by Amelia Hart
"I am certain I may rely on it now," Mrs Trent continued, a little stiff.
"As am I." Julia wondered what this could be about. She could imagine only one possibility.
"You understand a young woman - even one in your position - should not be unchaperoned in the presence of a man. Nor welcome unsuitable connections."
"Oh, yes. I know it full well."
"And yet . . ." Mrs Trent's tone was loaded with ominous meaning.
"I think it very unfortunate when an innocent woman should have unwanted attentions thrust upon her," said Julia ruminatively.
"Yes. Such a young woman must take care not to be seen to encourage these attentions."
"Of course not. Far from it."
"Or even to make them possible."
"Though sometimes within the bounds of polite behavior, escape is impossible."
"Escape is never impossible," declared Mrs Trent unquestionably.
There was silence in the room for a long moment, other than the ticking of the ornate ormolu clock on the mantel. "Obviously you have greater experience with such situations than I." Julia adjusted the handle of her delicate tea cup by one half inch.
Mrs Trent preened. "It's true I have had a great many admirers in my time. One does learn to manage them with a certain delicacy. The tales I could tell, if I had a mind to. Though that's neither here nor there. I only wished to say you must have a care." She drank from her own cup, eyed Julia narrowly over the rim, lowered it far enough to say, "Lapses in judgment will not be tolerated," then raised it to drink again.
"I would not expect it." Julia was firm, as stiffly upright and formal as posture could make her.
"Then we shall say no more about it, and I trust no one will have reason to remark on your conduct to me again." All warmth had fled, and Julia saw the woman had been embarrassed by the perceived lapse in the respectability of her staff. These were dangerous waters.
"I can only imagine how distressing such unfounded rumors would be to you. Particularly when it is so difficult to find a governess of excellent family, equal to your own position in the world."
"It is. Though really we should have hired a tutor for Albert. I regret not listening to Mr Trent. I was so inclined to favor you over that dreadful martinet the Ketterlings recommended. For I said to Mr Trent, he will be abominably harsh with my boy, and who is he? From what family? No one we know. You must understand I took a chance on you, and if it wasn't for your grandmother, and your dear departed mother . . . Well. Let us simply say I hope I have no cause to regret it. That is all."
"I see no reason why you should. My intentions are firm, and limited only to my role."
"It would be a great mistake to overreach yourself. He could never mean marriage. Not to one such as you."
Julia lowered her eyelids to hide the flash of rage she felt at these words. "Your conclusion matches my own. Besides, I had formed no such plan. The gentleman is not to my taste."
"You may say so, though you'd be a fool to refuse him if he offered for you. But he will not. He merely amuses himself."
"I'm sure."
"Nonetheless it is good to clarify the situation. There is nothing I abhor more than an unpleasant surprise."
"Yes."
"I'm glad we have spoken. And there is nothing you wish to note concerning the children?"
"Not in particular. Though I might wish the girls applied themselves a little more diligently-"
"Ah, well, boredom with tedious old books is to be expected, of course," said Mrs Trent, suddenly all indulgence. "Why bother with such dry fustiness as history and mathematics when there are more important things to think about? Really I am relieved. I would hate to have any of them turn into a bluestocking."
"Heaven forbid," Julia murmured.
"Well, if that is all I shan't keep you from your duties any longer." Julia obediently set down her cup, and rose. Mrs Trent spoke on. "Pray send Amy to me. I need to speak to her about her dancing lessons. She did not show to advantage the other evening. I have hired a dance tutor. You are well enough in your way, Miss Preston, but her first season approaches. She cannot be too prepared. You will not be offended."
"Of course not. I'm sure we all have Amy's best interests at heart."
"Precisely. Good day, Miss Preston."
"Good day, Mrs Trent." Julia escaped the uncomfortable conversation and went swiftly to the stairs and up them towards the school room. Her heart was beating uncomfortably hard, and if she had come across Mr Holbrook in that moment she could cheerfully have strangled him. How dare he put her in such a position, the fiend? Things had gone far indeed when her employer must take her aside for a scold. Who was talking? Did everyone know they had met in private? And he thought the matter so harmless. He was a fool, and she an even greater one for being so tolerant. She was a conscientious woman who had never needed to be vigilant over her reputation, beyond the bare necessities of respectable behavior. She had never been at such risk before.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Yet avoiding him proved insufficient. He watched her hungrily. It seemed everywhere she went, he was nearby, sometimes with the other guests, sometimes alone. He waited for an opportunity to have private conversation with her, and she imagined he considered himself discrete.
He did not know the meaning of the word. His interest must be clear to any observer. Even the children had noticed.
"That man always stares at you," said Sophie in an interested tone, gazing out of the library window to where Mr Holbrook stood on the lawn.
"It is Mr Holbrook. Mr Holbrook always stares at her," Amy informed her.
"Why does he do that, Pressie?" asked Albert.
"He must think I have a smudge on my nose," said Julia to Albert and Sophie, conscious of Amy's more discerning eyes and ears fixed on her also. "He is staring to see if I will wipe it off."
Elizabeth came forward to inspect her face gravely. "You don't have a smudge."
"Perhaps it is the color of my dress," Julia said. "Perhaps he finds gray excessively revolting. He stares and hopes it will magically change. Poof."
"Pink would be good," said Amy sagely. "Pink is excellent for women with brown hair."
"I think teal would be better, like that gown Mrs Haversham wore to dinner last night," said Sophie, eager to join in a conversation about grown-up, feminine matters.
"She can't wear teal, silly." Amy tilted her head and looked down her nose at her younger sister in a very superior way. "She is not married. She can only wear pastels."
Julia said, "I am perfectly content with gray-"
"But it's so drab and boring," Sophie said. "Surely you'd rather a little color? And some lace. Did you see Mrs Stoneridge's lace on her sleeves? It went down to there. I want lace like that. It creates such a lavish effect." Sophie waved a languid arm in accurate mimicry of Mrs Stoneridge's elegant airs.
"Mother will never let you have lace like that. You'll only tear it, you are so careless," Amy told her with brutal accuracy.
"I am not."
"You are. She shrieked when she saw the hole you put in your blue muslin. No more expensive dresses for you until you come out and there's some potential profit to it. I heard her say so to Papa."
"She'll change her mind. I know she will. Mama never stays angry for long."
"Enough about clothes," Julia said. "Sophie, I want you to find Macedonia for me on the globe."
"But why does Mr Holbrook stare at you so much? Look, he's doing it now. He's trying to pretend he isn't but I can see he is. He's staring in the window at you. Look."
"I have no idea why he would do such a thing, but if you would just find Macedonia-"
"Mr Holbrook has developed a tendre for Miss Preston," said Amy with smug certainty.
"Has he? But why would he do that?"
"Sophie, you are being rude," said Amy, while Julia drew in a slow breath and prayed for patience.
"But it's not like Pressie dresses in beautiful clothes or wears her hair in a
becoming way. Why would a man show an interest in her?"
"Perhaps it's because I know where Macedonia is," Julia said.
"No, it can't be that." Sophie dismissed this ridiculous idea immediately. "Men don't care where Macedonia is, and neither do I."
"Then we'll go back to the schoolroom. If we're not looking at the globe then we have no need to be in the library. Let us go at once."
"Oh very well." Sophie gave the globe a casual spin then stopped it with a single pointing finger. "There it is, if you must know."
"And what have you learned about Macedonia?"
"As much as I care to."
"Sophie Beatrice Anne Trent." Julia's voice carried the crack of a whip. "Girls who do not heed their lessons grow up to be women remarkable for their ignorance. If you ever hope to be more than a bit of fluff in a pretty gown, you will listen, and answer me when I ask you a question."
Sophie, knowing she had pushed too far, straightened and said. "In the time of the Ancient Greeks and Romans, Phillip of Macedon-"
"You need to be more precise than that," Julia prompted her. "In 356BC, Phillip the second of Macedon, father of . . . ?"
"Father of Alexander the Great, fought a lot of wars and established Macedon. Then Alexander went on . . ."
Yes, Mr Holbrook was staring again, gazing in through the open window of the library from where a lively game of shuttlecock was in progress on the lawn. By contrast his own stillness - racquet idle in his hand - was marked. She herself had spent some time watching him at play earlier, his large figure admirably athletic and lithe as he chased the feathery target and swatted it back to the giggling, shrieking ladies. Now he stood idle, and his attention was on her. She could see him out of the corner of her eye. She would not give him the satisfaction of acknowledgment, nor any encouragement at all. He was a danger to her.
"Come, Mr Holbrook, you fail us," came the sweet voice of Miss Cross from outside, just beyond the sill of the library window that was still closed, but audible through the open window beside Julia and the girls. "See, you have let the cock fall again. I admit I was afraid of you to start, but you have become very hesitant."
"What are you staring at, Mr Holbrook?" said a second woman.
"Oh, do not trouble him. He is mooning about again." That was Mrs Langston, acid dripping from each word. "He has conceived a most unlikely passion. But she is cold. She won't answer, and now he languishes in frustration."
Julia froze. There were a dozen people at least on the lawn in the aftermath of the al fresco luncheon, talking and strolling and playing. Mrs Langston's cruel words were loud enough to halt conversation.
"Who do you mean?" asked one of the others in a lower voice.
"Look. The governess. Look there. She is inside. That's who he stares at so intently," said Mrs Langston. Two heads rose up above the sill far enough to inspect Julia - who pretended to be oblivious - then disappeared again. "She had best play her hand now, or lose her chance."
"Mr Holbrook? No, never. He would never look at that drab little thing."
"Miss Preston may not be beautiful, but she has a distinguished air about her," said Miss Cross.
"Distinguished? You are a muttonhead," said Mrs Langston, still over-loud. "So is she if she imagines anything will come of it."
"Of course nothing will come of it. It is Mr Holbrook, after all. He is hardly renowned for constancy."
"I think she probably ignores him completely, which is wise. Let him be frustrated, this once," said Miss Cross. "And come away. I do not like this talk."
"They were talking about you, Pressie," whispered Amy after a moment of silence. The four children were round-eyed. "What are you going to do?"
"Do?" asked Julia, raised a single eyebrow and strove to look unconcerned. "Why should I do anything? The idle gossip of others is no business of mine. Though you may learn from this that you must not spread rumors. You never know when your nasty words may be overheard."
"But you can't just let them say those things about you. That's so horrid."
"Amy, dear, people will always talk. That doesn't mean we have to dignify them with a response. Besides, I do not choose to listen to such rubbish as that." With a fine pretense of dignity she got up from her seat at the great desk, smoothed out her skirts with hands that trembled, and went past them to the door. "Come along now. If you finish your essays on the Ottoman Empire then we shall play a round of blind man's bluff this afternoon."
"Three rounds," said Sophie.
"Five rounds," said Albert.
"I will make it six rounds if you can name the city that was conquered to make the Ottoman state into an empire," Julia offered.
Albert skipped along beside her, leaping up and trying to reach the picture rail. "Anatolia!"
"That's not a city, stupid," said Sophie. "It's Constantinople."
"I'm not stupid. You're stupid."
"She's right, though," Julia interjected before they could escalate. "Constantinople it is, which brought on the end of which other empire?"
"Byzantine?"
"Yes. Byzantine." So she distracted them, thinking she could no longer avoid addressing the issue of Mr Holbrook. For five days she had kept herself indoors and constantly with the children, had stayed away from evening gatherings of the guests and out of sight, yet still he made his presence felt. She dreaded the moment when he decided to return her own inadvertent stunt of visiting her bedroom. A man with so few principles was capable of anything. She locked her door every night. But it was not enough. She must be viciously repellent to him, more than even she had been before.
CHAPTER TWELVE
A glance was all it took.
She supposed he had had enough practice at assignations. She met his eyes - for the first time in days - looked at the door to the terrace, and looked back at him. It was enough. She saw a fierce light kindle in his eyes and he nodded once, a subtle motion that another might have thought random. She knew better, and she walked out onto the terrace alone. In the shrubbery at the foot of the steps she waited, the evocative resinous scent reminding her of the last evening she had stood here, and watched the door.
He was more skillful than that.
Suddenly there were strong hands on her upper arms, and she was drawn back against a broad chest. "Little dove," he said softly in her ear.
She quivered with unwanted excitement at the touch. "That is a foolish thing to call me. I am nothing like a dove."
He smiled, his teeth a pale glint in the dimness as she turned and pulled free. "True. But your dress looks almost white in the night."
She pressed her lips together, vexed by this mistake that might make her visible to anyone wandering in the garden, and wished she had worn navy blue. She stepped further into the shelter of the trees, and he followed without hesitation, standing too close. His hand came up to cup her cheek, and she struck it away.
"No! I didn't want you here for . . . for that."
"What then? What do you want me for?" His tone was smoothly suggestive, and he moved even closer so his thighs pressed against her skirts.
She crossed her arms over her chest. "No! I only want to speak to you."
"Then speak." He was close enough she could smell the sweet fruitiness of wine on his breath.
"You are threatening my position here. More than a threat. Everyone has noticed, and speaks of your attentions to me. You must cease. You realize by now there will never be anything between us. Relieve me. Say you will not . . . not be like you are. Not watch me, or seek me out. Say you will ignore me."
"I'll say it if it pleases you, but it won't be true." He eased even closer, so his chest brushed against her bodice. Branches of the fir stabbed her in the back. She could retreat no further.
Her palms pushed against his chest in entreaty, but he did not budge. "I do not want this. How many times must I say it?"
"Your body must learn to say it before I'll believe you. Do you think I can't see you watch me too? Do you imagine I am unawar
e of you? I am not. Each time your head turns to me I know it, and it is often.
She raised one hand to her burning cheek. "Don't say these things."
"Why not? They are true. I am not the only one who yearns. This hunger belongs to both of us."
"You are wrong-" But his mouth came down on hers, and she could taste the hunger he spoke of, the fervency of him bent to her as if he would convince her by sheer force of will.
It did not require force. Her mouth opened under his, let in his seeking tongue, a shocking thing to have within her; crassly intimate, silkily seductive. He sucked on her, encouraged her to respond, and when she returned the slick caress he groaned into her mouth. "Yes, sweetling. Yes, like that." One of his arms was around her waist, holding her close, his other wrapped around her shoulders and he tilted her off balance, so she gasped and clung to him, afraid of falling. But he held her secure and after a moment her head tipped back in surrender, and she gave him her weight as she kissed him heedlessly.
He was hot in the night, and so was she, her clothing chafing, binding her almost unbearably and she wanted to fold at the knees, to go down with him into darkness and sensation and never think again or measure the cost.
Foolishness.
"No," she whimpered, a broken sound. It took a moment to gather the will to speak again. "No. This is wrong." Still she clung to him, a vine with no support but him.
"It is right. It is right and perfect and what we were made for. Don't tell me no, sweetling. Let me teach you. Let me show you the way."
"No. I will not do this." She whispered it, and hoped it was true. Hoped it was not true.
"Then we will not, if you don't want to. Only let me touch you, just here, like this." He had gathered her dress without her realizing, lifted it so the folds of fabric fell over his forearm, so his hand was suddenly there at her undergarments. She made a sound of shock and he kissed her again, for a moment distracting her and then-
