“That also I expect of an actress. You sound half in love with her yourself. Are you sure you have no interest?”
“Fro, my children are in the house.”
“Oh, right.” He finished his meal in deep thought. “Perhaps I can offer her a long-term engagement elsewhere, not marriage but something not quite as dull as staying here.”
“Oh, really?” Wyle leaned forward, dropping the front chair legs into the floor.
“No offence, Wyle but you have become a dull dog. You never go anywhere. You divorced your wife years ago. You really should look about you and find someone—for real.”
“Now you sound like Aunt Alva.”
“So where is the woman now?”
“Probably lounging in bed, plotting.”
Frobisher wiped his fingers on his napkin and cast it on the table as he rose. “Wish me luck.”
Wyle followed Frobisher upstairs, taking the steps two at a time since he couldn’t bend his right knee much. They encountered a maid coming out of the woman’s chamber with a tray. “Where is she?” he asked without ceremony.
“The schoolroom having breakfast with the children.”
“What?” Wyle staggered back against the wall, then plunged up the next flight of stairs with Frobisher in his wake. When he threw the door open, Charlotte was just pointing at the wall map and Henry was sitting on the sofa beside a strange woman dressed in a sober gray gown and shawl.
“I thought—I thought…” Wyle stammered.
Frobisher stared at her. “Are you Miss Morton’s friend?”
“I do not know a Miss Morton. I am Miss Greenway, the new governess. And you are?”
Into the appalled silence Henry said, “Lieutenant Frobisher.”
“Pleased to meet you. Would you gentlemen like to join us? We’ve ordered another pot of tea.”
Wyle felt himself swaying on his feet, for though she looked nothing like the woman he had forced to don a glittering ball gown last night, the voice was the same—confident, cultured and calculating.
“No, we don’t want any tea,” he spat out in despair.
“Wait,” she said. “Frobisher? The Frobisher you mentioned last night?” She stared at Wyle. “Perhaps you can shed some light on the events of the evening.” Marian stood and picked up a pointer that made Frobisher skirt the sofa warily in his efforts to get a better look at her.
Wyle tried to pull himself together. “I-I did not realize you had arrived Miss Greenway. May I see you in my study?”
“Yes, of course. I shall be down directly.”
As they went back downstairs, Frobisher said, “False alarm. That certainly is a governess. The actress must have left during the night.”
When they passed Miss Greenway’s room, Wyle, who had always told Frobisher everything, decided to keep this one very embarrassing incident to himself. “Yes, she must have left like Cinderella after the ball.”
“And you were worried. There isn’t so much as a stray slipper to betray her presence.”
* * * * *
Twenty minutes later when Marian presented herself in Wyle’s study on the second floor, she thought Lord Wyle looked worried. In fact when he had come into the schoolroom he had looked like a stunned ox. Now why?
“Miss Green.”
“Greenway.” Rather than sitting she stood with her hands on the back of a chair facing the desk. Of course this meant that Wyle could not sit either.
“I thought you went by Green to save your family embarrassment.”
“No, you misheard me last night.”
He looked thoughtful as though replaying the evening in his mind. “It won’t work.”
She shook her head. “What are you talking about?”
“After last night I cannot allow you to teach my children.”
“But you ordered me to pretend to be your fiancée. Now you are blaming me?”
“I thought you were someone else.” He turned toward the window rather than face her.
She stared at him wondering if he was mad. “Who?”
Wyle blew out a defeated breath. “An actress Frobisher hired to play my fiancée.”
“That was a very dangerous thing to do.” Marian folded her arms and walked around the desk so that he had to face her. “What if she refused to break off the engagement? You would have had to buy your way out of it. She might even sue you for breach of promise.”
Wyle shut his eyes against the hammering headache. “Yes, yes but I wasn’t thinking very clearly when I agreed.”
“I see, foxed. But I begin to wonder if you ever think clearly. And you an artillery officer. So you did not realize I was the new governess when you ordered me to dine with your party?”
He looked at her finally. “You should have corrected my error.”
She glared. “I did not know you had made one. At my last position I did indeed dine with the family. At first yours did not seem like an outlandish request until I put on the dress.” She felt her color rise and was unable to suppress the remembered embarrassment.
“And then?” He was staring at her with that dent between his eyebrows.
“By then I was angry.”
“Yes, I got that. But you went through with it.”
“Something in me rebels at creating a scene, especially before people who all seem to wish you well. Your relatives accepted me, a total stranger, for your sake. They care about you more than you care for them obviously. Now why is that?” She was standing by a large globe that would be so much more use in the schoolroom than here, and rested her hand on it.
“Still, you have served your purpose and you must go.”
“But you promised me a position as governess.” Marian steeled herself for just one small lie. “I left my old position in expectation of it.” Well, that was true. She could hear the tears in her own voice. Those at least she could stop.
“I will pay you a year’s salary.”
“You already have. I will work for a year without any other pay just to prove myself.”
“I can’t have my children exposed to…”
“To what? A hard worker, someone who loves books and the arts?” She bit her lip, having run out of arguments.
“But you also know about deceit, about the games people play in society.”
“I very lately came from society myself. And yes I understand their games. It might benefit your children to know about them as well.”
“I said I would pay you.”
His voice has hard, implacable. She was losing.
“And you don’t see the injustice of paying an actress as much for an evening of entertainment as you would pay a poor governess for a year’s labor?”
“It’s not the money.”
“Easy for you to say since you have it to throw away. I have a mother to support.”
“But people know you now as my fiancée. How can I present you to them as a governess? They would recognize you.”
“You did not until I spoke. Frobisher still does not realize it.”
“It was your voice.” He ducked his head again, unable to look at her, she surmised, when he knew her cause was just.
“They will never see me. You need never see me.” She gestured with her hands. “Besides, I have two faces, one for the children and one I used to wear when I was in society, the one you saw last night. No one need ever see that face again.” If only she could convince him of her ability to disappear he might let her stay.
Wyle looked at her earnest sweet face and knew a wave of regret. How could such a beauty condemn herself to obscurity. Major Greenway had been announced missing after the battle of San Sebastian, the same one in which Wyle had been wounded. Greenway was thought dead until his body had not been found. Then there were rumors of desertion or treason. “Just leave me.”
“But what about Charlotte and Henry? They asked me if I would stay forever.”
“And I suppose you said you would.”
“That would be stupid. I said it was u
p to them. Children need to feel as though they have some control of their world. You have not given them that feeling.”
“I will not hear any more. My carriage will be at the door in half an hour. Get into it. It will take you anywhere you wish to go.”
“I wish to go back in time four years to when my father was with me and I was happy. Have you enough money to buy that for me?”
There was a soft rustle of fabric and the door clicked. He was expecting her to slam it. He rang and sent for the traveling carriage, then tried to work on his memoirs of the war but his secretary Hill had not arrived from the country yet and when he tried to write with his injured hand he did nothing but create ink blots. Besides, all he could think of was Marian and her problems.
Major Greenway. He had met him more than once. An honorable man and a courageous one. This talk of defection was ridiculous. Greenway’s daughter seemed much like him. He should do something for this girl. He would give the coachman an envelope with a bank draft. That could be handed to her when she was far from here. He took some pains over writing it out with what was now a spider scrawl and rang for a servant to carry it to the stable.
He missed his old life. He hated sending messages and having servants dance attendance on him. He missed the informality of Peninsular days. Riding to hounds during the long breaks in the fighting, even riding out to battle had an expectancy to it. Everything was in the future then. He was only thirty-five years old, yet he felt an old man and useless. Hiding behind a charade because he felt too pummeled by life to try to build anything new.
The door opened and he looked up to confront Charlotte’s flashing brown eyes and a determined set to her chin he had never seen before. She looked a little like her mother Louisa when she was angry.
“What have you done to Miss Greenway?”
“I dismissed her. It was not well done of her to come running to you.”
“She did not. I found her in her room in tears. Why are you sending her away? We like her.”
“Because…because she argues with me.”
“When you are wrong? If you think to escape that then brace yourself, Father, for I will always argue with you. You had no reason to dismiss her. She told us about her father the major and her mother in the little cottage. She needs this position. And we need her.” Charlotte leaned both hands on the desk and stared at him.
“She was trying to get your sympathy.”
His daughter glared at him. “I know real tears when I see them. I have cried enough of them.”
Suddenly he looked at Charlotte and realized she was not a child anymore, that she had grown up when he wasn’t looking and that stabbed at his heart.
“I know you don’t understand about the divorce.”
“Who cares about the divorce? I scarcely knew Mother. She was never with us. Neither were you. And Miss Grey, all the servants, they kept us in this house like prisoners. I always dreaded coming to London because we never got to see any of it. Even at Fair Oaks, there is no riding, nothing but a sedate walk. Miss Greenway promised to teach us everything. She’s not afraid of living like you are.”
He stared at her a moment, the passionate look, the determined chin, then heard the carriage in the street. Footsteps on the stairs would be the men coming for her trunks. In a very few moments it would be too late to do anything and Charlotte…she might hate him. Something flashed in his mind from an encounter with Major Greenway and he jumped up. A sharp pain bit into his knee but he limped to the door anyway and threw it open into the hall. “Stop, where are you taking that trunk?”
Miss Greenway, two steps down the stairs already, looked both angry and fearful. She must think he was going to confiscate her wages. “Put it back in Miss Greenway’s room. She is staying.” He plundered his distraught mind for some reason for this change of heart and realized he need only find an excuse that would convince Charlotte and the servants. “I have agreed to her salary.”
He rather enjoyed the way Miss Greenway’s delicate brows came together when he had puzzled her. She looked very much as she had the night before when he had dragged her up the stairs and threatened to help her change.
“Charlotte, go get your pelisse and Henry.”
The girl looked stunned. “But where are we going, Father?”
“To see London.”
“Yes!” Charlotte shouted as she hiked up her skirts and ran up the stairs.
“What—what has happened, sir?” Marian came up to the landing, looking at him again as though he had indeed lost his reason.
Wyle limped toward her as the footmen shook their heads and replaced the baggage. “I remembered something your father said to me. ‘Don’t let the passage of time decide anything for you. Act even if it may be a mistake. At least it is your mistake’.”
Marian blinked. “I am quite sure he was talking about battle.”
“I am not. Ah, here come the children. The carriage is at the door. Where shall we go first?”
She still looked confused but a smile was breaking upon her lips. “Perhaps an improving museum?”
“No, no,” Henry said. “The Tower with the animals.”
“The Tower it is then.” Wyle took Marian’s arm and they followed the children down the stairs. Those were tears on her lashes but he thought it had to do with more than herself. How could he have neglected his two children so much? Just because he could not love their mother should not have meant he withheld his love from them.
Chapter Three
Five hours later the expedition returned to the house, the children tired but laughing as they carried their booty to their rooms. Marian had not let Wyle buy her anything but a package of ribbons but she laid it reverently on her bed and kicked off her slippers. It seemed like a dream to her now, not just his change of heart but how he had acted today. He had seemed happy, or at least determined to fake it extremely well. It made Marian wonder how unhappy he was in the depths of his soul that he had pushed his children away for so long.
His servants had been surprised by the orders to drive to the Tower, then to the docks where Wyle had haggled expertly and purchased exotic fruits and produce. Charlotte now had two lovebirds in a wicker cage. Fortunately there had been no monkeys for sale but Henry had not given up the idea.
They had lunched and had ices at a hotel, then driven up Oxford Street, stopping at any shop that took their fancy. Since it had drizzled for an hour while they were driving around the parks no one questioned why Lord Wyle had chosen his covered traveling carriage for an expedition around the city. No one questioned him at all though Marian noted that she was not the only one who stared at him as though he had run mad.
She sighed and glanced at her reticule. She extracted the envelope the coachman had handed her on their return and broke the seal to discover a check for five hundred pounds. What was she to make of that?
The maid who had been attending to her needs arrived breathless to ask if she would join Lord Wyle for dinner later that evening.
Marian looked so dubious the girl rushed ahead with her message.
“And if it pleases you I am to become your personal maid.”
That meant he wanted her to stay. “Would that please you, Susan?”
“Oh, yes. Would you like me to bring hot water?”
“Yes, I would like a bath very much.”
When she was gone, Marian reflected that a promotion from upstairs maid to the personal maid, even of a governess, might double the girl’s wages. No matter how poor she felt, she must remember that there were many thousands of hard-working people far worse off than she was. And even they had to keep up appearances.
But dining with Wyle? There was much she needed to say to him but not over dinner. Still he had been so good to the children today she wanted to thank him. Besides, who would know they dined alone?
Several hours later she donned her lavender dress, placed an elegant lace cap on her head and went to the drawing room with her lips pressed tightly together. When she
entered, Wyle heaved himself up from the chair where he had been brooding and came to inspect her.
“Which face are you wearing tonight?” His gaze fastened on her cap.
“The governess one, of course. That is what I promised.”
“Does that mean you will not smile at me at all?”
She sat down and let him pour her a sherry. “How could I withhold that slight approval when you have made your children so happy today?”
“It was unfair of me to offer them a diet of sweets today when I have so long denied them a meal of affection?” He seated himself across from her and reached for his wineglass.
“I regarded it as a promise of more of your attention in future.” She thought he choked a little on his wine. “And I assure you, so do they.”
“The war is over, or nearly so. I do intend to spend more time with them in future.”
“Speaking of the future, what am I to make of that envelope the coachman gave me?”
“Oh, that. Your first year’s salary, of course, unless you think you are worth more.”
“That is more than satisfactory, so long as you are hiring only a governess.”
He looked surprised or feigned it very well, then smiled.
“Of course, what did you think I meant by it?”
“I was not sure, sir. That is why I asked. Would you like me to play for you until dinner?” The vast room seemed empty with only the two of them.
“You play the pianoforte well.”
“Yes, that was in my credentials if you recall.”
His eyebrows got that mark of concentration between them.
“You do recall that, or did you not read them?”
He looked down. “My secretary takes care of such matters for me.”
“I see, you did not read them.”
“No.” He faced her with the hint of a smile.
“But not the harp.”
“What?”
She glanced toward the imposing instrument with some unease. It sat in the corner of the room near the piano, some music stands and half a dozen chairs. She knew that musical entertainments were once the fashion in this home and hoped he had no such aspirations for the future.
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