His words, so much what Anne wished to hear, yet such an impossibility, recalled her to her senses.
“Lord Edgemere, it is not fitting to be cavorting with your hired help amid shards of marble. You could be injured.”
“Injured be damned! And stop referring to yourself as the hired help!”
“But I am, am I not?’
“No, because you are dismissed.”
“Dismissed? My lord, that is outrageous!” Anne forgot the letter of resignation sitting silently in the lining of her chemise. “You cannot simply dismiss me out of hand! What about Kitty and Tom? What about—”
“What about what, Miss Derringer?” Was he mocking her? She looked at him more closely. No, she did not think so. He was regarding her somberly, as though restraining himself with great effort. As indeed, had she but known it, he was.
His little Celeste offered a powerful temptation in her underclothes, however chaste the ice white chemise. He would not defile her in his own home, not now, when her heart was fully revealed to him and when the summation of his plans was about to come to fruition. He would wait, however exquisite the torture. Inflaming her indignation—even her anger—was the best way he knew of preventing what might otherwise be an intoxicating interlude that they would both, quite possibly, live to regret.
Besides, he liked to see the militant sparkle back in her eyes. He suspected it was not often that she was racked by sobs. Though she might not admit it, the Dalrymple affair had cut deep.
Anne paused and blushed. She had very nearly said, “What about us?” She must not forget that to the seasoned earl, she was no more than a pleasant interlude. However much he might protest against her calling herself the hired help, he nevertheless placed her in that category. How else could he thus summarily dismiss her?
As if reading her thoughts, the earl chuckled.
“Hoist by your own petard, my dear! It was you who made me promise to release you from your engagement on my return to Carmichael Crescent.”
“Very true, my lord! My wits have been quite addled by this night’s affair. Do you, by any chance, have another taper?”
“Beg pardon?” The earl, for once, was startled.
Anne was patient. “Another taper, my lord. There is wax dripping on the Axminsters, and there is precious little left of your overhead candles. They are all almost nothing but wick.”
“How true! When dazzled by a star, one seldom notices the dark creep in.”
“You have a honeyed tongue, my lord.”
“One day, Anne, you shall know the truth of what you say.”
Anne blushed. With those direct eyes upon her, there was no mistaking his meaning.
“Regretfully, I think not, my lord. It is better that way.”
The earl grinned, undeterred by the firm words. She had said regretfully, and she had knocked the only other eligible suitor unconscious. That said something, surely, for his chances?
“Very well, little Celeste, you shall have it your way for tonight. If you come to my chamber, I shall renew your candle.”
“Step into the parlour, said the spider to the fly.”
“That old nursery rhyme? You wrong me, my dear! My intentions, I assure you, are of the purest. Were they not, I should have ravished you right here upon my intricately knotted carpets.”
“Nevertheless, you shall fetch me the candle, my lord. Your chamber, though no doubt sumptuous, is not a place I wish to enter this night.”
“No?” He cocked his head to one side and allowed his finger to rest, ever so gently, upon her chin.
“No! Decidedly not, my lord!”
“Mmm ... me thinks the lady doth protest too much. However, being ever true to my rash promise, I shall obligingly fetch you out the wretched thing. If I don’t hurry, we shall be plunged headlong into darkness.”
“Exactly my point, your lordship.”
“My given name is Robert. Since you are no longer engaged as my governess, there can be no further obstacles to its use.”
“I can think of many! However, I suggest we continue the argument at a more suitable hour.”
Since all her tartness had returned, his lordship felt sufficiently comfortable to leave her, for a moment, whilst he stepped forward into his inner sanctum. She had stopped shivering, the most obvious outward sign of her disquiet. At a future date, Sir Archibald Dalrymple would be called to account for that. In the meanwhile... .
“You will stay there until I return!”
“My, you are imperious! I shall stay merely to keep poor Psyche company.”
Excellent! Her humour was returning. Lord Robert turned on his heel and made for his chamber.
In the stillness that followed, Anne closed her eyes, the better to visualize the features etched so clearly in her memory. How handsome he was! How dear to her he had become, the glorious eighth Earl Edgemere! If only he had not been quite as witty, if only he had been a smidgen less amusing, a tad—the veriest tad—less handsome! But no, circumstances, as always, conspired against her.
Lord Carmichael was a paragon, and there was no gainsaying the truth. She, Anne Derringer, was doomed to spinsterhood, for there could be no accepting anything less than what he was—perfection. Or, more rightly speaking, perfection in imperfection. My lord was never tediously correct or predictably proper. How dull he would be if he was! Anne smiled. She adored her spats with him. It honed her wits and made her tongue as razor sharp as her mind. A mind that was complemented by his... . She startled as a flame flickered behind her.
“You have returned!”
“Don’t look so shocked, Miss Derringer of Woodham Place! I did say I’d be back directly!”
“I am not of Woodham Place anymore. My brother sold the estate to sell off some debt.”
“I hear it has been sold again. Anne, if you wanted it, would you consider purchasing it?”
“On forty pounds a year? My lord, even with your exorbitant salary—which I shall hold you to, by the by—you must have windmills in your head!”
“Not windmills, Celeste. News.”
“News?” She couldn’t keep the faint tremor from her voice.
The earl resumed his seat beside her, silently cursing a splinter of marble that had made an impression on his unmentionable—but decidedly desirable—posterior end. Anne dropped her eyes, for her gaze rested overlong in that direction, and it was, she knew, quite shamelessly admiring.
The earl’s eyes flickered, for a moment, then grew disquietingly sombre. He knew that he could no longer keep from Anne what was her right to know. It would be self-serving beyond all permissible reason. He only hoped that she would not pack her bags at once, now that her circumstances were so vastly altered.
“Anne, I have dismissed you from my employ for two reasons. The first—though I shoot myself in the foot to say it—is that it is no longer fitting.”
Anne cast inquiring eyes at him. He concentrated on his fingernails, for the dark, tangled lashes were too intoxicating to contemplate. In a moment, she would know the truth. She would know that she was an heiress, eminently eligible, and worlds away from needing his meagre salary. She would know, not to put too fine a point upon it, that she did not need him.
He chose to cast caution to the winds. There was no point in mincing matters. “Miss Derringer, though you do not yet know it, you are an excessively wealthy woman! As a matter of fact, though you have the face of an angel, you also appear to have the luck of the very devil! You and your dashed stars! Who, but a dear, addlepated, hen-witted widgeon places their entire fortune on a merchant ship more likely to sink than not, purely on the basis of its celestial name?”
“I do, my lord. And I am not hen-witted! When the Astor sank ...” She stopped, remembering that she had chosen to remain on as governess despite the impropriety. What construction would the earl put on that? Not, she hoped, the correct one.
He looked at her keenly. “Do I infer that this is not news to you? That you, my dear Anne, are once again an
impostor in my household?”
“Imposter?”
“You know very well what I mean! Passing yourself off as an upper servant when you are more eligible than Miss Fairfax and that Wratcham woman—”
“It is not what you think!”
“No?” A sudden smile lit bright eyes. “Give me leave, Anne, to hope that it is what I think!”
“I could not leave the children in the lurch ...”
His eyes clouded. “No, I suppose not. Anne, can you continue the charade one day longer?”
“It is best if I leave tomorrow.”
“No!” The earl grabbed her hand. For an instant, he held it within his ungloved grip. Anne had never been more aware of him than at that moment. She blushed furiously, then wriggled her fingers free.
“You are imperious, Lord Robert!” Attack was always the best manner of preserving one’s dignity.
“I have a right to be! You deceived me, whatever your reasons! No ... don’t look so damnably stubborn. I shall change tack and plead instead. Please, Anne! Stay! If not for mine, then for the children’s sakes!”
Anne relented. It was hard to resist someone who sent shivers deliciously down one’s spine and who entreated one with eyes of hazel velvet.
“Very well, I shall stay until after the ball.”
Lord Edgemere breathed a sigh of satisfied relief.
“Till after the ball, then.”
Miss Derringer stood up, taking care to allow the wrap to envelop her slender, statuesque frame as perfectly as it possibly might.
Lord Edgemere, victorious, leaned back in sudden amusement. It did not matter—the soft candlelight set her feminine charms off perfectly, wrap or no wrap. His eyes darkened, but he made no attempt to forestall her any further.
As she moved, the nonsensical confection that was her slipper struck something hard. She exclaimed, bent down, and retrieved the necklace. It shimmered like thousands of tiny stars under the little orange flame.
“Good gracious, my lord! This had quite slipped my mind!”
With complete lack of consciousness, she handed Lord Edgemere the gems and muttered something highly disparaging—if not entirely ladylike—about the good Sir Archibald Dalrymple.
When she departed for her own wing, the earl was staring after her in dazed amazement. She was quite a lady, the demure Miss Derringer!
In no more than half an hour, she had confounded a thief, resisted a noxious attempt upon her virtue, held a reasoned conversation in disgracefully compromising circumstances, then forgot—forgot, mark you!—that a necklace of blue-white diamonds lay somewhere in the rubble of marble shards.
Lord Edgemere chuckled. Lord Elgin’s Psyche had cost a cool ten thousand pounds. He could not have dreamed up a better use for it himself.
Seventeen
The day of the ball dawned grey and unpromising, causing Mrs. Tibbet to hurry about in a frenzy of anxiety, ordering the potted palms back into the main receiving room, changing menus—iced sherbets on a cold day was unthinkable—and poking her finger outside on a five-minute basis to test for rain.
The children were in high spirits, tasting here, testing there, until even the staid Augustus was forced to chase them with an umbrella, an unprecedented event that caused them to laugh uproariously and hound him all the more. Finally, Anne was applied to, for the servants were at their wits’ end, what with one thing and another.
Lord Morrison’s coach was too large for the stables, the coal had not yet arrived, one of Lady Dillsworthy’s matched team had cast a shoe on the road from Hampton. She had sent a note begging a new conveyance... . The list was endless. Anne offered to help, but was assured by a chorus of upper servants—and a cheeky lower servant—that removing the Viscount Tukebury from the house would be help enough. Jeeves chipped in to mention that Miss Kitty Carmichael was none the better, so Anne was immediately apprised of the urgency of the situation.
She discovered the little varmints polishing the floors with an excessive amount of beeswax and knew at once that their industrious and innocent activities were brimful of mischief. She stepped up to little Lord Tukebury—Tom, to his intimates—and curtsied grandly.
“Put down your brushes and dance with me, my good man!”
Tom bowed in excellent imitation of Robert’s polished address and took her hand.
“On second thoughts, Tom, I shall sit this one out. Dance with Kit instead.”
“But ...”
“Go on, then, I am in a fever of anticipation to see whether my charges do me credit. Governesses, you know, are always held accountable for such things.”
Tom nodded importantly. “Kitty?”
“Don’t be such a gudgeon, Tom! Miss Derringer is awake to all suits! She only wants to see us take a tumble on the slippery boards!”
Anne chuckled. “The game is up, I see. Come, my little chickens, you shall set these floors to rights, return the polish to poor Wiggans, who I am certain must be searching high and low for it, then meet me at the stables. It is an age since we have exercised the horses and given them their head.”
This occupation seemed to be met with approval, for it did not take long for the floors to regain their quietly elegant gleam and for the trio to head out of doors, toward the large, positively bustling stables. Miss Derringer did not have a riding habit, but she did have a dark serge gown that served the purpose, though her ankles were sadly prone to exposure. Since no one of any consequence was likely to see her mount or dismount, however, this seemed of little import. Some days before, Kitty had pressed a rather grown up top hat with frivolous flowing scarves upon her person, so despite her fashionable deficits, she nonetheless contrived to look respectably elegant when confronting the head groom.
He doffed his cap gaily—everyone had a soft spot for Miss Derringer and the young ones—and saddled the horses quickly, even though several of the houseguests were about to return from hunting and there was “a heap of work afoot, with the ball and all.”
It was not long before they had carefully crossed Tom’s stream and were galloping, with abandon, in the meadows. Anne would have been exultant, were it not for the fact that she knew that this was to be her last such day.
Somehow, she did not wish to spoil it by telling the youngsters, so she set aside her nagging heartache and joined in the mirthful exuberance. Finally, the horses were panting from exertion. Anne decided it was more than high time to rein in and lead them down to the stream for water. She resolutely ignored the black clouds that seemed to loom threateningly above them. A wetting would not harm the children overmuch, and for herself, she did not mind in the least. It was better than watching preparations for a ball she would have no part in, knowing that tomorrow, when the excitement was long faded, she would be gone.
London was a daunting prospect—she had no wish to contact Lady Somerford and certainly none to contact her brother. It struck her that perhaps her best option would be to take up a house in Bath. There she could quietly resume the life-style and accoutrements of a lady of substance while most fashionable eyes were still firmly focused on London. Anne found that she had little desire to cut a dash, or try her hand at a third season. Undoubtedly, now that she was wealthy, she would not have to suffer the indignities or importunities of the past, but this did not weigh with her. She found she had no taste for being courted for her fortune.
What was that? Anne was sure she could hear hooves hard against the pastures. She settled her skirts primly over her ankles, just in case. She had been caught, unawares, once too many at Tom’s stream. Half of her hoped it was Lord Edgemere. The other scolded her for being such a ninnyhammer. Lord Edgemere, in residence, had a thousand things to do to entertain his houseguests. He did not go galloping like a wild thing across fields of verdant clover.
“Oh I hope it does not rain and spoil things!”
Tom clicked his tongue. “Kitty, you sound like Mrs. Tibbet!”
“Well, it’s true! Our first ball and—”
An
ne broke in. “Not your first ball, Kitty! You shall need to be some years older for that! ”
“Oh, bother! I am certain Robert would not mind at all if we were to attend. He might look like a curmudgeonly mawworm—”
“Thank you very much, Kitty! I do not believe I recall ever having before been described in such flattering terms ...”
“My lord!”
“Miss Derringer, your servant.”
Robert leapt nimbly down from the magnificent Arab that Anne had heard a few moments before.
“Robert! You do not mind if Tom and I—”
“Kitty, it does no good to bob your curls at me cajolingly! I am afraid, in this instance, appearances are correct. I am a curmudgeonly mawworm. No, don’t pull such disgusting faces at me. You are a long shot, my dear little sister, from being out, and until then, you shall remain in the nursery.”
Tom sighed. “I knew how it would be! We never have any fun around here.”
“No fun, and you playing truant with your governess? I’ll have you know, little sir, I pay Miss Derringer forty pounds a year to tutor you!”
The words were severe; but his eyes caught Anne’s, and there was the unmistakible twinkle in them that she had come to find quite distressingly irresistible. She was not, however, going to take his criticism—even playful—without a scathing retort of her own.
“It is you, sir, who are truant! Galloping about when there is a ball afoot and houseguests aplenty to entertain! We, on the other hand, are diligently involved with Latin proverbs. We are, are we not, Tom dearest?”
“Very true, Miss Derringer!” Thomas could be relied upon to be prompt on the uptake. “We were just learning. . . um ... what were we just learning, ma’am?”
Anne looked shocked. “Carpe diem, Tom! Carpe diem! You remember, surely?”
Tom looked dishearteningly puzzled, but his deplorably handsome brother had no trouble in the translation.
“Seize the day? Well, with a picnic hamper that size I should say you will. Do you demonstrate all proverbs in such delightfully practical terms?”
“All respectable proverbs, my lord!”
Seeking Celeste Page 17
