Never had she belonged in a place all her own, independent of her family’s charity. Work was a far sight better than dependence.
Alice fixed her bonnet atop her head, tugged her gloves into place, and took her sketchbook with her to the corridor where the children waited. Lord James led the way down the steps and out into the sunshine. The girls talked excitedly between them, mostly about their brother’s friends who might accompany him home, and their younger brother skipped rope ahead of them, all the way down the path to the rose garden.
Alice settled on a stone bench beneath a spray of white roses, somewhat disappointed at the children’s chosen destination.
Rupert had finished his examination of the rose gardens before Alice even arrived at the castle. She knew from his sketches that he spent most of his time further away from the castle proper at this point in his studies.
It had been an age since she had caught more than a glimpse of him, and even that had been from the schoolroom window.
Perhaps she had misjudged their friendship. Or he had decided she was beneath his notice. Or...or something.
Her eyes stung a moment, but Alice brushed aside her feelings as foolishness. Then she opened her sketchbook and began work on her drawing of Lady Rosalind. She intended to gift the sketch to the girl for her upcoming birthday. Childhood was fleeting, and perhaps having it p
reserved in a sketch would gratify the girl when she grew up.
Alice removed her spectacles and rubbed at her eyes, then watched Rosalind with the eyewear still in her hand. Both of the duke’s younger daughters were pretty, and would soon grow into beautiful women, likely to turn the head of every man from London to the farthest reaches of Europe.
For the present, Alice was happy to grant them the peace of their mother’s gardens.
Every day that he did not see Alice, Rupert counted as dull. Despite the progress of his work, and his lively conversations on science with the duke, he missed the governess. He missed her observations on flowers and insects and people; he missed her quick smile and her wit.
Rupert rolled over in the grass of the meadow, a dandelion between his teeth as he stared upward at the summer sky.
He missed talking to her and listening when she talked.
In fact, it had impacted his work. When he ought to have studied the workings of a hornet’s nest he found in the woods, he instead sketched more flowers for her to add color and gathered many more specimens of plants than was strictly necessary, just to send them to her.
Why could not a dinner guest fall ill again, making room at the table for Alice?
Perhaps that was an unkind wish, but it was in his mind. He had debated sending her a note, asking for a meeting, several times. As the silence stretched between them, he wondered if it would be wise. If they did not meet again naturally, and soon, he might go mad.
As a bachelor, he could hardly send personal notes to Alice when anyone might read them. Rupert wouldn’t make her fodder for gossip. His work had kept him at the far reaches of the estate, and her duties as governess kept her with the children.
“It’s possible I imagined it all,” he said aloud to a bee that came to inspect his dandelion. The bee landed on Rupert’s nose. “I know most consider me odd the moment I open my mouth.”
The bee apparently thought the same, as it took flight and left him.
Talking to bees was a new low point in his life.
Rupert sat up, then drew his watch from his pocket to check the time. Three o’clock in the afternoon, with hardly any work to show for it.
Of course, he drew near the end of the project. At least, near to the end of making observations. He had only the woods left to explore, then he would compile his findings into a book for the duke and make a more abbreviated version of the work to submit to the Royal Society.
The most interesting part of his studies was nearly at a close. He would not even need to be present on the duke’s property anymore. He could journey the sixteen miles back to his father’s estate and finish writing up his discoveries there.
Perhaps never seeing Alice again.
He wanted to talk to Alice. He cared too much about her to leave without a word, without telling her that he—
He cared about her more than he had words to say.
Rupert rose and dusted himself off, then gathered up the basket full of little cages and his sketchbook. He slung his long butterfly net over his shoulder, then he turned and went slowly up the hill toward the formal castle gardens and the castle itself.
The structure was imposing, he reflected. If one did not know it had been built a decade before, one might suppose it to be a true work of Gothic architecture. Her Grace had done a fine job on the design. Thankfully, the interior was more modern and comfortable than buildings of greater age.
He missed his own home, though.
He trudged up through the wild gardens, the statue garden where he avoided looking in the direction of Aphrodite, then into the rose gardens.
He stepped through the hedges, around a large fountain, and into another section of roses surrounding a large elm tree.
Alice. His heart surprised him, singing her name in his thoughts the exact moment he saw her.
There she sat, on one of the stone benches, in perfect profile from where he stood. She was bent over her sketchbook, her bonnet casting shade upon her face, and her bare hand flying over the paper as she drew.
Rupert nearly dropped everything he held but came to his senses and put his belongings down carefully, instead. Then he tucked his hands behind his back and approached, moving slowly even though his heart raced at the very sight of her.
She came aware of him when he was still several feet away, her posture stiffening a moment before she turned her head to see him. For a long, horrid moment she appeared only surprised.
He had made a mistake. Overstepped. Perhaps been too forward—
Then she rose, dropping her sketchbook at once, and she crossed the distance between them until she was near enough to touch.
“Rupert,” she said, her eyes glowing a clear, more stunning blue than he remembered. That was when he realized she did not wear her spectacles. Without the glass and metal to frame her blue eyes, they were magnificently beautiful, like the very sky he had stared at only moments before.
He bowed, not taking his gaze from hers. “Alice.”
Then, despite the forwardness of such a remark, she said what he had thought the whole of the morning. “I have missed you terribly. Where have you been?”
A startled laugh escaped him, then he reached for her hand, reveling in the touch of her bare skin against his. “Here and there, my dear. You have received my flowers and sketches. You know exactly where I have been.”
Her cheeks pinked and she nodded once. “In the meadow and the woods, then. I am afraid my duties have kept me inside, and with the children.”
“While mine have kept me out-of-doors.” He had eyes only for her, as the world around them momentarily ceased to exist. “I missed you, too,” he admitted. “Though I did not know what to do about it.”
“The day after tomorrow is my half day,” she said, then her color deepened. “Oh, that was entirely too eager. Of course, you will be busy—”
“Busy spending time with you,” he interjected quickly, feeling heat creep up his neck and into his ears.
Her shy smile made him adore her still more than he had before. Rupert drew a little closer and bent toward her.
“Mr. Gardiner,” a young feminine voice shouted.
Alice stepped away, her eyes widening rather comically as she turned toward the children.
The three youngest members of the duke’s brood stared at them, Lord James with a puzzled frown and the two girls with wide eyes and delighted smiles.
A colorful litany of obscure words paraded through Rupert’s mind, but he forced himself to appear undisturbed as he gently released Alice’s hand.
“My lord and ladies, I did not see you there.”
“Apparently not,” Lady Rosalind said, her grin widening.
Lady Isabelle elbowed her younger sister in the ribs. Then she curtsied prettily, prompting her siblings to greet him with better manners.
“We are so pleased to see you, Mr. Gardiner,” Lady Isabelle said, all diplomatic politeness. “Unfortunately, we cannot stay to talk. Rosalind and I must attend to our mother, and we had better take James along with us. I am certain he has an appointment with our father before dinner.”
The boy scowled up at his sister but did not contradict her. Rupert suspected Rosalind had given him a pinch at the elbow to ensure he went along with their contrived reason for leaving.
Alice frowned at her young charges. “I was not aware—”
“Never mind, Miss Sharpe,” Lady Isabelle said quickly. “We will make our way back inside. Your enjoyment of the garden needn’t end because we are called away.” She curtsied again, then fairly dragged Lady Rosalind behind her, who in turn spurred Lord James into moving with a glare.
Alice’s blush deepened, but she did not follow the children out of the garden with more than her gaze, her eyebrows pulling together in a frown. “Oh dear. That was not subtle at all.”
“You really ought to teach them better acting skills,” Rupert said, unable to help but tease her. “Surely that falls under the duties of a governess.”
Alice faced him again, still appearing rather bewildered. “Rupert, what if they tell someone? If Her Grace thinks I am conducting private liaisons with gentlemen...” She let her words die away, concern darkening her eyes.
Rupert glanced the way the children had gone, then drew her with him into the shadows beneath the tree. “Somehow, I do not think they mean to spread gossip. It is easy enough to see those children adore you.” His heart beat rapidly within his breast. “May I spend your half day with you?” Rupert took her other hand, holding both of them low and between them. “I would like to show you what I have studied, and I want to hear of how you have passed your days.”
“I can hardly believe it,” she said, tilting her head to the side as she teased him. “I thought insects held more interest for you than people.”
“That is generally true.” He released a rather dramatic sigh. “They are less complex, to be sure. But I find they do not carry on conversations very well. Only this afternoon, a bumblebee snubbed me when I tried to confide in him.”
Alice’s lips twitched upward. “Oh, dear. How rude of him.”
“Terribly rude.” Rupert bent a little closer, enthralled by the clear blue of her eyes. “Where are your spectacles?”
She tipped her chin upward. “On the bench.”
“Do you not need them?” He asked, curious as he took in the pale tips of her eyelashes, which he had not noticed before that moment. They were as golden as her hair.
“Not all the time. It has become a habit to wear them.” Her voice lowered, as though she shared a secret. “One of my relatives insisted I keep them on, because they made me appear plainer.”
“Horrid person, whoever it was.” Rupert released one of her hands in order to lay his palm against her cheek, causing her to shiver. “They do not make you plain at all. Nothing so simple could hide your beauty, my Alice.”
Her breath shuddered. “Without them, you do look rather blurry when you stand so near.”
That made him smile, but it did not prevent him from tipping his head lower. “That is a shame.”
Mr. Gardiner and the Governess: A Regency Romance (Clairvoir Castle Romances Book 1) Page 13
