Carola Dunn (7 page)

Before Lissa could question this statement, Lord Quentin approached. “All right and tight now, Miss Findlay?” he enquired.

Flustered, fumbling for words, Lissa blurted out, “No!”

Nicole and Minette exchanged a swift glance. “She ain’t quite right yet, m’lord,” Nicole hastily announced.

“Give her another day,” advised Minette.

Lord Quentin frowned. “Oh very well,” he grumbled petulantly, “but I’m otherwise engaged tomorrow. I shall be back the day after, though, so don’t go accepting
carte blanche
from anyone else.” He turned on his heel and pushed his way through the throng.

“There you are, Lissa,” said Nicole, “you got two days to find out what Lord Ashe is up to. Make the best of ‘em.”

Minette wished her good luck, and the two went off about their own business.

Lissa lingered a few minutes, until she was sure Lord Quentin must have left the theatre. Trudging homeward through the mild spring night, she wondered whether Minette could possibly be right.

She knew herself to be woefully ignorant of the ways of the world. Was a governess safe from the attentions of the master of the house? Had Lord Ashe truly accepted her innocence and made his proposal in good faith? Or was her mistrust justified?

On the point of accepting the risk even before Minette spoke, she now saw her way clearer. At the very least, the boys would eat well for a while. The alternative, even if she kept her place in the theatre, was to watch them sink further into malnourishment, perhaps fall sick, even die. What was her virtue beside that?

Still, she would not give up without a fight. And there were always the pearls.

Reaching home, Lissa plodded up the stairs, chewed a dry crust, and slumped onto her pallet, beneath the thin coverlet. As she sank into sleep, somehow she could not help being happy at the prospect of seeing Lord Ashe again.

Then suddenly she was wide awake again. She had failed to take into consideration that more than a sennight had passed since he invited her to an interview with his sister. Since then she had had no word from him. Perhaps he was too deeply offended by her refusal to renew the offer.

Or perhaps Lady Orton had found a satisfactory governess by now. Even if she had not, it was still her decision, not Lord Ashe’s, as to whether to hire Lissa. She might very well have agreed to the interview just to please her brother, with no real intention of considering an actress for the post.

There was no sense in worrying about what she could not change, Lissa told herself. Unless morning brought a new perspective, she would stand by her decision. What had she to lose but the few remaining shreds of her pride?

* * * *

With a sigh, Ashe gave up trying to hide behind the Times, folded it, and set it beside his half-emptied plate. He was about to rise when his butler came into the breakfast room.

“Halsey, what the deuce is going on above stairs?”

“I was just coming to inform your lordship that her ladyship urgently desires your presence.” In response to Ashe’s raised eyebrows, he coughed deferentially and continued, “I understand, my lord, that Lady Orton is having a disagreement with the latest governess as to whether she is resigning or being dismissed.”

Ashe groaned. “What’s he done now?”

“I believe, my lord, that Master Colin, on being pressed to eat his breakfast, threw it at the unfortunate woman. A boiled egg, my lord, lightly boiled, and bread-and-milk.”

A quarter of an hour later, Ashe reseated himself at the table with a fresh plate of food. The governess, promised a quarter’s wages, was packing. Daphne, with her abigail’s aid, was trying to decide which bonnet to wear with her new walking dress. Colin, after a forced and begrudged apology, sat down sulkily beside his uncle.

“A lightly boiled egg and a bowl of bread-and-milk for Master Colin,” Ashe ordered the butler.

“I’m not hungry.”

“You will eat your breakfast.”

“Then I shall be sick.”

Ashe nodded to the butler, who withdrew. “If you persist in not eating, Colin, you will fall ill. It would serve you right, but it would very much distress your mama, so I will not have it.”

Colin sat in mutinous silence. Ashe applied himself to his plate and his newspaper, doing his best to ignore the memory of a small boy with a hunger pain in his “pudding-house.” Miss Findlay had rejected his help, and that was the end of the matter.

“I want Peter and Michael.” Colin’s lower lip trembled. “Why can’t they come and play, Uncle Robert, even if Miss Findlay isn’t a proper governess?”

Ashe was saved at least temporarily from difficult, if not impossible explanations by Halsey’s return with a tray. The butler set down an eggcup and a bowl before Colin, then turned to his master to present a folded sheet of rather grubby paper.

“Just delivered, my lord. By the two young lads...”

Springing to his feet, Ashe exclaimed, “Are they gone?”

“No, my lord. They wished to await an answer, and I ventured to invite them to wait in the hall, not the kitchen, seeing as last time your lordship--ah--desired to speak to them.”

“Show them in.” Ashe sat down, feeling rather foolish. Had he jumped to the wrong conclusion, he would have made a proper cake of himself. That explained why his heart beat rather fast as he unfolded the letter.

“Who is it, Uncle?” Colin asked with bated breath, glancing back and forth from Ashe to the door. “Is it...? It’s not.... Peter!” he squealed, and launched himself at the bowing boys, skidding to a stop before them. “Michael!”

Ashe could not see his nephew’s face, but he heard the beam in his voice. Peter was grinning. Michael stepped aside and peered rather anxiously past Colin at the table.

“Gosh, do you have an egg for breakfast?”

“You can have it,” said Colin generously.

“Colin, I said you are to eat your egg, and I meant it. Come and sit down.” As Michael’s face fell, Ashe added hastily, “Halsey will bring Peter and Michael as many eggs as they would like.”

Michael’s grey eyes rounded. “Six,” he said. “Ten. Two dozen. Lots and lots.”

“Two,” Peter told him sternly, “and we haven’t made our bows properly yet. Good morning, my lord.”

“Good morning, my lord,” said Michael, obediently bowing again. “I can eat more than two eggs.”

“There are sausages and bacon and kidneys on the sideboard.”

“Kidneys?” The child blanched.

“You won’t make him eat them, will you?” his brother asked forebodingly. “They make him sick.”

“Good Lord no! Take what you want. Fresh muffins, Halsey, and we’d better have a jug of milk.”

“Very good, my lord.”

The boys settled and chattering away--Colin absentmindedly eating as he talked--Ashe at last turned his eyes to the letter. It was brief, impersonal:

My lord, If the position of governess to your nephew is still available on the same terms, I wish to apply. Your ob’d’t servant, Melissa Findlay.

Ashe had a very good idea of why she had refused before. The initial impulse which had made him call out to her, even run after her and bang on her door, had quickly given way to pique. How dared she assume he was so debauched as to set up a mistress under his own roof?

He had half a mind to tell her she was too late.

No, he could not do it. And not just because of his nephew’s happy face, or Peter’s manful efforts not to speak with his mouth full, or Michael’s frank gobbling. Ashe was afraid Lissa--Miss Findlay--had been driven to change her mind by desperation, and he could not bear to think of her desperate.

“Peter, is your sister rehearsing this morning?”

“No, sir, not till afternoon.”

“Then pray excuse me, gentlemen. Colin, I am going to have a word with your mama. You may take your friends up to the schoolroom when you have all finished eating.”

“Really and truly? Oh, famous, Uncle Robert!”

“Thank you, sir,” said Peter, “but we have to take an answer back to Lissa.”

“You shall have your answer presently.”

“It’s a long way home,” Michael pointedly reminded him.

“How fortunate that my horses are in need of exercise,” said Ashe with a smile.

He went upstairs and was admitted to his sister’s pink and white boudoir. Daphne, in a wrap frothy with lace, sat at her dressing table while her abigail removed curling papers from her black locks.

“It is too tiresome, Rob,” said Daphne tranquilly, “none of my hats is quite the right shade of green. Green is such a difficult colour to match, I vow. I shall have to purchase a new bonnet.”

“I’m sure you will look quite delightfully in old or new, my dear. We must talk about Colin. Have you any engagements this morning?”

“No, nothing in particular. Marlin, you may finish my hair later. I am quite at my wits end, Rob. That odious woman had not the least notion how to deal with Colin.”

Ashe paused until the door closed behind the tall, raw-boned dresser, then said, “I have heard from Miss Findlay. She is willing to take on the job of attempting to ‘deal with’ Colin.”

“Your actress?”

“Not mine, nor anyone’s,” Ashe said emphatically.

“Oh, very well, I am ready to try anything, I declare. I shall see her, and if she is as ladylike as you promise, and her brothers as gentlemanly, she may come for a month’s trial.”

“Fair enough.” He let out the breath he had not realized he was holding. “The boys you may see as soon as you are dressed. They brought Miss Findlay’s letter and I have sent them up to the schoolroom with Colin.”

“Rob, that is too bad of you! I wished to meet them before I allowed Colin to associate with them.”

“Just go and see them all together. You will find Colin a changed creature in their company.”

Daphne pouted, but again conceded. “Since they are here already.... You had best send a footman for Miss Findlay right away. I have calls to pay later.”

“And a bonnet to purchase. Rather than risk any delay, my dear, I shall go and fetch Miss Findlay myself.”

Though she looked at him rather doubtfully, as if suspicion once more raised its head, all she said was, “Yes, I had almost forgot the bonnet, and I do wish to wear my new gown to drive in the Park with Lord Quentin this afternoon. Thank you, Rob. Pray ring for Marlin before you go.”

Complying, Ashe wondered whether Teague was going to prove a fly in the ointment. With any luck the fellow had forgotten Lissa by now. However, he knew her profession and assumed her lack of chastity. He could, if he so chose, create a grand scandal.

True, he was by no means a devotee of scandalous gossip. What was more, he had no interest in Colin. Should he by chance discover that Lissa was the boy’s governess, he might be persuaded to hold his tongue for Daphne’s sake. He did, after all, claim to be fond of her.

Ashe ordered his curricle and informed Peter and Michael, still eating, that he was going to fetch their sister.

“Good,” said Michael. “Lissa likes eggs too.”

Had sheer hunger changed her mind?

* * * *

In the late spring sunshine, the kitchen gardens of Lambeth sprouted in orderly green rows, a pleasing sight. The contrast with the dingy rows of invading tenements was the more dismaying. The blue sky above brought little cheer to the narrow streets, yards and alleys. Ragged children played in the dust and streams of filth ran down the gutters.

Miss Findlay’s street was one of the more respectable. The hunched crone who opened the door to his knock eyed him grimly and announced that she did not permit gentleman callers.

“I am glad to hear it, ma’am,” Ashe said with his most engaging smile. “Will you be so good as to inform Miss Findlay that...er...Ashe has come to convey her to his sister’s?”

The woman turned her head and shouted, “Billy, run up an’ fetch Miss Findlay. Tell ‘er Mr. Ashe is ‘ere from ‘is sister. Won’t you step in, sir, an’ wait in the ‘all?”

Catching a whiff of stale cabbage, mingled with less identifiable odours, Ashe said hurriedly, “Thank you, I shall wait in my carriage.”

How had a sensitive creature like Lissa Findlay survived in that pestiferous hole? Would she come, if only to escape it, or would she change her mind again?

Chapter 6

Lissa did not keep him waiting. Though she knew a moment of panic when she heard Lord Ashe had come himself to fetch her, she hastily flung a shawl about her shoulders and hurried down. She could always refuse the situation if it were offered her, she told herself.

His groom holding the horses’ heads, he jumped down as she stepped into the street.

“Good morning, Miss Findlay. My sister is expecting you. I’m glad you changed your mind.”

Paradoxically, the warmth of his smile both sent a frisson of trepidation down her spine and set her at ease. “I am not certain I am doing the right thing,” she confessed as he handed her up into the curricle.

“You have nothing to fear from me,” he assured her, pressing her hand lightly then instantly letting it go. “But I know you would not let fear deter you from doing what is best for your brothers. The first time we met, you gave me proof of your willingness to throw your heart over.”

“To what?” she asked, alarmed. Had he so mistaken her as to believe she had given him her heart and so meant to let him enjoy her favours?

Swinging up beside her and taking the reins from the groom, he laughed. “I beg your pardon, a hunting term, referring to the courage to tackle a difficult jump.”

“Oh, yes, I remember!” A distant memory: herself a small girl on a small, grey, Welsh Mountain pony; an elderly groom urging her to throw her heart over; the triumph of flying over the low pole; and cantering around to see that Papa was watching, applauding from the paddock rail.

Lissa’s throat hurt from the effort of holding back tears. Lord Ashe was looking at her oddly, eyebrows raised but concern in his dark eyes.

“I must have heard the phrase somewhere,” she said weakly.

“Do you ride?”

“N-no.” She had not ridden in seven or eight years, so it was not really a fib, though why should she cavil at one minor taradiddle when she was living a lie? She must strive harder to banish the memories which made her life of deception so much more difficult.