by Edith Layton
“You refused,” he said softly, watching how she colored up and suddenly seemed to find her fingertips fascinating as he went on, “and so be it. It’s regrettable, but it’s forgotten, I assure you. I don’t know what sort of employers you’re used to, Miss Dawkins, and it’s not pleasant for me to conjecture what you imagine my attractiveness to be to others of your sex, but I promise you I’m neither so driven nor so desperate a chap that I’d enlist my own mama and lure innocent children to my estate so as to better lay my hands upon you. I do need a governess for the children you saddled me with. No, don’t bother denying it, you passed them on to me. From the moment they clapped eyes on me I’ve been in their thrall. They’re rather like tar babies, aren’t they? They stick to one’s heart at one touch,” he complained, “and I begin to think I’ll never shake myself free.”
She smiled at him then, looking up from her hands and smiling so radiantly that he wished to continue saying amusing things to her for hours, so that she’d continue to look at him so. But then something in his appreciative reciprocal smile caused hers to waver so he went on, in a parody of sorrow, “And my mama, although the most liberal parent imaginable, would not be best pleased if her eldest son took to creeping about the Hall, plotting and planning on how to seduce her new companion. I wasn’t born to the nobility, but I was raised ‘proper.’” He grinned. “I can’t deny that I find you attractive, but neither can I forget that you’re now my dependent. So you’ve nothing to fear but my admiration, and admiration’s never assault. So you see,” he concluded with a helpless shrug, “whatever my original goals, and I’ll not deny that they were very different, please believe me when I tell you that now you are entirely safe in my home.”
“But,” she said very quietly, “you did say that you did not want me in your home.”
“So I did,” he admitted seriously, “because I didn’t want gossip, nor did I care to contribute to such gossip. But now there is a good and valid reason for you to be here, which might still the tattlers, though nothing short of death, ours or theirs, will silence them, you understand. Then too, I believe that if I’m surrounded by infants and hemmed about by servants, and watched over by my mama, my lascivious nature might be bridled. Mind you,” he sighed, “I don’t say it will be changed, but I do believe it could be contained.”
She had to grin at that, both at his self-mockery and at the picture of her own outsize vanity that his words provoked. As if, she thought in shamed realization of how foolish her previous fears and hopes had been, as if it were halfway likely that an earl, a gentlemen of his obvious intelligence and stature, would risk disgracing his name before his own family, simply for the sake of some stolen moments with a commoner he’d once briefly thought of as a bed companion.
“I was leaving,” she said at once, as honestly as she was able, “precisely because of the possibility of gossip. I know, indeed, I can never forget, how kind you and your mama have been to me and the children, but I’m not a homeless child. I’m a grown woman. That’s why I’m going. I understand that not only does Miss Comfort have nothing seriously wrong with her, but that she’s staying. And if so, there’s no more reason for me to stay on as well, except for reasons of your charity. And though I’m mindful of it, I can’t accept it any longer. Indeed,” she went on, less honestly, and thus in far cheerier accents, “there’s no reason for me to do so. I’m well qualified for the position, I’ll do very well for myself, I assure you.”
She was exceedingly proud of the way she said it and of the way she’d managed to do so without once letting any emotion but sincerity peek through her words. But then, once she’d done, and he stood watching her with an unfathomable expression, she had to look down at her portmanteau and fuss with the straps on it to maintain her equilibrium.
“Very well, then,” he said briskly, “you may start to unpack at once. Because you can’t have heard the doctor’s final ultimatum. Although fortunately she’s not in desperate case, nonetheless Miss Comfort’s to stay in her bed for quite some time, weeks, months perhaps. Unless the children wish to take up residence at her headboard and my mama wants to pass all her time at the foot, I believe they’ll need a new governess-companion at once. What luck that we happen to have such a highly qualified one on the premises.”
Then, as he turned to go, he paused at her door and said, in the lowest of voices, but with his words tempered by the wickedest grin, “And to think, all the while you were leaving because of Comfort! And I made all those rash promises to behave myself, and there was never a need for it at all.” Then, shaking his head sadly, he left her to her unpacking.
*
“The boy was not only born to hang,” the earl said pleasantly as he came up to the fence and rested his arms against it, “it’s clear he was born to ride as well. Have you ever seen such horsemanship? And he’s only been in the saddle for a matter of weeks. Now,” he said, looking down at the young woman who stood at the rail of the riding ring, “if he could only learn to speak as well as he can ride, we might have the makings of a gentleman.”
Victoria flushed. She hated herself for not having a quick and amusing retort for him. She had rehearsed quite a few to impress him with over the past week, but she’d seldom seen him, much less had a chance to amaze him with her wit, since the day he’d persuaded her to stay on at the Hall. Now he’d materialized from out of nowhere in the afternoon sunlight and spoke at her elbow just as she was watching Alfie put a horse through its paces. Not only had he startled her, since for such a substantial gentlemen he could move very silently, she thought with some grievance, but he’d mentioned the slum accents Alfie used, the ones he could put on and take off like a cloak, and, as she’d also realized soon after meeting the boy, the ones he used precisely as a cloak for his true feelings. She could scarcely betray Alfie’s secret, and yet if she didn’t she knew she’d portray herself as a poor instructress. To sink her further, she knew that all the while she pondered how to reply, she was portraying herself as a ninny, standing gazing down at the grass before her employer, blushing and searching for words.
“The remarkable thing,” the earl said gently as he leaned against the fence and contemplated the effect his remark had upon her, “is how the boy manages to sound precisely like a gentleman when it’s needful and yet can revert to a gutter rat whenever he deems it preferable or is unnerved, or had you noticed? No,” he said, watching her closely, “it wasn’t fair of me, was it? But, Miss Dawkins, this is not the Manor either, you know. You may disagree with me from time to time. In fact, now that I think on it, considering how my own mama, Miss Comfort, and even Alfie treat me, you and the under kitchen maid—you know the plump one with the red hair and the space between her teeth?—well then, you two are the only ones who treat me with the outsize respect obviously due me.”
He seemed to brood over this as Victoria stood tongue-tied, thinking of the several clever things she’d like to say in response, all the things she knew she ought not to say to any of the men she responded to: the nobleman, the employer, and the outrageously attractive gentleman, all of whom the earl personified.
“At any rate,” he said at length, his voice now bored and smooth, as he glanced away from her to Alfie, “I just dropped by to see the lad, and to be sure lessons in the schoolroom were going as well as those in the riding ring.”
“Oh, absolutely, my lord,” Victoria replied readily, for she stood on firm ground when she spoke of her duties. “He’s as quick and able a student as one would wish, and he’s so enthusiastic about bettering himself, he sets a firm example for the younger ones. Bobby is just as able, although much more shy, and Sally…why, Sally is as bright as her face would lead you to believe. I’m most pleased with all of them—you may be sure I’ve no complaint. Is there anything else you wish to know?”
The Earl of Clune stood and contemplated her for a moment before he spoke, and she thought he was considering her question. He was, but only in the sense of wondering at the banality of it. Amazin
g, he thought to himself, incredible actually. What a poor judge of humanity I am become, how lucky I’m not a rash fellow. For, he mused, gazing at the pretty, demure female awaiting his reply, I’d thought her damnably attractive, she preyed on my mind, she’d half turned me upside down trying to sort out my emotions of lust, pity, and admiration. Yet the more I know of her, the less there is to know. She’s bright, to be sure, but entirely conventional, and likely, once out of my bed, she’d have bored me to extinction in an hour. And as for bed, it was only her face which brought me to think of it, he realized. It was the thought of my asking her to that naughty place that lent her the only animation she’s ever shown me, he decided.
Why, she’s Comfort, he thought then in sudden amazement, Comfort herself, a generation past. If he could imagine the old governess young, he thought, he might as well concede she may have been beautiful. But beauty, to such life-denying, insipid, conventional creatures, he thought on an inward shrug, was entirely unimportant, and indeed, entirely incidental. In fact, the more he contemplated the prim and passionless Miss Dawkins as she stared at the ground awaiting his reply, the less lovely she appeared to be to him. Now he decided her cheek was not so much softly rounded as it was perhaps a trifle too plump, her nose might be considered a jot too short as well, and her upper lip, which he’d thought altogether enchanting and eminently kissable in its slightly outward thrust, now appeared merely flawed.
He felt a bit foolish for having entertained such lavish fantasies about such an uninspiring creature. But he was glad he’d discovered Miss Dawkins’ fatal flaw. It was, he believed, only the absence of a personality. Then, somehow enormously relieved at his revelation, and continuing to gaze at her, acknowledging a jolt of disappointment as well, he became amused at himself for feeling blighted at being saved from distraction, aggravation, and worry, and so, smiling, he at last replied.
“No further questions, Miss Dawkins. I’m pleased everything is so well in hand.”
He turned his attention to Alfie again, and had dismissed her so thoroughly from his mind that he was a bit startled to hear her voice at his side again.
“Ah, my lord,” she said softly, “I have a question to ask of you, and though it was never important enough to seek you out for, since you seem at liberty at the moment…?”
“Yes?” he asked, in a more abrupt fashion than he’d intended, since he’d been surprised.
She blushed. “It’s foolishness itself,” she murmured, but then she raised her head courageously, looked him in the eye, and said firmly, “Sally’s been asking about the ghosts. You see, the boys have been teasing her mercilessly about them. They’d like nothing more than to be frightened out of their wits by one, you know. I believe it’s only their disappointment at not having turned up any that’s leading them on, but they’ve invented a pack of specters for their own amusement. It’s gone too far, though, and poor Sally’s afraid to put a toe outside her covers after dark now. Last night I came to tuck her in, and the poor thing was in some distress. Well, it seemed that she had to pay a visit to…ah, she had…she needed to use the necessary,” Miss Dawkins ventured boldly, “but didn’t dare step out of bed. The boys,” she said ruefully, “told her a tale of one of your ancestors who likes nothing better than crawling along the nursery floor and catching hold of little girls’ ankles. He was slain centuries ago, they said, by his little sister when he was on his way to the privy one night, and that’s how he takes his revenge. Well,” she said, and then she faltered, her sensibilities, the earl thought, too offended to go further, but then, to his amazement, he saw that it was laughter she was trying to suppress.
“They’ve peopled the Hall with all sorts of spirits,” she continued in a shaken voice, “headless footmen and phantom coachmen, and even a governess who, because she could never get the first earl to listen to her, hides in the schoolroom and swells to twice her size in rage every full moon. Nothing that I, or Miss Comfort, or even your mama can say will ease her mind—really, my lord, they’ve invented some shocking tales. The one who sidles across the nursery floor looking for ankles is horrid enough, but some of the other ones are…positively inspired,” she managed to say.
“Ah yes,” the earl said thoughtfully, “the ankle-fancying chap, is he up to his old tricks again?”
At her wide-eyed look, he added pleasantly, “Though mind, the governess is the one most people complain of. No, I lie,” he said thoughtfully, “the east bedroom, the one with the bay window and the yellow Chinese wallpaper, yes, that one has the worst of them. That’s the room that has the fifth earl’s spirit haunting it. It’s a tragic story,” he went on sadly. “He died of a surfeit of pudding, yet refuses to lie at rest because he discovered there’s no just deserts for him in the hereafter. His slurping, they say, is a ghastly sound at midnight, but I understand if one leaves a bowl of syllabub on the mantel each night it’s quite safe. Why, that’s your room, isn’t it? Perhaps if you had a chat with Cook?” he suggested solicitously.
Her laughter was a lovely sound, he thought. Alfie turned his attention to it, his mount’s ears went back at it, even the groom with him smiled back in pleasure, for it was a young girl’s irresistible laughter that rang out, rippling and rich and full-throated with nothing pinched and proper and governessy about it.
“Come”—the earl smiled—“we’ll take a walk and talk about it where Alfie’s horse can’t hear us. That mettlesome beast’s got his own sense of humor and will toss the lad off if he senses he’s distracted. No, no, please, don’t poker up, that’s no complaint on my part, Lord knows this old Hall can use all the laughter it can get,” he protested when her face became still, and he continued to smile at her until she visibly relaxed. Then he waved to Alfie before he led his governess away and down the path that led from the stables.
“I’ll have a talk with Sally. I’ll clear the Hall of any hint of a spirit for her, yes.” He smiled down at Victoria, looking a bit shamefaced. “I’m aware of the fact that she idolizes me. I can scarcely wait until she becomes old enough to see all my flaws, as all other adult females do. But if I can make use of her partiality for me to solace her now, I shall. For the truth of it is,” he said thoughtfully, pacing along the bright flower-banked walk, “that there is something about the Hall. Or do only we guilty Haverfords sense it?”
“No,” Victoria replied seriously, all her fears about being too forthcoming with her employer fleeing in the face of a sensible query, “I’ve only been here for a week”—she paused to get the words right—“but everyone speaks of it, from the housekeeper to the stableboys. The Hall is the loveliest noble home I’ve ever seen, not that I’ve seen very many,” she admitted on a depreciating smile, “but there’s an atmosphere, a shadow, a sense of something, an uneasiness in the air that keeps it from being as beautiful as it might be…I cannot say it clearer,” she admitted, “but I believe it might only be that with so many rumors of spirits, one keeps looking over one’s shoulder for a glimpse of one. I understand that it was left deserted except for maintenance staff for a full year after the old earl passed on. I think ghosts breed in vacant rooms and phantoms thrive on loneliness.
“Perhaps that’s why I never encountered any in London,” she continued reflectively. “Space is too precious there, so we’ve probably crowded them all out, for surely just as many people die unhappy deaths there as do here in the countryside, but we haven’t half the number of hauntings you seem to have. So just as the living displace the dead in London, perhaps now that the house is filled with children and dogs, the noise they make will chase all the old phantoms away.”
He looked down and saw her tentative smile of tender reason, and realized that she was trying to reassure him just as though he were little Sally’s age himself. But he did feel fractionally warmer for her smile.
“Thank you, Miss Dawkins.” He grinned. “Now when I have, ah, that is to say, need…to use the necessary in the night, I can do so without stepping smartly and fearing for my ankles. Or was th
at only little girls my dreadful ancestor was after? If he was,” he went on, his mood veering and his dark brows lowering, “then it was probably a true Earl of Clune the boys invented. Small wonder the Hall has such an evil reputation—a great many evil fellows ruled the roost here. That’s not only hearsay. I met a few in my time.
“Perhaps,” he said ruminatively as they strolled back to the house, “that’s why I didn’t open the house for so long. I’ve never felt at home here either. Likely all my predecessors are grumbling in the cellars and attics about the milksop that inherited the place from them, as well. I do feel their disapproval,” he sighed, “but I’ve got the title and the house with it and it’s my responsibility as I see it to hold all intact for the next earl. It might be that in time I’ll sire some hell-raiser and that will placate them, because I begin to think that only in raising their spirits will I lower the spirits here.” He laughed.
His companion only nodded at that, not sure whether she ought to make any comment on his potential fatherhood, and as though he realized this himself, he changed the subject quickly.
“Doubtless I disappoint them in a thousand ways,” he said on a shrug. “I even cleared the place of their prize peacocks after I moved in.”
“I know.” Victoria laughed, feeling free to look up again at this. “Sally, I might tell you, regrets it almost as much as the boys do.”
“Really?” he asked, frowning. “But I thought they detested the creatures as much as I did. I found them to be merely huge, glorified chickens. They spent half the night screeching at each other, and the other half fouling all the garden paths. They might have had lovely bodies, but their brains were sadly lacking. I spied one strutting in circles one morning, when there was no peahen about, exhibiting his tail in an effort to court a very bored pigeon. After they’d destroyed my sleep for a few weeks, leaping about on the parapets every night, mewling like cats to each other, I had them all herded up and gave them, every last feather of them, to Squire Hadley over in the next county. He sets great store by them and says they add dash to a gentleman’s estates. But Alfie begged me to serve them up for dinner dressed in their own feathers, just as he’d seen in his history books, and Bobby said they gave him the headache, and Sally herself coveted their tails for a fan. Now you tell me they mourn their absence?”
