The Impossible Governess (11 page)

“With my charge—until I was exiled to another table.”

Speechless, Raynor glared down into searing green eyes. Then, disgusted with himself and sick of Marissa’s sobbing as she clung to Georgeanne, he turned and stomped out.

~~~~~

Much later that night, after Marissa had fallen into an exhausted slumber, sleep continued to elude Georgeanne.  Reaching for her yellow silk wrapper, she decided to fetch a Gothic mystery from the library and read.  At least, she’d have a
good excuse tomorrow for the dark circles under her eyes.

With bare feet, she treaded noiselessly down the hall.  She carried only one taper with her to light the way.  Once in the library, she used her candle to light a three prong candelabra which provided enough light to read the book spines in front of her.  Listlessly, she browsed the shelves for several minutes.  Not watching where she stepped, she stubbed her toes on a chair and let out a cry of pain.

“Who’s there?” came the unmistakable brusque voice of Lord Raynor from the gloomy shadows across the room.

Georgeanne momentarily froze, then began blowing out the flickering flames of the candelabra.  She prayed he had not seen her.  Still upset over the day’s events, she didn’t want to face him again so soon.  She had extinguished the first candle when he called out again.

“Stop what you’re doing!”

Squinting into the murky gloom, she made out his tall figure looming toward her like some sort of ghoulish specter and hastily blew on the second taper.  But the candelabra was snatched from her hand before she could put out the third candle.

“What are you doing, plunging us into darkness?” he demanded.  “Did you think to make yourself invisible?”

Actually, as silly as it sounded, she had hoped to do just that, melt into the shadows and flee to her room.  He was watching her closely as she looked guiltily about, desperately searching for a means of escape.

“Are you afraid of me, Miss Forsythe?” When she didn’t answer, he put the candelabra with the one taper still lit on a nearby table and reached for her, only to draw back when she flinched from his touch.  He let his hands drop to his sides and studied her disheveled appearance.  Looking down, he smiled at her bare toes peeking out from under the yellow wrapper.  A heat spread through her body with a fluttering in her stomach as his eyes moved upward in a slow, lazy fashion.  They paused at the wrapper’s matching sash tied about her waist, and again where the wrapper formed a vee at the top of her bosom.  His gaze continued upward to the glossy auburn tresses tumbling down her back and about her face. 

Then he began speaking softly.  “You’ve nothing to fear from me,
Miss Forsythe. . . Georgeanne.  I may act the ogre from time to time with my damnable temper, but I swear I would never hurt you.  You must believe me.”

“Oh, I do,” she replied with sincerity. 

“Then why are you trying to run away from me?”

She tilted her head sideways and gave a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders.  “It is really not you but me I want to hide from.”

“I’m afraid you will have to explain,” he prompted gently.

“I cannot.  That is, not without making you angry.”

“If I keep a rein on my temper and promise not to dismiss you?” he asked, giving her a crooked smile.

She looked at him for a long moment before releasing a sigh.  “
My lord, I am still cross with you for wanting to spank Marissa this afternoon.  Do you not understand that has only compounded the problem by making the child fearful of you?   The trust we built up over the past few weeks has nearly been destroyed.  Besides, it was not really all her fault.”

As Raynor listened, his eyes remained focused on her lips.  Still Georgeanne was not prepared when he pulled her roughly into his arms and brought his own mouth down possessively on hers.  At first she resisted him.  Then as his passion rose and his hands seductively massaged her back, she began to relax, feeling secure in the circle of his embrace, yet expectant as she responded to his ardency.  Slowly her arms inched up around his neck, and one hand played with the curly tendrils of hair at the nape of his neck.  When he gently parted her lips with his probing tongue, deepening his kiss, an insatiable yearning possessed her to be closer to him, and she clung to his hard muscular body m
ore tightly.  That deep warmth increased, invading her very core, and she felt as if she were melting in his arms.  She was lost in time, mindless of all else but him.

But when she felt the heat of his hand inside of her wrapper against her bare skin, fondling her breast, the glorious spell broke.  Suddenly, she was hit with the implications of the compromising circumstances, and she panicked.

Pushing him away, she brought the heel of her foot forcibly down on his arch with the weight of her body behind it.  “Owww!” Her cry of pain echoed his.

“Are you trying to break my foot, woman
?” he bellowed after stepping out of striking distance from her.

Hopping around on her other foot, Georgeanne asked, “Just what do you think you were doing?”

“I was not raping you, that’s for sure.  There was no need to cripple me.”

“Huh! You could never prove it by your actions.”

Raynor glared at her before hobbling over to a chair.  “Forgive me.  I got carried away.  But you have no business being down here at this hour of night.”  His eyes roamed her from head to toe.  “Particularly in a state of undress.”

“I came for a book to read and I am not naked.”

“You might as well be in that flimsy outfit,” he said.

“Well!” she huffed, hugging the bodice of her wrapper closer to her throat as she felt her cheeks burn with mortification.  Turning on her uninjured heel, she flounced out of the library, ignoring him when he called out her name.  She scurried up the stairs to the safety of her own bedchamber.

Once back in her own bed, pummeling her pillow again, she was thoroughly bemused.  Raynor had been so angry with her earlier during the day, and just now in the library, he certainly had not been pleased to see her.  Yet, moments after she had rung a peel over his head for his boorish behavior chastising Marissa, he’d taken her in his arms and passionately made love to her.

Georgeanne understood there was a basic difference between men and women, that men were driven by a more primitive sexual desire than their counterparts.  Why, even society was far more tolerant of men and their peculiar dealing with the opposite sex.  After all, it was well known that
many married men took mistresses with little or nothing thought of it. 

Still, Georgeanne mused, Raynor would have to like her more than a little bit in order to be able to kiss her like that, wouldn’t he?

***   Chapter 7   ***

In the schoolroom, Georgeanne sat curled up on a window seat.  Her chin was propped on her arm where it rested on the wide sill as she gazed down on the garden at the rear of the townhouse.  She didn’t see the small boxwood hedges that separated the brick walkway from the rose bed nor the coming and going of grooms and stable hands that took place daily in the mews.

Life just didn’t seem fair.  She and Marissa were confined to the schoolroom for a whole week, all because of one small lapse of social etiquette.  The fact was Georgeanne sympathized completely with her little charge.  She found it impossible to be upset with Marissa for trying to strike Lady Cosgrove at Gunther’s. 

Georgeanne turned her head and looked at Marissa’s melancholy expression as the child sat at her feet playing with a doll.  “You shouldn’t let that woman upset you,” she said to Marissa.  “Think of her as a stone in your shoe, dear.  You can always shake it out and go along your merry way without much fuss.”

Marissa’s little brow creased in concentration.  “I can’t walk when there’s a rock in my shoe.”

“I am thinking of just the very tiniest pebble, the kind you have to tap on your slipper to get rid of it,” Georgeanne clarified.

“I don’t like big pebbles or tiny pebbles in my shoes, Georgie.”

Georgeanne sighed.  “No, dear, none of us do.”

“If I can shake Cousin Olivia out of my shoe, why can’t I hit her?”

Confused by the child’s simplistic logic, Georgeanne shook her head.  “You cannot do that, Marissa.  She is an adult.”

“But you said I could shake her out of my shoe,” Marissa insisted.

“Never mind, dear.  We will simply avoid being around her in the future.”

In truth, Georgeanne wouldn’t have wanted to kiss that cold fish either.  Besides, everyone knew the insufferable witch didn’t like children.  The only reason the woman paid Marissa the least bit of mind was to impress Lord Raynor.

Furthermore, according to the servants’ grapevine, Marissa hadn’t been the only one to throw a tantrum that day.  Georgeanne later heard from Hattie, who had it from Cook whose cousin worked at the confectionery shop, that Olivia Cosgrove had been in high dudgeon after they exited the shop.  She had demanded Raynor punish the brat and fire her worthless governess on the spot.  After hearing that, Georgeanne feared she might be temped to smack the woman herself if they came face to face again.  No, the circumstances definitely weren’t fair.

There, too, was the matter of who was actually being punished.  Two days had passed since the interview with Lord Raynor on the morning following the incident.  It was in the library, the very same room just hours after they’d shared kisses.  Georgeanne had been so nervous when his lordship’s summons came via Bivens and without a clue of what to expect.  How could she face him, she had wondered, embarrassed that her lips still tingled as she remembered his bruising kisses.  But she need not have worried, for his imperious manner had set the tone the moment she entered the library.

He was ensconced behind that monstrous desk and neither rose nor asked her to be seated.  Instead, he had kept her standing in front of him like some lowly servant.  Which was what she was, she had to keep reminding herself.  Drat the man, anyway!  He had been so impersonal, so cold and intimidating.

“The entire scene was most unfortunate,” Raynor expounded in bored tones.  “We both know that unseemly behavior in a young miss cannot be tolerated.”  Just which “young miss” he was referring to, Marissa or Georgeanne or both of them, he didn’t say.

His cold blue eyes never left her face, and never once did she try to interrupt him.  Finally, he metered out the punishment.

“Therefore, I deem it best to curtail all outings for one full week, along with temporarily suspending the afternoon teas.  I hope these strictures will impress upon the young lady the seriousness of her actions.”  For a long moment he had stared at her hot face before curtly saying, “You may go.”

No mention was made about her opinions--or the passionate embrace they had shared.  No “Thank you for the kiss last night, Miss Forsythe,” or “Please forgive my own despicable behavior last night, Miss Forsythe.”  Not that she actually expected an apology from the heartless brute anyway.  But it wouldn’t have hurt the man to acknowledge she had feelings to consider as well. 

Over the past two days, she’d reviewed his lecture a hundred times, and each time she seethed at the unfairness of being unable to properly defend either her charge or herself.

Letting out a frustrated sigh, she swung around to check on Marissa, now seated at the trestle table, diligently practicing her letters.  She had decided to say no more about the incident, thinking it best that the whole affair be forgotten.  Besides, the child had been so very good, doing everything she and Hattie asked without any complaints.  But how she and Marissa could be expected to endure a whole week of forced inactivity was beyond her understanding.  She would go mad if something didn’t happen to break the monotony and soon.

Fondly, Georgeanne observed Marissa’s golden head bowed over a slat
e as the child toiled over her letters and came to a decision.  That it might not be a wise one occurred to her, but Georgeanne opted to ignore her pangs of conscience.  She rose from the window seat and went over to Marissa.  Placing a hand on the tousled yellow curls, she gently ruffled them even more.

“Fetch you
r bonnet and pelisse, Marissa.”  With a mischievous chuckle, Georgeanne made for her own room to do the same.

Running into Hattie in the hall, Georgeanne explained the need to escape the confines of the schoolroom for at least a day.  “Although I really have no idea what we can do since we must remain out of sight.  I would hate to think of the consequences if we were to get caught,” Georgeanne confided a little anxiously.

Instead of raising a protest, the young maid heartily endorsed the idea.  “And right you are too, Miss.  Ain’t natural to keep the little miss cooped up all this time.”

She disappeared as Georgeanne and Marissa went about putting on their hats and pelisses but met them when they descended the back stairs used by the servants.  Hattie pressed some coins into Georgeanne’s hand and whispered, “I hope you don’t mind, Miss.  But seeing as how all of us downstairs been thinking his lordship’s been a mite harsh on the two of you, I took it upon myself to tell Bivens about you sneaking out.  And well, he thought you might could use these.”

Gratefully, Georgeanne gave the maid one of her dazzling smiles and happily pocketed the unexpected largess.  In the kitchen, further assistance came from Cook.  Though busy with preparations for the dinner that night, she gave the fugitives a wink along with two pastry treats before they scurried out the back door.