Chapter Six
Despicable, damnable man, Celestine thought as she rummaged through the scraps of fabric the draper had given her. Lord St. Claire Richmond had thoroughly thrown her out of countenance when all she wanted to do was talk to her aunt Emily. He said not a word out of turn, but if she would reach for something he would hand it to her before she got to it, allowing his fingers to brush hers. She could feel his steady gaze on her face as she spoke, and she lost the thread of the conversation. His thigh pressed against hers, and then he would apologize sotto voce when he “noticed” it.
Lady Langlow had looked like a thundercloud by the end of tea, and she feared she was in for it, but time passed and Celestine escaped upstairs with her aunt. And now she was in the blessed quietude of the schoolroom with the two girls. Soon Elise would come to take them off for their baths and bed, but right now Lottie and Gwen were curled up together in a big chair by the fire examining a fairy-tale book, their blonde curly heads nodding as they got drowsy and murmured together, while she went through the fabrics trying to get ideas for costumes for the puppets they were making.
It was difficult now because Lord St. Claire was creating the story, and she had no inkling what it would be or what characters she would need to clothe, if he meant to follow through on his offer. It was entirely possible that he would get bored before finishing, or never meant to do it at all. In which case she had better prepare something, rather than depend on the mercurial nobleman.
He was a puzzle. He lived up to his reputation as a rakish tease most of the time. He was adept at conveying his flirtation even without saying a word, so her blushes and consciousness must appear to be all on her own side.
But there were times she had felt a quiet strength emanating from him. What would it be like to be able, for once, to lay down her burdens and let someone else take care of her? She had always had to be the strong one, for her father had been sick for the whole of her adult life.
She didn’t regret the necessity that had forced her to be strong, but, oh, the bliss of just letting someone else make her decisions for her, or carry the load of responsibility she had always assumed. Was that what it would be like to have a husband? If she married the vicar, would she feel a weight ease from her shoulders? Somehow, she thought not. He would expect her, with a perfect right, to assume her share of the duties of the parish, which would mean more, not fewer, responsibilities.
And she must not fantasize that life with a man like Lord St. Claire would be any different. His lightheartedness would inevitably have its inverse in additional cares and worries for any woman who married him. She, no doubt, would be expected to assume the bulk of the work of managing the household and possibly his estate.
For a moment, in the dimness of the carriage, she had felt that there was a well of strength within him that had perhaps gone unappreciated because it had remained untapped, but in the light of day and the resumption of his teasing flirtation, she wondered if she had imagined that side of him. Was it just her own need that she projected on him, or did she really feel the wave of kindness and caring that rolled over her and soothed her as she held his handkerchief to her eyes in the darkness, inhaling his scent and letting the comfort of it fill her?
She probably would never figure him out. If she could get to the end of his visit without some kind of incident, she would be happy.
But oh, how lovely it had been for those few minutes to feel his quiet strength beside her, and to imagine what it would be like to have someone to lean on when the world seemed too much. Celestine had no illusions about herself. She knew it was her own strength that had kept her father alive as long as he lived. But in doing so, she had sacrificed something of herself.
Her body was weak and sometimes the future frightened her. For all that her post was a good one, and that she came to love the little girls more every day, it was still unremitting labor. How marvelous it would be just to relax and enjoy St. Claire’s cheerful, sunny company, for he really had a way about him, a bright, happy manner that lifted her heart just to be near.
She stopped sorting the fabrics, appalled at the turn her mind was taking. What was she thinking? He was dallying with her for God knew what reason, probably more out of habit than anything else. She was a fool to enjoy him, for the moment more company arrived he would turn his attentions to a more suitable object.
And he didn’t mean any of it. His flattery was outrageous, the compliments wildly unsuitable to someone of her plain visage and lack of attractions. He was just filling time until the pretty girls that Celestine knew Elizabeth had included in the guest list arrived. Then she would be left in peace in the schoolroom to finish her seasonal work and get the girls ready for their puppet show.
And, since she was thinking of that, she must prepare something, for he would certainly get bored and forget about writing his nieces a play for their puppet theater. It was just flirtation to him, for whatever mysterious reason. Celestine sighed, not sure whether to be glad or sad that her customary good sense kept her from sweet daydreams of love.
• • •
St. Claire stroked out another word and wiped his nib on a pen wipe. This was damnably hard work, writing a play! He hadn’t even really intended to go through with it; it had just been a way to stay close to Miss Simons. But then he had realized that if he didn’t, the little girls would end up the losers. And he never would disappoint his goddaughters.
Lottie, so bright and clever, with sparkling blue eyes, was the very picture of her mother. And she could be as tart-tongued occasionally. Someday she would lead the men of the ton a merry dance. And little Gwen, the blue eyes holding naught but puzzlement at times, and rarely saying anything that one could understand, but with a sweetness of expression and innocence that made hurting or disappointing her out of the question. When she laid her blonde head against his arm he felt that he would gladly take on anybody who might wound her. He might be an abominable brother, an unconscionable rake, the scourge of the London season, but he was a good uncle.
Was that what being a father was like? He stared off into space, chewing on the end of the pen as he imagined little ones around him, calling him Father, pulling at his jacket, climbing on his knee. If the feelings he held for his nieces and nephews were so very strong, what would fatherhood be like? The responsibility terrified him, and he shrugged off the idea. Time enough for that in some distant, hazy future. Right now he must think of this damned play.
And so he sat, pen in hand, and a volume of Shakespeare in front of him. He had been there all morning while the rest of the family went off to church, and he was still at it after nuncheon. Damn. How had the man, the immortal bard, ever done it? The words seemed all wrong when they flowed from the end of his pen. For a while in the library there was just the scratching of his pen across paper, interrupted occasionally by a muffled curse and the crunch of paper being balled up. Then there were just the pen sounds. He wrote and wrote, continuing long after his hand had started to ache.
He might have something. A story about a lonely prince, and a princess who didn’t know she was a princess. A tale of true love. He closed the Shakespeare, pushed it away, and chewed the end of the pen.
A lonely prince who had his pick of the most beautiful girls in all the land but could not find a single one who made his heart sing. His brother, the king, was getting impatient, and wanted him to choose a girl to be his princess. The lonely prince—call him . . . St. Claire frowned down at the paper with unseeing eyes. Call him Aurelius, the golden one, fortunate in birth, and countenance and riches. But without love. He scribbled on in the blessed silence of the library. It was a dark, gloomy day outside, so he wrote in the pool of light shed by a branch of tapers.
There was a princess who didn’t know she was a princess; call her Calista, the most beautiful one. She lived alone in a forest where no one saw her radiant beauty, and she had no mirror, so she did not know she was so fair. The scratching became more fervent as St. Claire scrawled his
ideas, dipping into the ink, blotting his page occasionally.
The lonely prince, Aurelius, told his brother, Reginald the Mighty, that he would set out on a journey across the land. If he had not found the girl he wished to wed at the end of one month, he would marry anyone Reginald chose.
St. Claire sat back in his chair, oblivious to the spots of dark ink soiling his sleeve as he chewed on the end of his pen. He needed some comic relief. Reginald would choose a girl for him to come home to, the most ugly, long-toothed, pimply female with a high screechy voice and harrying manner. He would do her voice himself, a copy of—
The door opened and Elizabeth peeked around. “St. Claire! There you are. What on earth are you doing?” She came into the shadowy room, one elegant hand planted on her hip.
He flushed. “I . . . uh, I’m helping Miss Simons by writing a play for her and Lottie and Gwen. They’re planning a little puppet theater for the holiday company.”
Elizabeth’s rosebud lips set in a grim line. “Really, St. Claire! I am counting on you to help me entertain our guests; you know that! And I have the Stimsons and their two daughters arriving this afternoon, and Lady van Hoffen and her daughter Lady Grishelda! You will have no time to be scribbling on some silly piece of work when I need you to conduct them on walks and into the village, and ice skating . . .”
St. Claire turned back to the desk and made another note. Add a wife for the mighty Reginald—Queen Parlia, one who talked and talked and talked.
• • •
“Oh, miss, look at the company arriving. Ever so beautiful, the ladies are! And their clothes!”
Celestine came upon Elise, with Lottie and Gwen, peering through the spindles of the railing that overlooked the great hall. She stopped and watched with them.
“Look at the beautiful ladies, Miss Simons,” Lottie said, crouched down with her arm around her little sister.
A man and a woman, with two girls around twenty, were gathered in the hall being welcomed by the marquess and marchioness. The man was portly and red-faced, with a distended stomach that confessed a love for fine food and perhaps more wine than was good for him. The woman, on the other hand, was bird-like and slim, and fluttered around her two daughters, her high, fluting voice making worried comments about the cold and its effect on the girls’ health.
The daughters were plump and pretty, with dark hair and rosy cheeks, and as they were swathed in velvet, fur-lined cloaks and had muffs over their gloved hands, they could hardly be freezing. Lord St. Claire joined them all, and soon his good-natured teasing could be heard, at least by Celestine, above the rest.
“Miss Stimson, and Miss Caroline! Why, I didn’t even know you were out of the schoolroom, Miss Caroline, but what a beauty you have become!” He lifted each girl’s hand to within an inch of his lips, an absolutely correct greeting. “And Mrs. Stimson! One would hardly know you from your daughters, ma’am, you look so young. It must be confusing for all the bucks and beaux of London, telling which is the mother and which are the daughters.”
The tiny woman giggled. “Oh, my lord, how you do go on!”
Elizabeth looked on in approval, and as maids and footmen relieved the party of their cloaks and pelisses, muffs and gloves, the company moved out of sight and into the parlor, where their chattering could still be heard as the doors closed.
“My! How I wish I was one of ’em, Miss Simons.” Elise sighed. “Dressed so pretty, with nothin’ to do but go from party to rout to ball.”
Celestine smiled. “I have heard that his lordship, the marquess, has a party at Christmas every year for all the servants of Langlow. Is that so?” She took Gwen’s hand as she spoke, and Elise took Lottie’s.
“Oh, it is, miss! We have such a grand time! Punch and cakes, and music from Dobbs and the scullery boy, what is such a good hand with the violin. You’ll see, miss . . . that is, if you come.”
Celestine smiled over at the maid. She knew the difficulty. A governess was neither fish nor fowl, neither servant nor family. She would not take part in the upstairs parties, and likely would not fit in at the downstairs party. Her presence would possibly even be resented. It was a lonely position in many ways, but she could not bemoan her luck in having a position in such a good family.
“I shall take care of the children while you enjoy yourself, Elise. Perhaps Andrew will dance with you?”
Elise’s eyes widened as she contemplated the idol of her life, the fair-haired footman Andrew. Then her face fell. “He don’t notice me, miss. He’s ever so stuck up, is Andrew. And ever so particular about what company he keeps. Says a children’s maid is beneath ’im.”
Celestine reached out her hand and touched the girl’s arm. “Never mind. If he can’t see what a pretty, sweet girl you are, he doesn’t deserve you.”
Elise smiled shyly over at Celestine as they mounted the stairs to the schoolroom. “Thank you, miss. You are such a change from that Miss Chambly.”
Curiosity got the better of her and Celestine asked, “What was she like? I haven’t heard many speak about her.”
“That’s cos none of the staff could stand her, she was that stuck up! Acted like we was all beneath her, and what’s a governess but a servant of a kind, I ask you? Beggin’ your pardon, miss.” Elise looked a little shame-faced. “You’re a different type, miss. We all knows you’re a cut above us. You got the manners of the gentry, but you never looks down your nose at us nor demand special treatment, an’ that’s what makes you a real lady, Mr. Dobbs says.”
Celestine was touched. As they entered the schoolroom and the little girls ran to get a favorite book, she gave the young nursemaid a quick hug. “You’re a dear.”
Elise flushed. “That Miss Chambly, she had her eye on his lordship, the marquess’s brother. An’ her just a governess, like he’d take her as a wife.”
“Even if he’d wanted to, I’m sure his brother would never have agreed to it.”
“Nor her ladyship. She’s ever so high in the instep, in’t she? She’s got plans for him, Mr. Dobbs says, an’ she’s on the lookout for a proper match this Christmas. Says she’ll have him wed afore spring.”
So that was the plan, Celestine thought. Not just to distract him, but to get him hooked. Well, good luck to the marchioness. With her brother-in-law’s proclivity for flirtation, it was not going to be easy.
• • •
Miss Caroline Stimson gazed up at St. Claire from under incredibly long, dark eyelashes and smiled coyly. “La, my lord, but you are a flatterer, I’m sure.”
St. Claire grinned and suppressed an urge to stick his tongue out at her and tell her to give it up, she didn’t know how to flirt yet. She did all the cute little tricks, the fingers lightly resting on his arm, the sighs, the languishing glances, but they were done with such childish ingenuousness that it made him more aware than ever of his age. He was fifteen years her senior!
The elder Miss Stimson, her round cheek resting in her palm, was gazing pensively out the window at a distant hill. Yet he had the feeling that what she was doing was not thinking, or pondering, or even daydreaming, so much as striking a pose. It was utterly fetching and utterly false. He could tell that she was aware of every word that passed between him and her younger sister. What would she do when the pose did not draw his attention in the way she calculated?
St. Claire was used to such machinations. Girls were trained early in the arts to catch a husband, he knew, and for a minute he wondered if he had become jaded by all the attention lavished on him over the years. He was definitely piqued that Miss Simons would not return his regard, and that, perhaps, was why he was so determinedly pursuing her. Even irritating Elizabeth was only secondary now.
The strange thing was, he found that he enjoyed talking with her more than he had any woman of his acquaintance. There had been the occasional married woman with whom he had engaged in real conversation, but usually they wanted to gossip about their mutual friends, or flirt to plague their husbands, or sometimes to initiate a dal
liance with him.
He wasn’t complaining. Those affairs were often the most rewarding in a purely physical sense. There was nothing like a woman whose needs were ignored by her husband for a good, energetic tumble. But there had been times when he had wanted something more, and he had not been quite sure what it was. It was a little worrying to realize that being with the governess had satisfied that need. The times spent walking with her in the village, romping with the children, and just sitting, reading by the fire with her and Lottie and Gwen had been the most enjoyable of his stay, so far.
“St. Claire, you have hardly said two words to me since we arrived! And you are usually so entertaining.”
He leaped to his feet as Lady Emily stood before him. It was with some relief that he offered her the seat on the sofa he had just vacated, the seat next to Miss Caroline, and took an armchair near the older lady. “I shall remedy that oversight this very minute, if you will allow it, ma’am.”
Miss Caroline Stimson, who had been trying to engage his attention for the past many minutes, sniffed in annoyance.
“Don’t start calling me ‘ma’am’ or I shall be sure that not only have I put on too much weight, I am looking old.” Lady Sedgely sat down with a chuckle and a smile at the young girl she shared the sofa with. Miss Caroline, however, had eyes only for the young nobleman.
“Nonsense, my lady. You must know that nothing can detract from your charms. You look radiant, if I may say so. Some ladies look better with, well, shall we say, added bounty?” He deliberately let his gaze linger on the neckline of her dress, which displayed at least some of her attractions, pale creamy breasts in a delicious cleavage, set against the deep wine color of her silk dress.
“Scoundrel,” she said, coloring faintly. “I should have known my shameless trolling for compliments would be amply rewarded by such a practiced flirt as yourself.”
Lord St. Claire's Angel Page 8
