Читать книгу The Wanton Governess - Barbara Monajem - Страница 7

Sussex, 1801

Sir James Carling arrived in England after three years in America to be greeted with the appalling news that he was married.

On a bright autumn day, he rode into the stable yard of Carling Manor, thankful to be home at last. His brother Simon strode out of the stables, gaped at him, and said, “James, old fellow! We’re in the suds now, for sure.”

James swung down from his mount. “It’s wonderful to see you, too,” he said. “And why, pray tell, are we in the suds?”

“It’s a damned good thing you didn’t ride up to the front door in a chaise-and-four.” Simon had hardly aged at all; his mischievous smile was entirely intact. “Grandmama has come for a visit, and she mustn’t see you until you know the story.”

Back in the bosom of his family, where there was always a story. “What mire have I stepped into?” James asked. He exchanged greetings with his head groom, who had come up to take the horse.

“What, no baggage?” Simon demanded.

“It’s following by carrier. I learned to travel light in America,” James said, eyeing Simon’s elegant waistcoat, snug trousers and carefully disordered locks. He removed a rifle, as well as the pistols in holsters on either side of the saddlebags, before handing the horse over to his groom. “In the backwoods, one has more important concerns than tricking oneself out like a dandy.”

Simon tsked. “This is nothing to what they’re wearing in London nowadays.” He glanced furtively toward the house. “Come in by the keep and I’ll find you something to change into. Can’t do the pretty to the old lady dressed like that.”

The Norman keep, built centuries ago and now maintained purely for its historic value, was invariably deserted. It had come in handy when James and his brother had crept out on youthful escapades, but with their father now dead and James master of the manor, their furtive approach through the heavy wooden door and up the old stone staircase made no sense at all.

“Grandmama knows I don’t care for fashion,” James said. “What’s she doing here?”

“Approving Sally.” Simon grimaced. “We’re almost out of mourning for Father, so she’s making her come-out next spring.”

Good God. Had his little sister grown up already? She’d been a tomboy when last James had seen her.

“The old lady refused to write to her cronies about vouchers for Almack’s without seeing Sally herself. Girl should be a credit to the family and all that bilge.” Simon mock-wiped his brow. “You’ve got to get rid of her. I can’t survive pretending to be virtuous much longer.” They reached the top of the staircase, crossed the ancient plank floor and emerged, by way of the muniment room, onto the first landing of the back stairs of the house itself. “Thank God she thinks you’re a paragon or she mightn’t have believed the story.”

“Ah, yes, the inevitable tale,” James said. “What sort of game are you about this time?”

“James!” Sally flew through the door one floor above and hurtled down to meet them. “You’re home!” She threw her arms around James and hugged him hard, then stepped away to appraise him. “You look older, but it’s a good kind of older. What do you think of me?”

“You’re taller and rounder and prettier, but untidy as ever.” James grinned, and promptly contributed to her disorder by mussing her red hair. “Hoyden!”

“Yes, I’m impossible and always shall be. Which is why you must, absolutely must, back up my story.” She took him by the hand and hauled him up the staircase. “I swear I had no choice. She’d only been here for two days, and she was already looking me up and down as if I were some sort of changeling, and I could tell she wasn’t going to approve of me, but what’s the use of going to London if I can’t get vouchers for Almack’s? And then she went maundering on about how reliable you are—”

“She’s completely forgotten your temper,” Simon interjected.

“—and how you’re the only sober and responsible one in the family—”

“Which was dashed unfair,” Simon brooded, “seeing as you’re just better at hiding your sins. Not only that, I’d already been playing the Puritan for two whole nights and intended to stick to it until she left, even if it killed me.” He added darkly, “It’s been dashed difficult the last few days, I can tell you.”

“—and about how disappointed she was in us, because we’re so much like Mama, while you take after Father, who was a model of perfection, and how happy she would be if only you married and carried on the Carling name—”

“By begetting a pack of orderly children without red hair and wayward personalities,” Simon said. “Fortunately, a school friend of Sally’s came to visit.”

“She was one of the older girls when I first went to the seminary in Bath, and such fun. She saved me from dire punishment more than once.” She paused for breath. “Anyway, we thought up the most splendid tale to tell Grandmama!”

“And what tale might that be?” James asked with a sigh. Five minutes at home, and he was already losing patience.

“That you met a perfectly lovely English lady in America, and fell in love and married her!”

What the devil? “You didn’t. Please say this is just a ruse. A homecoming jest,” James growled.

No such luck. “Perked the old girl right up,” Simon offered. “Couldn’t have done better myself.”

“You couldn’t have done nearly as well,” Sally retorted. “I made your wife a model of decorum, with strict devotion to duty and unfailing common sense. She’s just the kind of girl that would suit you, James. Grandmama thinks you sent her over here ahead of your own arrival…which we didn’t expect to be so soon, quite frankly!”

She sounded like a bore, but that was the least of James’s problems. He crammed down his growing ire. “But she doesn’t exist.”

A woman he would marry didn’t exist even in real life, much less Sally’s fantasy. Modern ladies, in his experience, were far too complicated. Either they were obsessed with propriety and determined to make everyone else conform to their standards, like his grandmother, or they were hoydens indulging in a never-ending game of pretense, like his mother and sister.

All James wanted was a simple life. He had sown his fair share of wild oats and was long past the romantic folly of his youth. One didn’t rescue maidens from dragons nowadays—not in dull old England, and even in America he’d never had to kill anything bigger than a bear. Nor did one live happily ever after. One followed the rules, arranged a suitable alliance, and suffered the consequences for the rest of one’s life.

“I have no intention of marrying,” he said through clenched teeth, “and I don’t want to encourage Grandmama to think I do.”

“Nonsense!” Sally said. “You will meet your destiny and fall madly in love one of these days, but for now all you must do is pretend your wife exists. Grandmama won’t know the difference, and everything will go along like clockwork.”

“Until she learns the truth,” James said furiously. “Did that never occur to you?”

“You’ve got the same bad temper as three years ago,” Simon remarked. “Being shipped off to America didn’t improve you at all.” He grinned. “Looking for a pond to toss me into?”

“I’ll take care of that later,” James said. He rounded on Sally. “What about the fact that I would rather not lie to her?”

“I didn’t think you would be obliged to,” Sally explained. “We didn’t expect you home for at least another couple of months, and by that time I would have the vouchers, and we could tell Grandmama your wife died in a carriage accident or of a fever.”

“Tragic end, life cut short, problem solved,” added Simon.

James took a deep breath and counted to ten. And ten again. “None of this makes any difference. I shan’t lie to the old lady.”

“But you simply must,” Sally begged. “Grandmama’s been so happy talking about great-grandchildren and carrying on the family line. Life’s been much more bearable since we invented your wife. If she finds out it’s all a lie, she’ll know what a fraud I am, and she’ll never write for the vouchers, and I’ll never get to Almack’s and meet my destiny.”

The chit’s head was still stuffed with fairy tales. “No one destined to cope with you would frequent that deadly dull place,” he said wearily, but put up a hand to fend off her protests. “I know. I know. You simply must go there anyway.”

“It might kill the old bird if you tell her the truth now,” Simon warned helpfully.

Sally clasped her hands together in an attitude of prayer. “Darling James, please say you will. It’s not just for my sake. Think of the embarrassment to my poor friend, when she’s been so manfully cooperative in spite of not wanting to at all.”

With an all-too-familiar feeling of being sucked into a bog from which there was no escape, James asked, “Not wanting to what?”

“To pretend to be your wife.”

An honourable woman would have opted for the hedgerow.

Pompeia Grant stabbed her needle through the linen stretched across her tambour frame. Sally had left her in the drawing room while she went upstairs to fetch more yarn for the Dowager Lady Carling, who had completed her fifth pair of stockings in two days. The old tartar was an indefatigable knitter for the poor, and her hapless daughter-in-law, to put it mildly, wasn’t. Not that Pompeia minded being an intermediary between one combatant and the other, but she wished the Dowager would stop holding her up as an example of what a Carling wife should be. Pompeia might be able to knit stockings with the best of them, but she was unsuited to being anyone’s wife, and was proving it now by perpetrating a fraud.

“Mary, dear,” Lady Carling the younger said with a dismal sigh, “I’ve ruined the heel again.” For the purposes of the deception, they were using her governessing name, Mary, since Pompeia was so unusual, with (according to Simon) a distinctly improper ring to it. Naturally Simon, like the husbands, sons, friends, and neighbours of her erstwhile employers, had homed in instantly on her sensual nature. All men did, no matter how much she tried to suppress what she had come to call her Wanton Within.

When she’d trudged up the drive of Carling Manor two days earlier, wet, weary and footsore, Pompeia had meant only to beg a night’s lodging and a ride to the stagecoach the following day. The daunting prospect of presenting her soggy self at the door with a battered valise and an outright lie had been outweighed by the alternative of curling up under a hedgerow in the rain. She’d been standing under the eaves of the stable, tidying her dripping hair and screwing up her courage, when Sally had darted out of the house to intercept Simon as he’d returned from a ride and bumped into Pompeia instead.

If she had remembered that long-ago time when she’d met Sally’s other brother, James, Pompeia would have made some enquiries before venturing near the house. She hadn’t made the connection until it was too late, and she knew why: she’d forgotten it on purpose. The past was done and gone, and although James Carling—now Sir James—had played only a small part in it, he probably knew about her disgrace. She didn’t want another door shut in her face. She’d already suffered that particular humiliation once that day.

But Sir James wasn’t here, and it seemed she would do almost anything in return for a few days of experiencing a warm bedchamber, ample food and no scolds. Soon enough, she would be back to answering advertisements, hiring herself out as a governess and then being summarily dismissed. Why shouldn’t she enjoy a few days of comfort and ease?

The dowager snorted disdainfully. “What my poor sainted son was thinking when he married you, Clarabelle, I shall never understand. Bring it here to me, and I’ll—”

Taking her cue, Pompeia intercepted deftly. “Please don’t disturb yourself, ma’am,” she said, setting down her embroidery. She gave Sally’s mother a surreptitious eye roll and moved to sit beside her on the sofa. “I used to be a governess, so I don’t mind demonstrating it again.”

“And again and again,” the dowager grumped. “I commend your patience, Mary.”

Pompeia took the mangled stocking, ripped out several rows, and recaptured a dropped stitch or two. She poised the free needle next to the one carrying the stitches for the heel. “Now, let’s try–”

“What in hell’s name were you thinking?”

At this furious bellow all the ladies froze, then gaped. “Whatever do you suppose that’s about?” Clarabelle faltered.

The dowager frowned. “I shall give Simon a severe reprimand for using such improper language.”

“That didn’t sound quite like Simon,” his mother said slowly.

“It wasn’t Simon,” Pompeia whispered, rising in horror. She would know that enraged shout anywhere. She had heard it only once before, and she would never forget it.

But this time it was surely directed at her.

Footsteps hammered on the staircase, and her heart abandoned itself to terror. She had to run. She had to flee.

No! She had to do something.

“James, wait!” That was Sally. “Please, just let me—”

“Too late for that,” came Simon’s drawl, and meanwhile the footsteps pounded down the passage.

“James wasn’t supposed to be home yet,” his mother moaned.

Think, think! There must be some way to avert disaster. Not to Pompeia herself—that was impossible—but to Sally, to whom the vouchers for Almack’s meant so much. But there wasn’t time, because it would mean convincing Sir James to talk to her privately before exposing the deception. It would mean making him want to. Inexorably, the footsteps approached the drawing-room doorway.

I know how to make a man want to, said the Wanton Within.

Not that! Pompeia’s rational mind screamed. Not now! But after a second’s furious pause, she realized that for once the wanton might be right. She got her feet moving and went straight for the door.

Too late.

He came into the room like a thunderstorm. It was James indeed, older, broader and even more beautiful than four years ago, from his dark, wavy hair and grey eyes to his well-worn leathers. The Wanton Within applauded, but mostly, Pompeia cringed. She closed her eyes, desperate to compose herself. A babble of voices roiled around her, but she was poised only for his, for the fatal words exposing her as a fraud, commanding her to leave.

Open your eyes, said the Wanton. Look at him.

She did. He stared back, the anger slowly draining from his features, surprise taking its place.

That’s a good start, the Wanton said. Now, let your eyes do the talking. But Pompeia had done that once before to Sir James—accompanied by words that permitted no misunderstanding—and received a stinging refusal.

That was then; this is now, the Wanton insisted. Smile, for pity’s sake!

Pompeia felt her lips tremble into a travesty of a welcome.

Sir James’s mouth quirked the tiniest bit in response. “Pompeia,” he said.

She forced her tongue into motion. “J-James.”

“Unbelievable.” Slowly, he shook his head. “Oh, Pompeia.”

“Pompeia? Who’s that?” demanded the dowager, glowering at each of the frozen conspirators in turn and fixing again on James. “Why do you stare at Mary like that? What’s going on?”

James’s brows drew together. He glanced at his grandmother. “Her name is Pompeia.” His eyes rested on her again, warmly approving. No, wickedly so.

This was astonishingly different from the last time they’d met, when the chill in those eyes had made even the Wanton cower. No, particularly the Wanton, who had gone into hiding for quite a while after that.

What had happened to change things?

Ah. James did know about Pompeia’s disgrace, just as she’d assumed. And, in the way of all men, he anticipated that she would willingly be just as disgraceful with him.

Yes! Do let’s! Just this once! the Wanton pleaded.

“Mary?” The dowager’s voice startled Pompeia from the tumble of her thoughts. “Is this so?”

“Mary is my second name,” she blurted. “I always use it when employed as a governess, because Pompeia sounds so…”

“Decadent.” Simon lounged in the doorway.

James shot him a scowl, and when he faced Pompeia again, the corners of his mouth curled in the beginnings of a grin. “It’s a delightful name and suits you perfectly, but you’d better stop brandishing that knitting needle, my dear, or I shan’t dare to come any closer.”

But come closer he did, and plucked the needle from her white-knuckled grip. She hadn’t even noticed she was holding it. He squeezed her hand and passed the needle to his mother. Pompeia realized she had dropped the half-knitted stocking onto the carpet. Several loops had slipped off one of the other needles. “Oh, dear,” she said foolishly. “I’d better pick up those stitches before we lose them for good.”

Sally, beside Simon in the doorway, gave a hysterical little laugh.

“Throw that abominable excuse for a stocking into the fire,” the dowager said, but her eyes were narrowed upon James. “It is a delightful surprise to see you so soon, James. Mary or Pompeia, whatever you wish to call her, has told us all about your whirlwind romance. Now we should like to hear it from the knight errant’s point of view.”

Unbelievable was the only word for it. Fairy tales weren’t supposed to come true.

James sobered himself. The tension racketing through the room, and the despair on Pompeia’s lovely face, told him this was no fairy tale. What had happened to that fresh, sensual girl in the four years since he’d seen her last?

He certainly hadn’t changed. One look, and he was smitten with the same wild urges that had gripped him years ago. He would do anything for this woman.

Had done, actually, but he’d been a young fool then, brimming with heroic notions and principles of behaviour which, quite rightly under ordinary circumstances, didn’t include debauching a virgin. In Pompeia’s case, that had proved to be a mistake.

He wanted her as much as ever, but he was older now, too old to rush in regardless of the consequences. He needed to find out what had happened in the intervening years and why she was here in his house. Yet even as he cautioned himself, he knew one thing for certain: if fate was indeed offering him a second chance with Pompeia Grant, he was damned well going to take it.

“You shall hear all about it,” he told his grandmother, “once I’ve bathed and changed. And now, if you’ll excuse us, Pompeia and I need a few moments alone.”

In the passageway, Pompeia tried to tug her hand from his. She whispered, “I’m so sorry, Sir James.”

“Not here.” He pulled her toward the staircase, adding in a low, terse voice, “We need to speak privately, and my brother’s man is in my bedchamber. Where have they put you?”

“In the blue guest room,” Pompeia said, “next door to your grandmother.” He released her, and she gathered her skirts and preceded him up the stairs in mingled relief and shame.

He’s watching our derriere, the Wanton said.

Pompeia slapped it down, banishing her gratitude for its earlier assistance. Sir James didn’t look the least bit charmed anymore. It was typically kind of him, she thought, to deal with her perfidy in private. She’d forgotten that aspect of his character, remembering only his white-faced rejection of her in the past.

How could she have agreed to pretend to be his wife?

He ushered her into the blue bedchamber and closed the door behind them. She hovered uncertainly in the middle of the room, clasping her hands tightly before her. This was no different from an irate employer, she told herself. She had held her head high through all those accusations and dismissals; she could do it again now.

No, she couldn’t. For once, she was entirely in the wrong. What was worse, she cared what Sir James thought of her, but it was too late to do anything about that. Saving Sally’s chance of getting the vouchers was all that mattered.

“Miss Grant, don’t be frightened. I mean you no harm.” Perhaps not, but his voice was impatient, and rightly so.

“I’m not afraid, Sir James,” she said. “I am ashamed.” She went to the clothes press and flung it open. Perhaps if she kept busy, this wouldn’t be quite so bad. “It is I who have done you harm, although I didn’t mean to.”

She removed her pitiful pile of garments from the clothes press, laid them on the bed, and reached underneath it to pull out her valise. “Fortunately, it will not be difficult to lay the blame for everything on me. You need merely say I am an adventuress who took advantage of your family’s generosity.” Rapidly, she stowed patched nightgowns and stockings into the valise. “No blame will fall upon Sally, and she will still get the vouchers and go to Almack’s.”

“Sally can go to the devil. What are you doing?” he demanded.

“Preparing to leave, of course.” It was embarrassing to fold her shifts in front of him, although the Wanton Within, needless to say, detected titillation in his considering gaze. “I must hurry, as it’s a long walk to the King’s Arms.”

There was a brief silence. “You can’t walk, what, nine or ten miles to the inn!”

“Indeed I can. I walked here, and I can walk back.” She unearthed her two ugly, brown, stuff gowns, the ones she wore as a governess, from the bottom of the clothes press.

“You walked here?” Exasperation suffused his voice. “Miss Grant, I don’t know what brought you here, but I can’t just let you walk away. You could encounter any kind of danger, and even if you arrived safely, I doubt they would give an unaccompanied woman a room.”

She clutched the gowns to her chest. “I shan’t ask them to, as I cannot afford to stay there. I only have enough for the stagecoach fare.”

“Enough to go where?”

“To my aunt’s house in Berkshire,” she said wearily. She laid the gowns on the bed and spread the first one for folding.

“You live there?” In that case, his tone clearly implied, what was she doing here impersonating his non-existent wife?

“Between positions as a governess.” Why must he ask all these questions? She didn’t want him to know all the sordid details of her miserable life. Why couldn’t he just let her go? “I shall be safe enough outdoors if I remain out of sight.” That sounded absurd even to herself.

“Nonsense,” he said. “I cannot possibly let you go. You are in my house and therefore my responsibility.”

She rounded on him. “I perpetrated a fraud! I pretended to be your wife. You have no obligation to me whatsoever, Sir James. Please, just let me leave.”

“Can you not understand,” he said, “that I wish to protect you?”

She knew better than to believe that. Years of bitter experience had taught her what sort of protection men usually meant to offer her, but perhaps he was still one of that rare species, a true gentleman. He’d proven to be one all those years ago, when he’d visited friends near the village where she lived. He’d shown as much interest and admiration as the other men, flirting and courting her, often with that deliciously wicked look in his eye. That was when she’d discovered the existence of the Wanton inside her, who set up an insistent clamour every time Sir James came near: want him want him want him.