Seeking Celeste

by Solomon, Hayley Ann

  Five

  “Anne.”

  “Miss Derringer.”

  The earl sighed. “Very well. Miss Derringer. I trust, despite the false start, that you will truly stay?”

  “It is very bad of me, but I’d do anything to disoblige that old tabby! I had one too many governesses like her, myself.”

  She neglected to mention that her dislike of Miss Danvers went far deeper than the schoolroom. It was just such prim and prissy cats who had made her two London seasons such unutterable misery.

  She chose not to think about it, but the earl noticed the momentary pain beneath the glorious, dark, featherlight lashes.

  He controlled the urge to take her in his arms. That would be the very thing to make her cry off the new arrangement, and Lord Robert Carmichael, confirmed bachelor and gentleman of the ton, knew for a certainty that whoever the devil she was, the intriguing Miss Derringer must be made to stay.

  “Excellent. Then, it is settled!”

  “My lord, lest you forget ...”

  “Yes?”

  “I am entirely unsuitable; the children will have me for breakfast ...”

  “—and lunch and tea, too, no doubt! Don’t hold a fit of ill humour against me, my dear. I am unused to having my well-ordered plans overset.”

  “You also have not viewed a single reference... I could be a ... a ...”

  “Imposter? We have already established that!”

  Miss Derringer frowned. “Be serious, I beg! I have never acted as a governess before ...”

  “Then, you require practice!”

  “On Tom and Kitty?” For the first time, she looked a tremulous combination of doubtful and wistful. The earl moved toward her and placed a finger upon her lips. Anne was silenced, shocked at her trembling, and at the honey sweet intimacy of the simple, silencing touch.

  “Lord Edgemere, it is not fitting.” His finger remained on her lips, and she could taste him as she spoke. She stepped back, the better to break the invisible bond that was straining, against all odds, to tie them together.

  The earl inclined a little toward her, then stepped back briskly.

  “If you mean that I am hopelessly attracted to you, Miss Anne Derringer of Woodham Place, then yes, it is unfitting.”

  Anne had never felt so self-aware before, of the beating of her heart, of the faint tightening in her ribs, of the straining of bodice muslin ... she could hardly breathe.

  “I shall procure my bandbox, my lord. There is nothing more to say.”

  “The devil there is!” The earl seized her almost roughly.

  “Let me go!”

  “Not before you promise not to be such a straitlaced goose! You shall governess my siblings and governess them well!”

  “And you, what of you? Shall I governess you, too?”

  Anne’s well-modulated tone was caustic, for she could only ascribe her tumultuous passions to fury.

  A strange curve crossed the earl’s wide, masculine, hopelessly sensuous lips. Anne was too drawn to them to look up and see what might be reflected in the golden eyes that regarded her, she knew, with steady avidity.

  Amusement? She thought not, for her traitorous pulses were raging in her temples, and a wave of heat threatened to envelope her entire, untutored body.

  “That could be arranged, my dear, though I fear the lessons I seek are not strictly as dry as the curriculum you have outlined.”

  Anne looked up sharply.

  “Then, you shall have to look elsewhere for your lessons, my lord.”

  “You have a hard heart, Miss Derringer, but I accept your terms.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “You shall invest my siblings with some modicum of common sense, some degree of formal education and a good dose of happiness. I am not so shortsighted a brother that I cannot see what is at the end of my nose. As for myself ... much as I may desire to be schooled by you, I shall forgo the pleasure in the interest of your ongoing virtue.”

  “Oh!”

  “However ... if you continue to blush so rosily at every utterance I make, I cannot answer for the consequences.”

  “Consequences, my lord?”

  “Consequences, Miss Anne Derringer.”

  The eighth Earl Edgemere drew a little closer. Anne thought she was likely to faint, for she could swear she could taste his mead-sweet tongue even as he drew back and rested lazily against the imposing marble pillar that formed so elegant a feature of the breakfast room.

  “My lord, you are pleased to tease!”

  “Very pleased, Miss Derringer.”

  “You shoot yourself in the foot, you know, for you leave me with no option but to decline your quite extraordinary offer.”

  “Young ladies are not in the habit of declining my offers, Miss Derringer!”

  “I warrant you are not in the habit of making them, my lord. Not, at all events, respectable ones!”

  “Perspicacious as well as beautiful!” His voice lowered to almost a whisper. Anne could feel his gaze, willing her to step forward. She could push him against the pillar... .

  “I am leaving right now. With any luck, the countess Eversleigh will overlook my tardiness. My lord, you will excuse me.”

  Anne turned resolutely to go.

  An arm shot out and palpably restrained her. The air of laziness evaporated from the earl’s features as he swung her round.

  “I will not excuse you, Miss Anne Derringer! The children shall never forgive me, and God help me, I should not forgive myself. You will stay, and if my presence is so noxious to you ...”

  “It is not noxious!”

  “No?” The aquiline features relaxed, slightly, as the twinkle returned.

  “You know it is not.” Anne abandoned herself and her virtue to truth.

  For her pains, she felt her cheeks stroked with infinite gentleness and the pins pulled expertly from her quick coiffure. Not surprisingly, her hair responded by falling around her face and cresting slightly at her waist.

  “Silky.”

  “Mmm ...”

  “You are not to slap me.”

  “It is a governess’s duty to discipline where required.”

  The twinkle reached his lips and became a quite indisputable grin.

  “Bearing that in mind, Miss Derringer, will you warn me before such severe correction is implemented?”

  She nodded. “I shall, my lord.”

  “You are aware that I am liable to kiss you at any moment?”

  She nodded. “I disapprove, Lord Edgemere.”

  “Disapprove but countenance the notion nonetheless?”

  A small smile played around delicious pink lips. “In extraordinary circumstances, I countenance the notion.”

  “Then, come here, Miss Anne Derringer.”

  She stepped forward with decision. Twenty pounds a year was being thrown recklessly to the winds. She could not, in all conscience, take up Countess Eversleigh’s position. Her thoughts were too impure for a highly referenced paid companion.

  His lordship’s kiss was all that Miss Derringer had anticipated. It was full, satisfying and slightly bittersweet, an apt reflection of her turmoiled emotions. Her wanton surrender to the sensation was a terrifying loss of habitual control. Nevertheless, the passions evoked were so strong, so... .

  “Lord Edgemere?”

  His tongue lingered, for a moment, before he held her from him.

  “Miss Derringer?”

  “I feel a cautionary slap may be necessary.”

  “Miss Derringer, if you had the smallest idea of what I would like to do right now, I fear that nothing short of a severe beating would correct me.”

  “Shall you cut the willow cane or shall I?”

  He grinned. “Neither, for I shall be virtuous and desist from all temptation. I leave for London tonight.”

  “So soon?”

  “Say things like that, Miss Derringer, and you shall overset, completely, my iniquitous sense of honour! So long as you are a governess in my ho
me, your virtue shall be safe.”

  “Very well, my lord, on those terms I accept. My fee, however, is quite exorbitant! I shall ask twenty-five pounds a year.

  “Miss Derringer, you drive a hard bargain. You shall, however, not get a sovereign less than forty a year.”

  “Forty pounds! My lord, you trifle with your fortune!”

  “Miss Derringer, I am no gambler. I believe it a perfectly safe bet that you will earn your forty pounds in the first month. Kitty and Tom are not without spirit!”

  “Excellent, for I shall expect them to apply themselves with passion.”

  “They are fortunate children.”

  “Help me with my hair, my lord. Your fortunate siblings will be unmerciful if they catch sight of me like this.”

  “As I should be.”

  “Beg pardon?” Anne flushed, not quite taking his meaning, but understanding, at once, his tone.

  He sighed. “Never mind. Give me the wretched pins.” She did, and turned around obediently as he set the coiffure to rights, allowing only a small kiss to drop down at the nape of her silky neck.

  “Lord Edgemere!”

  “Your virtue is safe, Miss Derringer! I merely trifle with your affections!”

  “Desist, then, my lord! Whatever became of that woman?”

  “Which woman?”

  “Miss Danvers.”

  “Gone, I hope.”

  “Oh, I hope not!”

  “Have you lost your wits, you silly woman?”

  Anne glared at him, then chuckled. “Possibly, but I have just had the most excellent notion.”

  The earl eyed her wearily. “That is ... ?”

  “She would be perfect for the countess Eversleigh! If she were just to take your barouche to Kingsbury, then change at Hampton for—”

  “Do you always meddle like this?”

  Anne’s answer was firm. “It is not meddling, my lord, merely managing ...”

  “Do you always manage, like this?”

  “But of course!”

  The eighth Earl Edgemere nodded and sighed. “I suspected so, Miss Derringer. I am devastated to have to inform you, however, that I loathe and despise managing females!”

  “Excellent, my lord, for I find the attraction between us troublesome. Since you are bound, at some stage, to loathe and despise me, we shall deal together perfectly!”

  “Mmm ...”

  “Now, about that awful woman ...”

  “You do not give up, do you?”

  “Never!”

  “Very well, I shall speak to her about it. If necessary, I shall convey her to ... where the devil shall I convey her to?”

  “Staines.”

  “Very well. I shall convey her to Staines myself.”

  Anne smiled sweetly. “Thank you, my lord.”

  The earl bowed. “It is a pleasure, Miss Derringer.”

  Anne walked from the room without looking back. Lord Carmichael fingered the last of her pins absently. Anne Derringer of Woodham Place ... now why did that name sound strangely familiar? Not alarmingly so, or obviously so, but the name nevertheless triggered something. . . some hazy half thought ... . He would look into it. Something told him that if matters were permitted to take their course, he might have every reason to be interested in any affair bearing upon that name. He pocketed the pin, had a last, lingering glance at the ormolu clock, then clicked the door shut quietly.

  “Kitty, if you persist in leaning over the rails, at least do it, I beg, with some style! Climb on the flower box so that your back can lean elegantly against the pillar. That way, you will not tumble precariously to a hideous death and I shall not be immediately turned off without a character! ”

  Miss Carmichael reflected on her governess’s instruction. It seemed reasonable even if it erred, slightly, on the cautious. Nevertheless, full of boundless amiability, she altered her position and continued to stare at the proceedings below.

  The earl’s team had been called up and were now pacing the courtyard a trifle friskily. Lord Carmichael, much to Tom’s disgust, had decided upon the landau. This absurdity came in spite of the delightfully clement weather and the fact that his lordship had a spanking-new phaeton at his disposal.

  “Tom, can you picture your brother hoisting Miss Danvers up onto the high perch?”

  Anne’s reasonable query evoked a fit of giggles. She had to smother a laugh herself, for as it was, Miss Danvers’s luggage was causing something of a commotion below stairs. She had arrived, it seemed, with seven trunks, a banded portmanteau and several strange-looking objects that the parlour maid pronounced as hatboxes, but which the under butler declared to be “frigging coal scuttles, they be that heavy.” Whatever the contents, the luggage was now taking up most of the room in the chaise, and his lordship, of course, had not yet appeared.

  That is not to say that Hastings, his valet, was not below stairs and furiously demanding to eject everything but Miss Danvers herself from the chaise. He pointed wildly at the elegant, gold embossed trunks, neatly packed and waiting patiently upon the flagstones for the appropriate attention. His lordship, it seemed, did not travel anywhere without twenty-four starched silk shirts and neckerchiefs, a riding coat with matching Hessians, morning wear... .

  Anne would have gladly continued to eavesdrop on the catalogue of his lordship’s unmentionables, but her attention became riveted on Miss Danvers, who was easing herself toward the carriage window with a decided scowl upon her frigid countenance.

  “Have you no manners, young man?”

  Hastings’s eyes boggled. “Manners? Manners? You are nothing but a common—”

  “Now, now, Hastings.” The earl had appeared. His tone was suitably reproving, but his lips twitched in an unholy amusement that caused Miss Danvers’s ire to turn upon him as well as his long-suffering valet.

  Anne’s heart lurched at the sight of him, resplendent in the most indecently fitting doeskins and a coat that proclaimed itself a Weston, for its styling was severe, curiously devoid of padding and a breathlessly close fit. Lord Carmichael’s golden blond curls just caught the sunlight and gleamed entrancingly in the afternoon sunshine. The beaver set at a rakish angle upon his head was black, to match the riding coat and the gleaming top boots. Anne thought she had never beheld so handsome a sight. She drew herself back into the shadows, for her conduct, like the children’s, was unseemly. One didn’t stare over balconies and indulge oneself in glorious masculine sights... .

  She sighed. Perhaps one simply peeked. Genteelly, of course. She stepped forward again and resolutely ignored the hammering of her heart. Would he look up? Of course he would; he would want to wave to Kitty and Tom... .

  “I knew he was a great gun!” Tom’s voice broke into her reverie. “See, he is having the phaeton brought round! ”

  Kitty forgot her elegant posture and curved herself over the rails once more. “It is true, Miss Derringer! I bet he means to follow Miss Danvers to Staines.”

  “Don’t be such a gudgeon, Kitty! He means to lead Miss Danvers to Staines.”

  “Whatever! He will be taking the phaeton, at all events.”

  Anne chuckled. “His lordship seems to have a pleasing sense of self-preservation. He obliges me, but still manages to do precisely as he wishes.”

  The children ceased dangling over the balcony to stare at their governess in astonishment.

  “But of course,” they said, almost in unison. “It is the Carmichael way. We all do.”

  Miss Derringer sighed. “I warrant you do.”

  The business of packing the eighth Earl of Edgemere’s London necessities into the landau was not sufficiently interesting to arrest the children’s attention for long. Especially not since, after a few brief words with the coachman and Miss Danvers herself, Lord Carmichael disappeared once more.

  “Where the blazes did he go?”

  “Blessed if I know! Let’s find him!”

  Anne opened her mouth to call them back, then shut it again. She was not inclin
ed to waste her energies on useless ventures.

  Besides, she understood their feelings. If she had not been brought up the soul of discretion, she would be running after him herself. The thought, though wanton, disreputable and faintly intoxicating, was honest. Miss Derringer could have no idea how pretty she looked with a faint flush to her cheeks and her bonnet askew from peering illicitly below.

  The crack of a whip and the rolling of wheels on the flagstones indicated that Miss Danvers, at least, was on her way. Anne breathed a small sigh. With her went the certainty of twenty pounds a year and a lifetime of servitude. Her new life promised more but was less—far less—predictable.

  “Do you always spy on your employers?”

  The colour grew rosier as Anne whirled round. “How in the world ...”

  “There is a secret stair. The children will show you, I have no doubt!”

  “I have every doubt! Do you mean to say they may suddenly disappear and I shall have to hunt around for secret passageways? I thought that sort of thing went out with the Gothic!”

  “It did! This, however, is a Gothic style villa. It could not claim so prestigious an appellation if it did not have its fair share of dungeons and skeletons and—”

  “Now you are absurd, sir!”

  “And you are beautiful, my lady! And you still do not answer my question. I believe you are being deliberately evasive.”

  “About spying on my employers? You are the first one I have had, and I will have you know, my lord, that that was not spying; that was merely assuring myself—”

  “That I heeded your managing advice and escorted the old witch to Staines?”

  “Which I see you are not doing ...”

  “Fiddlesticks! I most certainly am! My phaeton will pass the landau at the first junction, you shall see. I have at least an hour at my disposal before I need concern myself—”

  “Are you aware of Aesop, my lord?”

  “Aesop?” For once, the earl looked blank.