Читать книгу The Duke's Governess Bride - Miranda Jarrett - Страница 11

‘Blast these infernal foreign clerks,’ Richard said, finally giving voice to his exasperation. He’d scarce sat down to his breakfast before the officials from the Customs House had descended upon him, and it had taken the better part of the morning for him and Potter to settle their questions and finally send them on their way. ‘They’re so puffed with their own importance; they do believe they’re as grand as his Majesty himself. Did they truly believe we’d try smuggling rubbish in our trunks?’

Potter made a small bow of agreement. ‘The Venetians are most particular about their trade, your Grace. They have such a long tradition of trade by sea, that they are most watchful guarding their port.’

‘Their entire city’s a port, as far as I can see.’ Richard sighed, and reached for his glass again. Despite the canals and rivers everywhere, he’d been warned for the sake of his health to stay clear of the water for drinking, and from what he’d seen floating about beneath his window, he instantly agreed. Instead he’d been advised to drink the local wine, a rich, fruity red from the nearby Veneto that was surprisingly agreeable, even when accompanied by drones from the Customs House. ‘At least we satisfied them that we’re no rascally rum-smugglers, eh?’

Potter smiled. ‘Quite, your Grace.’

‘Quite, indeed.’ Richard nodded, then sighed again. What lay next for this morning—or what was left of it—wouldn’t be nearly as easily resolved. He didn’t enjoy admitting he was wrong any more than the next man did. ‘Ah, well, now for the rest of my business. Pray send in Miss Wood to me.’

‘Forgive me, your Grace,’ Potter said with a delicate hesitation, ‘but that is not possible. She’s not in the house.’

‘Not here? Of course she’s here. Where the devil could she be otherwise?’

‘I do not know, your Grace.’ Potter stepped forwards, instantly producing a sealed letter in that mystifying way of all good secretaries. ‘But she did leave this for you to read at your convenience.’

Richard grabbed the letter from Potter’s hand. ‘I cannot believe Miss Wood would simply disappear,’ he said, cracking the seal with his thumb. ‘She’s never been given to such irresponsibility. It’s not like her.’

‘I expect she’ll return, your Grace,’ Potter offered. ‘It isn’t as if she’s run off. All her belongings are still in her room.’

‘Well, that’s a mercy, isn’t it?’ With a grumbling sigh Richard turned to the neatly written page. A single sheet, no more, covered with Miss Wood’s customary model penmanship. If she’d been upset by their exchange last night, she wasn’t going to betray it with her pen, that was certain.

‘Damnation,’ he muttered unhappily. ‘Thunder and damnation! Potter, what does she mean by this? You read this, and tell me. What’s she about?’

Quickly the secretary scanned the letter, and handed it back to the duke. ‘It would seem that Miss Wood has given notice, Your Grace, effective immediately.’

That was what Richard had thought, too, but hadn’t wanted to accept. ‘But she can’t resign, Potter. I won’t permit it.’

Potter screwed up his mouth as if he’d eaten something sour. ‘You can’t forbid it, your Grace, if she no longer wishes to remain in your employment. As Miss Wood herself writes, with the young ladies wed and gone, there’s little reason for—’

‘I know what she damn well wrote, Potter,’ Richard said crossly. He set the letter on the desk and smoothed it flat with his palm. When he’d first heard that his daughters had married, he’d been ready to banish Miss Wood from his sight for the rest of their combined days on this earth. But once he’d read the letters from his daughters, he realised that Miss Wood was the last link he might have with them.

The last link. Lightly he traced her signature with his fingertip. He thought of how hard she’d tried to make the news as palatable as possible to him last night, how she’d tried to ease both his temper and his sorrow. She’d done her best for his girls in this, the way she always had, yet she’d also done her best for him. How many years had she been in his household, anyway? He couldn’t remember for certain. It seemed as if she’d always been there, setting things quietly to rights whenever they went awry, looking after his girls as loyally as if they’d been her own. He could hardly expect more, nor would he have asked for more, either. Surely he must have told her so, somewhere in all the time that his daughters were growing up. Somewhere, at some time, he must have, hadn’t he?

Hadn’t he?

‘Miss Wood is still a young woman, your Grace,’ Potter was saying, stating the patently obvious as he too often did. ‘No doubt she is already looking towards her future, and a position with another—’

‘I know perfectly well how young she is, Potter,’ Richard said, and as soon as he spoke he remembered how she’d looked last night, her hair loose and full over her shoulders and her eyes wide and glowing with the fervour of her argument. Oh, aye, she was young, a good deal younger than he’d remembered her to be. Now he couldn’t forget it, and his confusion made his words sharp. ‘Nor do I need you to tell me of her future.’

Potter sighed, and bowed. ‘No, your Grace.’

‘Miss Wood’s future, indeed,’ Richard muttered, pointedly turning away from Potter to gaze out the window. Nothing had prepared him for losing his girls as abruptly as he had, and now he’d no intention of letting Miss Wood go before he was ready. ‘As if I’d so little regard for the young woman that I’d turn her out in a foreign place like some low, cast-off strumpet.’

‘Your Grace.’

He swung around at once. Miss Wood herself was standing there beside Potter, her gloved hands neatly clasped at her waist and her expression perfectly composed.

‘Forgive me for startling you, your Grace,’ she said, ‘but Signora della Battista told me you wished to see me directly. I have only now returned, and I came to you as soon as I could.’

He nodded, for once unable to think of what to say. Hell, what had he been saying when she’d entered? Something unfortunate about strumpets and being turned out.

‘Potter, leave us,’ he ordered, determined not to embarrass her any further. ‘I will speak to Miss Wood alone.’

The secretary backed his way from the room, and shut the door after him. Miss Wood continued to stand, her expression so unperturbed that Richard found himself unsettled by it.

‘Sit, Miss Wood, sit,’ he said, waving his hand towards a nearby chair. ‘That is, if you wish to.’

‘Thank you, your Grace.’ She sat with an unstudied grace, the slight flutter of her plain woollen skirts around her ankles reminding him painfully of her night-shift last night in the hallway.

Unaware of his thoughts, she sighed and glanced down at her letter, still open on the table before him.

Her smile became more forced, its earlier pleasantness gone. ‘I suppose you wish to discuss terms, your Grace. I can be gone from this house by nightfall today, if that is your desire.’

‘It most certainly is not!’ he exclaimed, appalled. ‘Look here, Miss Wood, what I was saying when you came in—I didn’t mean you, or that you were to leave.’

Her eyes widened with bewilderment, and she flushed. ‘Forgive me, your Grace, but I don’t understand. When I entered just now, you were looking through the window, saying nothing.’

‘Very well, then, very well.’ He cleared his throat to cover his discomfort. That was a fine start to things, stammering out an apology when none was needed, like some tongue-tied schoolboy. ‘I’ve no intention of sending you off to fend for yourself without any warning. It’s not right, and I won’t have it said that I’d do such a thing to any woman in my employment.’

‘You’re very…kind.’ Now her smile was tremulous with an uncertainty he’d never seen from her before, and that touched him at once. Little tendrils of her dark hair had escaped from beneath her linen cap, doubtless coaxed into curls by Venice’s perpetual dampness, and reminding him again of last night. Why had he always believed her hair to be straight and uninteresting before this?

‘It’s not kindness,’ he said as firmly as he could. ‘It’s my duty to you, in return for how well you have served my daughters.’

‘It is kindness, your Grace,’ she said carefully, ‘and I thank you for it. But I cannot continue here, a governess with no charges to govern. It would not be right.’

‘And I say it is.’ To prove it, he took her letter and tore it in two. ‘There. We’ll forget about this notice, and you can continue with the same wages. I’ll have Potter settle the particulars, to make sure I’m not in arrears with you for the quarter.’

‘But for what, your Grace?’ she asked. ‘Before you arrived, I could continue to stay here until I took the passage for home because I was following my orders as we had arranged last summer. I could continue as I was, because I’d no reason not to, even without any responsibilities. But now that you do know my situation, everything changes. To accept wages from you for being idle would be perceived as unseemly, your Grace.’

Her cheeks had remained pink, and he wondered if she, too, were remembering last night. Had he surprised her as much as she had him? Had she been aware of him as a man, and not just a master? Is that what she meant by ‘unseemly’?

‘You’ve been in my household for years, Miss Wood.’ A thousand memories of her with his daughters came racing back to him—more, really, than he had of the girls with his wife. All he asked now was that she share that with him for another fortnight. ‘You are in many ways a part of our family, you know. Certainly my two daughters feel that way towards you.’

With triumph he saw the brightness in her eyes that meant unshed tears. She wouldn’t go now, not so long as she thought of Diana and Mary.

He lowered his voice, softer but no less commanding. ‘Please, Miss Wood. No one would question it if you remained here another few weeks.’

But instead of immediately agreeing, as he’d expected, she shook her head. ‘Forgive me, your Grace, but I believe they would. A governess is always vulnerable to talk.’

‘No female servant has ever come to grief in my household,’ he declared proudly, ‘and I defy anyone to say otherwise. That shall not change, Miss Wood. I give you my word of honour.’

‘I thank you, your Grace.’ She rose, and he stood, too, on the other side of the table with her torn letter lying between them. ‘But I must refuse. I have no choice, not if I hope to be at ease with myself. I cannot remain here to take money from you for doing nothing in return.’

‘Nothing?’ Swiftly he turned away from her again and back towards the window, unwilling to let her see his surprise at her refusal. When was the last time anyone had refused him like this? What more did she wish from him, anyway? What more could he offer her?

‘For the sake of my girls, I would ask you to stay,’ he said to the window. ‘Reconsider, and stay. Please.’

Yet she did not answer, and he sighed impatiently, clasping and unclasping his hands behind his back.

‘An answer, Miss Wood,’ he said. ‘Damnation, you can at least grant me that courtesy, can’t you?’

No answer came, not a word, and with a muttered oath he swung around to confront her.

And to his chagrin, learned that she had left him and he was already alone.

With feverish haste, Jane packed the last of her belongings into her travelling trunks. Despite the luxury and comfort of this house and the hospitality shown to her by Signora della Battista, the sooner she left this place, the better. No matter how much the duke insisted she stay, she could not remain here with him. She could not. It was as simple, and as complicated, as that.

She muttered with frustration, a rolled-up stocking clutched tightly in her hand. She had anticipated this tour across the Continent so much. Likely it would be the one time in her life she’d be able to see the places and paintings she’d only read about in books. While most tutors to noble families had travelled to France and Italy, very few governesses ever left their schoolrooms, and she’d counted on these new experiences to increase her value to families who’d hire her in the future.

But what she hadn’t counted on was how this trip had altered her.

The changes had been imperceptible as they’d happened, or at least they’d been so to her. When she studied her reflection in the looking-glass, she appeared much the same as she always had, with more thoughtfulness than beauty in her face. She wore the same clothes as when she’d left Aston Hall, and pinned her hair back into the same tidy knot as she had since she’d been a girl. She still wore no scent, no ornaments or jewels, no extra little enticements designed to beguile. She dressed for sturdy, respectable practicality and nothing else.

Nor could she say exactly when or how the changes had occurred. Was it because she’d been forced to step so far beyond her usual place in life, and accept more responsibility for herself and her young charges? Was it the art she’d seen in the galleries here, frankly sensual images of pagan love among the ancient Greeks and Romans, of writhing nymphs and satyrs, of Romish saints in the throes of exquisite ecstasies, that had subtly marked her? Or had the proximity to the heated affairs of Mary and Diana affected her, too, softening her, burnishing her, making her less like her familiar spinster self and more receptive to male attention, even admiration?

Because that was what had happened. Not only was she noticing gentlemen with more interest than she ever had before, but they were noticing her. To be sure, Signor di Rossi was Italian, and by his nature much given to emotional displays, but for him to have proposed assignations had stunned her. The very word sounded beyond wicked. She would be thirty on her next birthday, well beyond the impulsive age for making assignations with gentlemen. Wasn’t she?

Then why had she seen his Grace in an entirely different light last night? For ten years he had been her master and no more, the father of her charges and little else. She had admired him from afar, of course; there was much about him to admire. But once she took the letters to his room last night, everything between them seemed to have shifted. When he’d opened the door himself, she hadn’t thought of him as her master the duke, but as a large, tousled man roused from his bed.

She’d been acutely aware of his physical presence, glimpsed outside his nightshirt, of the muscles of his bare forearms and the curling hair on his chest like the naked Roman gods in the paintings by Tintoretto. His unshaven jaw bristled with a night’s worth of whiskers, and his uncombed hair had fallen across his forehead. She’d stood so close to him that she’d smelled his scent, the warmth of his skin combined with the faint fragrance of freshly washed bed-linens. He’d looked at her, too, looked at her as if he’d never seen her before, with admiration and interest and with desire for her as a woman, too, if she were being honest. In her confusion, she’d looked down to avoid his scrutiny, and had seen the shocking intimacy of his bare feet, so close to hers that their toes could have touched.

And then he’d spoken of his daughters and love and desire and she’d heard the passion in his voice, the urgency of his emotions, so great that she’d had no choice but to run away, just as she’d run away from him now, both times without his leave or her own common sense.

She groaned, and hurled the stocking into the open trunk. What if he’d guessed her thoughts? She’d come to his bedchamber door last night shamelessly in her night-shift. She’d told him this morning that she couldn’t take his wages without earning them, and of course he’d seen no reason to her objection. The duke was a man in his prime, and bound to make conclusions. And what if his Grace had the same wanton notions towards her that she’d felt towards him? Considering it—considering him—was enough to make her flush all over again. No, she’d no choice. She had to leave this house now, now, before she was thoroughly disgraced by her own wicked self.

She slammed the lid shut on her trunk. She would go to the Scottish widow, and put aside for ever the pleasure of viewing pictures on the arm of Signor di Rossi. She would live as chaste a life as she could until she found a new place. She’d drink no more wine, nor view inflammatory pictures. She would again be the model of English propriety. She would be lonely, too, but she’d been lonely before, it would be nothing new to her. The consequences if she chose otherwise would be far more grievous.

She heard the rap at her door—doubtless the porter come to collect her things.

‘Uno momento, per favore,’ she called, hurrying to gather up her cloak. She paused in the doorway between her little servant’s bedchamber and the more extravagant one meant for a lady, gazing for the last time at the unforgettable view of blue sky, shimmering canal and tiled rooftops framed by the window’s curving arches. It was unforgettable, too; she’d carry it in her memory for ever, and she lingered to savour the sight a moment longer.

‘Miss Wood.’

She jerked around. His Grace stood in the open door, his hand resting on the latch, surprising her just as she had done to him earlier.

‘You left before we could finish,’ he said, coming to join her. ‘We weren’t done.’

‘I believed we were, your Grace.’ She wasn’t exactly frightened of him, but she was wary: of him, and of herself.

‘We weren’t,’ he said, folding his arms over his chest. ‘You say you won’t remain with me and be paid for being idle.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘That is what I said.’

‘Then what if you remain as my guest? You’ll receive no wages, no money. There’s no sin to that, is there?’

She raised her chin, more determined than ever. ‘Idle tongues would still see sin, your Grace, whether I were paid a thousand pounds or none at all. It would be so with any woman beneath your roof.’

‘Damnation, it’s not as if we’re alone,’ he said. ‘The house is full of servants.’

She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to, not with her resolve so evident in every inch of her posture.

He grumbled, a sound she knew was his way of masking an oath in the company of ladies. He began to walk slowly around her, not exactly pacing, but thinking, considering. She recognised that about him as well.

‘You speak Italian, don’t you?’ he asked at last. ‘You can manage the lingo here?’

‘A bit, your Grace,’ she admitted. ‘I am not precisely fluent in the language, but I have learned enough to make my wishes understood.’

‘Well, then, there’s the solution,’ he said as if that explained everything. ‘You can remain here as my translator. You can take me about the city and show me the sights.’

‘But I—you—already have a bear leader hired for that purpose,’ she protested, naming the professional guide who had presented himself with a flourish the morning she’d arrived, ‘a native Venetian named—’

‘I do not care what the fellow is named,’ he said grandly. ‘I would rather have you, Miss Wood, to guide me, and teach me what I should know of Venice.’

‘Oh, your Grace, I am hardly qualified—’

‘You know more than I,’ he said, smiling proudly at his solution. ‘That’s qualification enough. You are a governess, a teacher by trade.’

‘Your Grace, please—’

‘I do please,’ he said, and stopped his walking. By accident he stood framed by the arch of the window, his dark blond hair turned gold by the sun, as much a halo as any English peer would ever have. Yet he also stood beside the bed, that extravagant, opulent, sinful bed, and there was nothing angelic about that whatsoever.

‘In those letters you gave me to read from my girls,’ he continued, ‘they said they’d be here in a fortnight. They’re expecting to see you then, and they’ll have my head if you’re not here to greet them.’

‘Was that all you gleaned from those letters, your Grace?’ she asked, appalled. She had given him the letters so that he’d learn of the love his girls had found with their new husbands, and the happiness as well, but now it seemed he’d read them and learned nothing. ‘An itinerary?’

‘Two weeks, two short weeks,’ he said, ignoring her question. ‘Surely you can tolerate my company for that time, until they arrive, and then—then you may go as you wish.’

‘Why does my presence matter so much to you?’ she demanded. ‘Surely you can tell me that, your Grace. Why should you care at all?’

‘Why?’ He turned slightly, just enough so that he caught the reflections from the water, ripples of light across his face that robbed it of all his certainty, his confidence.

‘Why?’ He repeated the single word again as if mystified by how exactly to reply. His smile turned crooked, too, or maybe it was only another trick of the shifting light. ‘Why? Because my girls, my finest little joys, have grown and left me. Because you, Miss Wood, are my last link here on the other side of the world to them, and to the past that I’d always judged to be happy enough.’

‘Oh, your Grace,’ she said softly, bewildered by such an unexpected confession. She took a step towards him, her hand outstretched on impulse to offer comfort. ‘Oh, I am sorry, I did not intend to—’

‘Damnation, because I do not wish to be entirely abandoned here alone,’ he said gruffly, the truth clearly so painful to him that he could scarce speak it aloud. ‘Is that reason enough for you, Miss Wood? Is it?’

Now when she looked at him, she saw neither the overbearing master she’d always known, nor the lusty male she’d encountered last night. What remained was sorrow, loss and resignation, all the proof she needed that what he’d said was true: that he did not want to be left alone.

And neither, truly, did she.

‘I’ll stay, your Grace,’ she said softly, daring to rest her hand on his arm. ‘Until your daughters arrive, I’ll stay.’