Dangerous to Love (53 page)

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DANGEROUS TO LOVE,
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D
ANGEROUS TO
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Elizabeth Thornton

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historical romance .  .  .

She came awake on a cry of terror, momentarily disoriented, as if she had been flung back in time to another house, another place. As awareness seeped into her, her heartbeat gradually slowed. She was safe. No one was hunting her. No one knew who or where she was.

The hiss of the rain lashing against the windowpanes had almost soothed her into sleep when lightning flashed and thunder exploded overhead. She raised herself on her elbows in anticipation of Quentin flinging himself into her room. He wouldn’t admit that he was afraid of thunderstorms, of course. At eight years old, Quentin was beyond admitting that he was afraid of anything. It would be an amusing charade. Having discovered that his governess was terrified of storms, he would pretend that he had come to comfort
her.
She, none better, understood his bravado.

When the storm increased in ferocity, and still her young charge had not appeared at her door, Deborah felt for the candle on the table by her bed. After several unsuccessful attempts to get it lit, she gave it up, and slipping from the bed, reached for her wrapper. It took her only a moment or two to traverse the corridor to Quentin’s room, and a moment after that to ascertain that the boy’s bed was empty.

She hesitated, debating whether her employer, Lord Barrington, could have got there before her and carried his son off to his own chamber, or whether Quentin was playing tricks on her again. Deciding the latter, she groped her way into the corridor, her hand trailing along the handrail, till she came to the bannister at the head of the stairs. In that darkly shadowed interior, the light spilling from under the
door to his lordship’s library on the floor below shone like a beacon.

She hesitated when she came to the turn in the stairs. “Quentin?” she called out. “Quentin?” There was no answer.

With a small sound of annoyance, she went to investigate, her mind already jumping ahead to the possible consequences of Quentin’s rash prank. His health was not robust. He was just getting over a fever. If he had not donned his robe and slippers, she would give him the rough edge of her tongue.

As she approached the door to the library, she heard voices, and her steps slowed. She couldn’t make out what was being said, but she knew that one of those voices belonged to her employer, and he sounded distraught. The thought that something awful had befallen Quentin leapt into her mind. Her hand reached for the doorknob, then froze in mid-air as Lord Barrington’s voice rendered the silence.

“Let the boy go,” he pleaded. “For God’s sake, have pity. He is only a boy. You of all people. Kendal, Lord Kendal .  .  . Don’t harm him!” The timbre of his voice thickened as his anguish increased. “Quentin, run for it!”

There was a thud, and Deborah was galvanized into motion. A gun went off as she flung the door wide and Quentin came bounding into her arms. The picture of her employer slumped on the floor with a shadowy figure standing over him flashed through her brain, but beyond that she registered nothing. Instinct had already taken over. She slammed the door shut and grabbed for Quentin’s hand.

Then they were off and running, running, running, running.

Deborah ends up disguised as a dowdy teacher at Miss Hare’s School of Deportment for Young Ladies in Bath, England. Here she hopes she can keep Quentin
safe from the man she heard her employer identify as “Kendal”—before he was killed. Now a new employer has arrived to offer Deborah an idyllic-sounding position as companion to his young sister. But Deborah doesn’t know that the charismatic “Mr. Gray”
is
known to his friends as John Grayson, the Earl of Kendal .  .  .

In the pink and white drawing room of Miss Hare’s School of Deportment for Young Ladies, the ritual of taking tea was in progress. This was no empty ritual as was to be found in legions of drawing rooms throughout England on almost any day of the week. This was an exercise in deportment, a way of putting the girls through their paces, testing their competence in the social graces. That was the theory.

In practice, thought Deborah dismally, it was sheer torture, not least because the guest of honor on this particular afternoon happened to be a handsome, personable gentleman whom Miss Hare had vaguely introduced before abandoning him to his fate. It was he, of course, Mr. Gray, the gentleman who was seeking a mentor for his young sister, and Deborah could have wept in frustration. Of all the times to be caught unawares, this was unquestionably the worst. She could do nothing with the girls. They did not
give
a straw about learning the rudiments of drawing room conversation. They were all man-mad, and were flirting outrageously. Miss Hare frequently arranged for gentlemen guests to be present when the girls took tea, but no one of Mr. Gray’s attributes had ever visited them. It was inevitable that these brazen hussies would be thrown into a twitter.

He was certainly handsome. In her experience, most men with his looks had the conceit to go with them. They fed on feminine adulation and knew how to charm a female into doing whatever they wanted. Mr. Gray wasn’t like that. It had taken her only a few minutes to sum him up. She could see at a glance that he wasn’t used to being the
center of attention. He was ill-at-ease and seemed more than happy to allow her to do most of the talking. His modesty, his ineptness around females, was quite touching.

As her gaze lingered, his head turned, and eyes as blue and clear as a mountain stream caught and held her stare before the gentleman looked away. She had a flash of unease, a quick impression of a cat among the pigeons, then sanity returned. She was overwrought. She was imagining things. If Lord Kendal’s minions ever caught up with her, they wouldn’t waste time by taking tea. They would swoop down like vultures and carry her off in pieces. This quiet, unassuming gentleman was exactly what he appeared to be. She had nothing to fear here. Then why was he smiling? What was he thinking?

Gray was congratulating himself on the approach he had decided to take with the girl. His first inclination had been to swoop down and carry her off by force. His interview with Miss Hare had persuaded him to a more subtle course of action. There was no doubt in his mind that Miss Hare would raise Cain if her protégé were to be mishandled. Not only would she call in the constables, but she would pursue the matter with the tenacity of a British bulldog. The last thing he wanted was to involve others in how he meant to proceed with Miss Weyman.

The more he observed her, the more the conviction grew that he was not dealing with an enemy agent but a guileless innocent who had somehow got in over her head. It would be no great feat to terrify her into submission. He had every confidence that in a matter of days, if not sooner, she would be willing to tell him all that he wished to know. Yet, a small part of him regretted that he must be so hard on her. It was not his way to make war on defenseless women. He dismissed this thought almost as soon as it occurred to him. He could not be sure that she was as innocent as she appeared, and even if she were, she had abducted Quentin, and Quentin’s safety took precedence over everything.

Deborah touched a finger to the furrow on her brow, willing an incipient headache to retreat, and she did her best to ignore the fluttering eyelashes and simpers that emanated from her charges. When, however, Millicent Dench rose to offer Mr. Gray another cucumber sandwich, Deborah sat bolt upright in her chair. One never knew quite what to expect from Millicent. It wasn’t that the girl was wicked. It was simply that she could not refuse a dare. One quick look around at the girls’ faces convinced Deborah that mischief, in bold letters, was brewing.

She was on the point of rising to head the girl off when Mr. Gray’s voice arrested her. “Thank you, Miss Dench,” he said, “but I prefer something sweeter. Miss Moir, I’ll have a slice of that cake, if you would be so kind.”

The hush that descended eddied with hidden currents. Deborah knew that she had missed something, but could not begin to guess what it was. She was aware that Millicent had received a snub—the girl’s blushes attested to that fact—but there was more to it than that. Something had happened and she was the only person present who had missed it. She was aware of something else. The balance of power had shifted to Mr. Gray, and his innocuous words were responsible for it.

She looked at him curiously, and saw things about him that she had missed before—the breadth of his shoulders, the powerful masculine physique, and now that she came to think of it, that pleasantly modulated voice had carried an edge of steel. Had she mistaken his character? If so, it hardly mattered. The gentleman could be as masterful as Jupiter, just so long as he did not try to master her. There was no fear of that. His business would take him to London almost at once, and she and Miss Gray would be left to their own devices in the seclusion of his country estate. It was perfect, if only she could manage it.

When he turned to look at her, she saw that his eyes were smiling, and an unspoken message flashed between them. There was a joke in this somewhere, and later he
would share it with her. When she nodded imperceptibly, Mr. Gray gave his attention to the cup and saucer in his hand. The smile on Deborah’s face lingered.

She hadn’t been mistaken in him. He really was a nice man, the sort of man a woman could make a friend of, up to a point. The only other men she had ever befriended had all been elderly, with the exception of Lord Barrington. Her thoughts drifted and a wistful expression came over her face, an expression that was not lost on the gentleman who was assiduously drinking his tea.

She came to herself with a start to discover that the girls had taken advantage of her preoccupation and were firing off questions like English archers releasing their arrows at the Battle of Agincourt. Was Mr. Gray married? Betrothed? How old was he? What was his profession? Where did he live? Why had he come into Bath? As the only mistress present, it was Deborah’s duty to give the girls a push in the right direction when conversation flagged, or restrain them when they got the bit between their teeth. Though she was curious to know more of Mr. Gray, experience had taught her that if she gave the girls an inch they would take a mile, and there was no saying what they would come up with next.

“Girls,” she said, and got no further. A gong sounded, loud and clear, and Deborah tried not to let her relief show. A lady who earned her bread by caring for other people’s children must always appear in command of every situation.

“Study hall,” said Deborah brightly, addressing Mr. Gray, and all the girls groaned.

With a few muttered protests and a great deal of snickering, the girls began to file out of the room. Deborah assisted their progress by holding the door for them, reminding them cheerfully that on the morrow they would be reviewing irregular French verbs and she expected them to have mastered their conjugations. As the last girl slipped
by her, Deborah shut the door with a snap, then rested her back against it, taking a moment or two to collect herself.

Suddenly aware that Mr. Gray had risen at their exit and was standing awkwardly by the window, she politely invited him to be seated. “You’ll have a glass of sherry?” she inquired. At Miss Hare’s, the guests were invariably treated to a glass of sherry when the ordeal of taking tea was over. At his nod, Deborah moved to the sideboard against the wall. The glasses and decanter were concealed behind a locked door, and she had to stoop to retrieve them from their hiding place.

As he seated himself, Gray’s gaze wandered over the lush curves of her bottom. There was an appreciative glint in his eye. The thought that was going through his head was that Deborah Weyman bore no resemblance to the descriptions he had been given of her. Spinsterish? Straitlaced? Dull and uninteresting? That’s what she wanted people to think. She had certainly dressed for the part with her high-necked, long-sleeved blue kerseymere and the ubiquitous white mob cap pulled down to cover her hair. An untrained eye would look no further. Unhappily for the lady, not only was he a trained observer, but he was also an acknowledged connoisseur of women. Advantage to him.

Since her attention was riveted on the two glasses of sherry on the tray she was carrying, he took the liberty of studying her at leisure. Her complexion was tinged with gray—powder, he presumed—in an attempt to add years and dignity to sculpted bones that accredited beauties of the
ton
would kill for. The shapeless gown served her no better than the gray face powder. She had the kind of figure that would look good in the current high-waisted diaphanous gauzes or in sack-cloth and ashes. Soft, curvaceous, womanly. When she handed him his sherry, he kept his expression blank. Behind the wire-rimmed spectacles her lustrous green eyes were framed by—he blinked and looked again. Damned if she had not snipped at her eyelashes to shorten them! Had the woman no vanity?

“I missed something, didn’t I?” said Deborah. “That’s why you are smiling that secret smile to yourself.”

“Beg pardon?” Gray’s thick veil of lashes lowered to diffuse the intentness of her look.

Deborah seated herself. “I missed something when Millicent offered you a cucumber sandwich. What was it?”

If he had the dressing of her, the first thing he would do was banish the mob cap. There wasn’t a curl or stray tendril of hair to be seen. “A note.”

“A note?”

“Mmm.” Red hair or blond. It had to be one or the other. Unless she had dyed it, of course. He wouldn’t put it past her. If this were a tavern and she were not a lady, he would offer her fifty, no, a hundred gold guineas if only she would remove that blasted cap.

“Are you saying that Millicent passed you a note?”

Her voice had returned to its prim and proper mode. He was beginning to understand why she had kept out of the public eye. She couldn’t sustain a part.

“The note,” Deborah reminded him gently.

“The note? Ah, yes, the note. It was in the cucumber sandwich.” She was trying to suppress a smile, and her dimples fascinated him. No one had mentioned that she had dimples.

“Oh dear, I suppose I should show it to Miss Hare. That girl is incorrigible.”

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”

“Why won’t it?”

“On her way out, she snatched it back. I believe she ate it.”

When she laughed, he relaxed against the back of his chair, well pleased with himself. That wary, watchful look that had hovered at the back of her eyes had completely dissipated. He was beginning to take her measure. The more he erased his masculinity, the more trustful she became. Unhappily for him, there was something about Deborah
Weyman that stirred the softer side of his nature. Advantage to her.

Deborah sipped at her sherry, trying to contain her impatience. As her prospective employer, it was up to him to begin the interview. He lacked the social graces. She wasn’t finding fault with him. On the contrary, his inexperience appealed to her. It made him seem awkward, boyish, harmless. Besides, she had enough social graces for the two of them.

“Miss Hare mentioned that you were seeking a governess for your young sister?” she said.

He was reluctant to get down to business. All too soon, things would change. That trustful look would be gone from her eyes, and Miss Weyman would never trust him again. Pity, but that was almost inevitable. Still, he wasn’t going to make things difficult for her at this stage of the game. That would come later.

Deborah shifted restlessly. “You will wish to know about references from former employers,” she said, trying to lead him gently.

“References?” He relaxed a little more comfortably against the back of his chair. Smiling crookedly, he said, “Oh, Miss Hare explained your circumstances to me. Having resided in Ireland with your late husband for a goodly number of years; you allowed your acquaintance with former employers to lapse.”

“That is correct.”

“I quite understand. Besides Miss Hare’s recommendation carries more weight with me.”

“Thank you.” She’d got over the first hurdle. Really, it was as easy as taking sweetmeats from a babe. Mr. Gray was more gullible than she could have hoped. The thought shamed her, and her eyes slid away from his.

“Forgive me for asking,” he said, “Miss Hare did not make this clear to me. She mentioned that in addition to teaching my sister the correct forms and addresses, you
would also impart a little gloss. How do you propose to do that?”

There was an awkward pause, then Mr. Gray brought his glass to his lips, and Deborah shrank involuntarily. She knew that she looked like the last person on earth who could impart gloss to anyone.

For a long, introspective moment, she stared at her clasped hands. Seeing that look, Gray asked quietly, “What is it? What have I said?” and leaning over, he drew one finger lightly across her wrist.

The touch of his finger on her bare skin sent a shock of awareness to all the pulse points in her body. She trembled, stammered, then fell silent. When she raised her eyes to his, she had herself well in hand. “I know what you are thinking,” she said.

“Do you? I doubt it.” He, too, had felt the shock of awareness as bare skin slid over bare skin. The pull on his senses astonished him.

His eyes were as soft as his smile. Disregarding both, she said earnestly, “You must understand, Mr. Gray, that governesses and schoolteachers are not paid to be fashionable. Indeed, employers have a decided preference for governesses who know their place. Servants wear livery. We governesses wear a livery of sorts, too. Well, you must have noticed that the schoolteachers at Miss Hare’s are almost indistinguishable, one from the other.”

“You are mistaken. I would know you anywhere.”

The compliment was unexpected and thrilled her until she remembered that he saw her as an aging dowd. She’d seen his kind in action before. She’d wager her last groat that he was quite the gallant in the presence of elderly ladies. In another moment, he would be pinching her cheek and swearing that, in her salad days, she must have been a breaker of hearts. It was too mortifying to be borne.