The Governess Was Wanton (13 page)

One edge of his mouth tipped up. “What is there to explain? I love you. It's as simple as that.”

“You can't love me,” she said quietly.

This time he didn't stop moving. He rounded the bench in two steps. He reached for her, a little breath of relief leaving his lips when he skimmed his fingers along the length of her arm and picked up her fingers in his to bring her hand to his lips. Instead of brushing a kiss to the back, however, he flipped her palm over and kissed its sensitive center.

“I don't care that you're a governess, Mary. I couldn't care less if you'd spent your life scrubbing out the grates in my house. All I know is that for the first time in my life I feel as though I've met a woman who's worth waking up for every day.”

“Eric,” she whispered. He was melting her resolve, dismantling her barriers until there was nothing but a clear path ahead of them both.

“I've wanted you from the moment I saw you, but passion and desire would've been simple. I could have resisted that. I was helpless against you. All of you, from the curl of your lips to the smart, sharp words that come out of them. There's no one else for me. I burn for you.”

Her fingers curled around his and held on to him, but still she couldn't quite believe it. They'd spent one night together. One. Well, unless she counted the one in the garden, which—

The garden. The mysterious woman. His search. She pulled back, slipping her fingers from his.

“It isn't me you want,” she said.

“You're really going to argue with me on this point?” he asked, that damn twinkle still in his eyes.

“Your daughter told me how enamored you were of a certain woman at the masque you attended,” she said, lying through her teeth. She and Lady Eleanora hadn't spoken of any such thing, but she was grasping for some excuse to put him off. She didn't want to compete with the memory of a fictitious woman, and she wasn't strong enough to tell him what she'd done that night.

“Did she?” he asked. “Did she also tell you that that I was stupid enough to think that woman could be a way to occupy my mind for a little spell? It always came back to you. Even when I was kissing her. Even when I was touching her.”

Her breath caught in her throat as he pulled a scrap of cloth from his jacket pocket. It unfurled, and suddenly she was staring at her own handkerchief. Then he pulled another from that same pocket. Two. Two of her distinctive handkerchiefs.

“Eleanora supplied me with this just this morning. She said she got it from you.” He handed her the first one. “And you dropped this when you fled the marquis's garden.”

Her hand trembled as she took the second cloth from him. “How can you want me? I'm a liar.”

“You're human.”

“I'm the sort of woman who lets a man lift her skirts in a garden,” she said, although deep down in the most secret part of her she was proud of what she'd done. She'd taken her moment of adventure and seized it. She'd created a memory for herself rather than contenting herself on the fringes of other people's. She'd lived as she wanted to live for the first time since her whole world had changed fourteen years ago.

“Don't disparage my bride-to-be,” he said. “Besides, I like that I know she'll be more than a little adventurous. An old man like me could use a little excitement from time to time.”

She couldn't help her smile. “Not so very old.”

“You'll have to remind my daughter of that. Now, Mary, can I ask you one more thing?”

She looked up at him, her head tilting back to drink in the rich green of his eyes. “Yes.”

“Can I kiss you again?”

The “Y” of the “Yes” was barely off her tongue when his mouth was on hers. His hand cupped her cheeks and his long fingers tangled in her hair. Unable to resist him any longer, she grasped at the front of his shirt and pressed herself closer to him. He slid his lips over hers, angling them so he could kiss her deeper. With every stroke and touch, her objections were falling away.

Maybe it didn't matter that she was just a governess.

Maybe he could really love her.

Maybe she deserved the love of a man who would fight for her.

Maybe it was time to show him that even if logic told her to run, every instinct told her to fight for him too.

When at last the final wall crumbled, all that remained was the hard, unblemished kernel of truth at the center of it all. She loved him, and losing him would break her. She'd known it when she ran, but she'd wanted to try to save them both from the difficult road that would no doubt lie ahead for them. People would be unkind. Society would struggle to accept an upstart governess with designs on a prized bachelor. Rumors would swirl.

All of that could go hang.

Eric had come after her, showing her that what she really needed was his love. Together—along with her friends and his daughter—they could carve out a life.

Except there was still more she needed to know.

She broke away panting. “I have a question.”

He laughed as his hands stroked up her back to play along the row of tiny buttons that marched down her dress. “You wouldn't be you if you didn't. Ask me anything.”

“Are you marrying me just because you took my virginity?”

“No,” he said, and kissed her temple. “And if that was your first time, we both have a lot to look forward to.”

“And what about children? I'm thirty-two years old.”

“Women of thirty-two have been having children for millennia. We'll figure it out. I want more than anything to be father to children of our own, but if that's not possible, I'm proud of Eleanora. And remember, I have a cousin who is chomping at the bit to see if he'll be the fifth Earl of Asten after I die, so the family name is more than safe.”

She started nodding slowly, but there was one lingering question. “And Lady Eleanora truly doesn't mind the thought of her governess marrying her father?”

He hugged her to him so her hands rested on his chest and she could feel the reverberations of his answer. “I think she was appalled at how long it took me to figure out that I loved you. And I'm sure she would welcome you dropping the ‘lady' from her name.”

She laughed. “It's a hard habit to break.”

He kissed her lightly. “So are you. So, will you answer my question?”

“What's that?” she asked.

“Will you marry me?”

She slid her hands up over his chest, relishing the feeling of hard muscle through his fine lawn shirt. He was hers if she wanted him. All of him. It was the most generous gift anyone had ever given her, and she would spend every day trying to be worthy of it.

“I think I will. I do love you, after all.”

He whooped with delight, swept her into his arms, and spun her around. She tucked her head against his chest and just held on. He'd been her employer, and now he was her lover, her fiancé, her future, and she couldn't be more excited to see what their years together would bring.

Acknowledgments

This book happened because of Laura von Holt, Alexis Anne, Mary Chris Escobar, and Alyssa Cole, who are my author support network, and Jackie, Sonia, Ben, Christy, Katherine, and Sean, who didn't question it when I disappeared for four months to write.

Thank you to my fantastic editor, Marla Daniels, who made this book what it is; the wonderful team at Pocket Star; and my agent, Emily Sylvan Kim, who's told me from day one that good things are coming.

Living in a small New York City apartment teaches you to improvise when it comes to office space. I wrote a lot of this book tucked in the back corner of my favorite bar on quiet Saturday afternoons. Jason, Niall, George, Karissa, and Andrew, this is partially your fault. Enjoy.

And finally, this is for my family, whom I love to the end and back.

Keep reading for a sneak peek at Jane's story, the final installment in Julia Kelly's Governess series

The Governess Was Wild

Coming Fall 2016 from Pocket Star Books!

March 3, 1860

Somewhere on the road

between London and Yorkshire

Jane Ephram woke in the unremarkable room of an inn situated in a village of no consequence with the distinct impression she was alone.

It took a half second for her usually sharp mind to begin whirring, but the moment the creaky cogs clicked together she bolted up in her cot. She was alone. The massive bed that dominated the center of the room was empty, and Lady Margaret Simon, only daughter of the Earl of Rawson, was nowhere to be seen.

Jane jumped up, rushed to the bed, and threw back the covers, hoping in vain she'd discover Lady Margaret nestled somewhere underneath the mound of linen.

Nothing.

There was no sign of her charge.

“No no
no
,” she muttered as dread began to gnaw at her stomach.

Crossing the room, Jane threw open the doors of the tall armoire where Lady Margaret's maid had stowed the hand luggage meant to save them the trouble of pulling their trunks down from the top of Lord Rawson's carriage every night. Jane's modest, slightly tattered bag had fallen over, no longer supported by the most substantial weight of Lady Margaret's smooth leather valise.

“Oh, you foolish girl!”

Jane didn't curse—what governess would risk such vulgarity?—but in the bright light of the late winter morning she was closer than she'd ever been in her life. This was her nightmare realized—the one that had made for restless sleep the last three nights on this slow progress to their exile at Lord Rawson's West Riding estate.

Jane breathed deeply and tried to calm her already-frayed nerves. Yes, the bed was empty and yes, Lady Margaret's bag was gone, but that didn't necessarily mean she'd run off. Even the young lady who'd sulked during the entire journey from Rawson House on Berkeley Square to this little village couldn't be so irresponsible.
So selfish.

“She's headstrong enough to ruin her reputation just to spite her father though,” Jane muttered.

She yanked at the ties of her night rail and ripped the plain garment with a patch on the right elbow over her head with lightning speed. She'd been dressing herself since she was seven, and that morning she couldn't have been more grateful that she was used to lacing her own corset, strapping on the modest crinoline that went with her traveling dress, and working the long buttonhook down her back. She shoved her feet into her serviceable flat boots, snatched up her reticule, and sprinted from the room.

She clattered down the hall and up a small set of stairs to a floor of a set of considerably less well-appointed rooms where Lady Margaret's maid, a Highlands girl named Elspeth, slept. She rapped hard on the door, not stopping until the stiff bolt groaned in the lock.

“What do you want?” a sleepy young woman with wild black hair escaping from its braid demanded.

“Elspeth!” Jane called, peering around the woman's shoulder. “Elspeth, get up right now.”

There was a muffled protest and the sound of sheets rumpling, but a few seconds later the maid was at the door of her shared room yawning, her cap slightly askew. “There's no need to carry on like Revelations are upon us. I can't have overslept. Not when you can hear every creak through these thin walls.”

“Where is Lady Margaret? Did she call on you to dress her?” Even as she asked, Jane knew the question was foolish, but there was still a part of her that hoped against all hope her charge hadn't done something incredibly stupid. Maybe Lady Margaret had risen early and dressed to take a meal in a private room downstairs. Maybe if Jane wished hard enough, she could will that into being true.

The hand Elspeth had been using to rub the sleep from her eyes dropped to her side and her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What's the matter?”

“When was the last time you saw her?” she pushed. While Jane could ready herself for the day without assistance, Lady Margaret's traveling costume was far too complicated to manage on her own. Besides, the young lady had likely never dressed without a maid's assistance.

“I haven't seen Lady Margaret since yesterday evening. She asked me to brush out her hair, but then told me that she wanted to undress herself because she was too tired for a fuss,” said Elspeth.

Jane rolled her eyes and prayed for the strength not to shake the gullible young woman. “When has Lady Margaret ever
not
wanted a fuss to be made over her?”

Elspeth's face crumpled and the tears began to fall. “I didn't think there was any harm in it.”

Of course there was harm in it, but Jane didn't have the heart to berate the girl. She was just as culpable as Elspeth. She'd thought nothing of the fact that Lady Margaret was already in bed with the covers pulled up to her chin when she returned to the room yesterday night after having a word about their morning meal with the innkeeper's wife. Jane had been exhausted from the slow, long journey in the carriage and wishing for the speed and comfort of the Midland Railway trains that would've brought them within five miles of Holmesfield Hall. She'd been distracted and careless and now the worst had happened.

“Elspeth, look at me,” Jane said. “There are times for crying, but right now is not one of them. I need you to think back to yesterday. Is there anything else that Lady Margaret did that struck you as odd?”

The maid hiccuped between sobs. “She asked me to get down a few things from her trunk and pack them in her valise. She said she wasn't sure what she wanted to wear the next day.”

“Oh, Elspeth, you should've let me know!”

“I'm sorry!” Elspeth wailed. “I was so tired of being in that carriage. I just wanted to go to bed.”

“I know,” she said, trying to once again dull the sharpness in her tone. The maid was young and in many ways naive. How was she supposed to know what Jane had learned over ten years of teaching Lady Margaret—that the girl was crafty as a Whitechapel street urchin and just as slippery.

“Why didn't we take the train?” Elspeth cried.

Jane didn't have time to explain—yet again—that Lord and Lady Rawson felt traveling in a private carriage with no family crest through tiny villages would be far more anonymous than parading their daughter through the middle of Euston Station with her governess, maid, and a footman in tow. It would be too hard to maintain the pretense that Lady Margaret had fallen ill and was confined to her Yorkshire home for her convalescence if she was seen healthy and traveling on one of the country's most trafficked railways.

“Elspeth.” Jane gripped the girl by the shoulders. “I need you to dress.”

“Where are you going?” Elspeth asked, her sobs replaced by a hint of panic.

“To see if anyone saw Lady Margaret leave. If we're lucky, she might not have too much of a head start.”

The maid sniffled but nodded before withdrawing.

Jane turned on the hard heel of her boot and swept down the passageway, trying her best to rationalize the situation as she went. Lady Margaret had always been the sort to push boundaries before pulling back and smoothing ruffled feathers with cooing words and sweet smiles. Several times she'd run off from Jane while they'd shopped on Bond Street, only to be found a few hours later enjoying a cup of tea with an equally willful friend in the back of a tea room, chaperoned by the well-meaning but far too indulgent Elspeth. But Lady Margaret's latest stunt—well,
that
had been a step too far for Lord and Lady Rawson.

Jane hadn't been in the room two weeks ago when Lady Margaret announced to her mother and father that she'd secretly become engaged to Mr. James Lawrence, but she—and no doubt the rest of Mayfair—had heard the ensuing row. Lady Margaret had made a vast miscalculation if she thought that the earl and countess would allow their only child to attach herself to a man with no prospects, no title, and no fortune who'd engaged himself to two heiresses in as many seasons before jilting the poor women for richer prey. They immediately forbade their daughter from seeing or communicating with Mr. Lawrence again.

This, naturally, only made Lady Margaret try harder to continue her attachment to the roguish and admittedly dashing young man. When, a week after the ill-fated engagement announcement, Lady Rawson had discovered a stack of letters from Mr. Lawrence stashed among her daughter's needlework, she'd ordered the girl packed off to Yorkshire. Locked away in the great house to think about the life-changing mistake she'd nearly made, Lady Margaret would be able to do far less damage to her reputation than she could while surrounded by temptations of London. It would also give the earl time to arrange a meeting, open his bankbook, and pay off Mr. Lawrence to end the engagement discreetly. That would be that.

And Jane? She'd simply been collateral damage in the war between daughter and parents—the governess caught up in the middle of a family dispute. She was going north as well, away from the few friends she had in London. She'd always wanted to travel, to see the world outside of the confines of a governess's restricted, disciplined life, but this wasn't what she'd had in mind.

On the ground floor, Jane pushed open the door to the inn's public dining room. It was empty except for the innkeeper's daughter, who'd served them the night before.

“The young lady I was traveling with,” Jane called out to the girl. “Have you seen her?”

The girl started but dropped her gaze to the counter she was wiping down. “I haven't seen anyone today, ma'am.”

The girl was lying, not that it was surprising. Lady Margaret had a way about her that drew people in, and those she couldn't win over were usually more than happy to put their loyalty up for sale.

“What's your name?” Jane asked, trying to keep her voice light and friendly.

“Sally,” the girl muttered.

“Sally, Lady Margaret isn't in her room. That means that she has to have come downstairs at some point. Since I doubt she would have thought to go through the kitchen, I assume she walked through here. Now, I want you to answer me honestly this time. Did you see Lady Margaret this morning?”

“My horse!” A man's voice cut through the quiet of the morning. “Someone's stolen my damned horse!”

Jane groaned and picked up her skirts. Only Lady Margaret could stir up that sort of frustration in a person before breakfast.

She rushed outside to find a tall, imposing man standing at the door of the inn's large stable. He was gesturing wildly with a riding crop, a long lock of his blond hair falling into his eyes as though a rake of his hands had knocked it out of place.

“Excuse me, sir,” Jane called as she forced herself to put one foot in front of the other, striding toward the avenging god while keeping a close eye on the crop. It wasn't as though she thought the man would use it on her, but it made her nervous nonetheless.

“What?” the man snapped, whirling around. As soon as he discovered who had addressed him, he sucked a breath in and said, “I'm sorry, madam. You've caught me at a disadvantage.”

“Your horse has been stolen.”

Instead of starting to yell again as she expected, the man offered a crooked grin and whacked the crop sheepishly against the top of one of his muddy boots. “Is it that obvious?”

Jane blinked, caught up in the seduction of his smile. “I—I did manage to overhear something about it.”

“I also apologize for that. I don't usually make a habit of yelling curses in public before breakfast.”

“And after breakfast?” she asked.

The man's eyebrows jerked up in amusement. “Only on special occasions, of course.”

“Of course. Well,” she said, bracing herself for their little banter to turn sour, “I might be able to shed some light on the situation.”

Sure enough, the man's eyes narrowed. “What do you know about Merlin's disappearance?”

A laugh bubbled up to her lips. “Merlin?”

“It's a perfectly sensible name for a horse,” said the man, his tone a little defensive.

Except it wasn't. Not really. The thought of a man as powerfully masculine as him doing something as fanciful as naming a horse after an old wizard in a children's tale was strangely touching.

She could see the veins in his neck tense so she bit her tongue. “The young lady I was traveling with was not in her bed this morning.”

“You think that
she
stole my horse?” he asked incredulously, cutting straight through her delicate choice of words.

“I wouldn't rule it out as a possibility.”

“I think not.”

It was Jane's turn to look skeptical. “Why?”

“Merlin stands fifteen hands high and snaps like a badger defending its den. He's too much for anyone but the most skilled rider.”

“Lady Margaret is the best horsewoman in the West Riding and rides to hounds with the most talented sporting men in the county,” she said, drawing herself up to her full height. She might be furious with her charge, but Jane would still defend the young lady's skill. “She's more than capable.”

“Of handling a stallion that goes like a bat out of hell—excuse my language?”

Oh, how little he knew. “That sounds like exactly the sort of horse Lady Margaret would've chosen.”

The man looked more than a little taken aback. “She'll break her neck.”

“That's part of the appeal, I'm sure.”

The man smacked the riding crop against his boot again, but this time there was nothing but anger fueling the gesture. Jane flinched, and his mouth tensed into a thin line. “I don't even use the thing when I ride. I'm not entirely sure why I continue to carry a whip.”

“Tradition, perhaps,” she said, her eyes not leaving the crop.

“A silly tradition at best.”

He let it go so that it lay harmless in the packed dirt of the inn yard.

“Thank you,” she said. “I understand why a crop is used, but I've never been able to reconcile myself to put it into practice.” Not that governesses rode all that often . . .