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Rebellious Rake, Innocent Governess
Elizabeth Beacon
Charlotte turned her head to find Ben watching her with amused speculation. Sometimes it seemed to her as if the wretched man had been regarding her so since they’d first met.
‘I am here as a chaperon, sir, not an idle guest with nothing on her mind but flirtation and gossip,’ she said tartly, hoping he wouldn’t realise she’d been covertly watching him flirt mildly with a lovely blonde widow for most of the evening.
‘I really don’t think it would be a good idea for me to indulge in an amour with you tonight, Miss Wells,’ he murmured silkily, revealing that he was as conscious of her uneasy disapproval as she was of feeling it.
He gave a soft chuckle when she sent him a look that should have turned him to stone. He sat on, as serene and content as an alderman at the Lord Mayor’s banquet.
‘I have no wish to indulge in such wanton behaviour at any time, sir, and least of all with you.’
Oh, how she wished that last caveat were entirely true!
About the Author
ELIZABETH BEACON lives in the beautiful West Country, and is finally putting her insatiable curiosity about the past to good use. Over the years Elizabeth has worked in her family’s horticultural business, become a mature student, qualified as an English teacher, worked as a secretary and, briefly, tried to be a civil servant. She is now happily ensconced behind her computer, when not trying to exhaust her bouncy rescue dog with as many walks as the inexhaustible Lurcher can finagle. Elizabeth can’t bring herself to call researching the wonderfully diverse, scandalous Regency period and creating charismatic heroes and feisty heroines work, and she is waiting for someone to find out how much fun she is having and tell her to stop it.
Previous novels by the same author:
AN INNOCENT COURTESAN
HOUSEMAID HEIRESS
A LESS THAN PERFECT LADY
CAPTAIN LANGTHORNE’S PROPOSAL
REBELLIOUS
RAKE,
INNOCENT
GOVERNESS
Elizabeth Beacon
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Chapter One
It had been a mistake to come. In fact, Charlotte decided crossly, it would have been better if she had never left her post at Miss Thibett’s select academy for young ladies in Bath in the first place. She’d been perfectly content with life as an ordinary teacher until the new Countess of Carnwood had offered her the position of governess to her younger sisters. How she wished now that she’d refused to listen to Miranda Alstone’s persuasion and was still a humble schoolteacher. As a schoolgirl herself, she’d been in awe of the lovely and vivacious Miranda, a year older than she was and a world away in looks and confidence. When Miranda had turned up at Miss Thibett’s two years ago, married to her late grandfather’s scapegrace heir and very distant cousin, Charlotte should have recalled that spoilt young miss Miranda had once been and hardened her heart against this much more likeable Miranda Alstone and refused point blank to leave her job and her sanctuary.
Charlotte had enjoyed teaching her classes more than she had expected when she had become a schoolmistress out of dire necessity seven years ago. Miranda’s little sisters, Katherine and Isabella Alstone, were delightful young women of course and her lot was much happier than that of the average governess, but she had her future to consider and even the youngest Miss Alstone was now fifteen. Already they were in town for Kate’s dеbut and that fact alone might prove Charlotte’s undoing.
She surveyed the overheated ballroom and tried not to wish for delicate muslins or a mere satin slip with a light gauze over-gown, instead of the acres of suffocating grey crepe she now wore. How much better off she would have been marking essays and contriving next day’s lessons in her last employment, she thought disgustedly. Instead here she was, reluctantly accompanying the Honourable Katherine Alstone, granddaughter of the last Earl of Carnwood and sister-in-law to the current one, to this society crush in the Countess of Carnwood’s stead and enduring the company of the most infuriating male she had ever had the misfortune to encounter, which only added to her miseries.
When Mr Ben Shaw joined herself and Kate in the carriage tonight he had looked at her as if she were akin to a piece of furniture astray from its rightful place. A side table, suddenly putting itself forward in the centre of the room perhaps, she decided crossly, or more likely a plain deal kitchen table trying to pass itself off as something far more elegant in a lady’s drawing room. Well, she certainly hadn’t asked to come, and if he didn’t like her company he should never have forced her into the role of chaperon for the night. Doubtless he’d only remembered her existence once he had exhausted every other possibility and it wasn’t her fault if she looked more like an antiquated quiz than a lady a man like Ben Shaw would be proud to accompany to a ball. After all, she was an antiquated quiz and perfectly content with her lot. Yes, of course she was; the sort of ladies Mr Shaw normally accompanied had very different ambitions from hers, and she had no wish whatsoever to end the evening in his bed, thank you very much.
They might not have been more than nodding acquaintances at school all those years ago, but she and Miranda had become good friends over the last two years and she knew that, while Ben Shaw was rich and astonishingly successful now, he’d grown up on the same squalid streets as the new Earl, but without the benefit of legitimacy to protect him from some of the slings and arrows thrown his way. Even Charlotte had to secretly admit he was a powerful and handsome man who gathered beautiful women like bees did honey, but, Miranda had cautioned unnecessarily, he’d long ago forsworn marriage and regarded the idea of fatherhood of any sort with unswerving revulsion. Yet despite all that tonight, as he handed her up into the carriage she’d felt a ridiculous flutter in her usually cynical breast and briefly longed to be beautiful, so she could at least wipe the bland, condescending smile off his handsome face and make him take notice. Not that she would know what to do with it if he centred that formidable will and intellect on her, but it would have been satisfying to see him rocked back on his heels by admiration and desire for someone he couldn’t have for once, instead of the mild surprise she had detected behind that social smile that such a plain and spinsterish female was about to share his exotic company for an entire evening.
To soothe her ridiculous agitation over such a masculine and utterly maddening irritation as Mr Shaw, Charlotte let nostalgia for her former quiet existence overtake her for a moment, if only to blot out the discomfort of sitting in this noisy ballroom, trying desperately hard not to be noticed. After all, she had been content over the last two years to be invisible to the world outside the schoolroom and Mr Ben Shaw, so why should tonight be any different? No reason at all, she reassured herself and went back to reviewing her career as a schoolmarm. It had begun with awe at the task ahead and sheer hard work, as she learnt her trade from a mistress of the art. Not for Miss Thibett the perfunctory education and insipid accomplishments most establishments for the education of young ladies insisted upon. No, a young lady who graduated from her elegant academy in Queen’s Square would have an unusual grasp of mathematics, literature and the world around them, as well as more ladylike skills such as watercolour painting, music and fine needlework. Not that many people here tonight would appreciate such a breadth of knowledge, Charlotte mused cynically.
She observed the haut ton at play and concluded that they took their amusement as seriously as those less fortunate did the hard work needed to keep the wolf from the door. At least she had escaped the chaperons’ benches for this quiet niche, she decided, trying hard to see a silver lining to her current cloud, and she wondered how many of the duennas present tonight understood they were as wrapped up in commerce as a Lord Mayor’s banquet. Instead of silks, perfumes and spices, or raw materials to feed the voracious manufactories in the north, they were the purveyors of delicately brought up young ladies of course. Even so, it was a commercial transaction and Charlotte sat a little further back in her alcove as she tried to reassure herself that her particular young lady was very much her own person and would have something very pungent to say to anyone who suggested she sold herself in return for a fine house and a title.
The idea was laughable. Charlotte considered Miranda’s appalling misadventures after such a charmed beginning, and her husband Kit’s early life at the mercy of a drunken, spendthrift father living precariously in the meanest part of town. They had both been forged into something more than they might have been if the fates had been kinder to them, and overcome their troubles magnificently, so forcing Miranda’s sisters into marriage for the usual dynastic reasons was unthinkable. The Earl and Countess of Carnwood would never do that, even if they lost every penny of their vast fortunes, Charlotte thought wistfully, and tried not to wish her happiness had been of such crucial importance to her own relatives. No, she refused to sit about repining about the past, or she would do if there was only something better to do, she thought crossly, and wiped the frown off her face and tried to look inconspicuous as possible in this ill-lit corner of the ballroom.
It wasn’t easy to efface yourself when you were about as tall as a lady could get without being publicly displayed as a curiosity, but she managed it more often than not nowadays. Charlotte fiddled with her snowy cap and adjusted a strategic piece of lace to conceal the suggestion of a curl that she pushed back into hiding with exasperated efficiency. She had a job keeping her rebellious locks in place at the best of times, but if they showed themselves here the results could be disastrous. It would never do for some sharp-eyed dowager to detect even a hint of the gangling dеbutante who had once sat out so many dances at her chaperon’s side beneath the guise of a humble duenna.
‘Ah, so there you are, Miss Wells,’ a deep voice rumbled at her side and made her jump at least six inches. Charlotte shivered in the stuffy air of Lady Wintergreen’s elegant ballroom with an infuriating mix of apprehension and excitement. How could such a very large man move so silently that she had no idea he was anywhere near her until he spoke? And where else did he think she would be when this entire fiasco was his fault in the first place?
‘Go away!’ she ordered rudely, even as she strained her neck to meet Mr Benedict Shaw’s altogether too intelligent grey eyes challengingly.
He just laughed at her as usual, and gave her the quizzical smile that usually swept all feminine opposition before him so effortlessly, despite his dubious credentials as cavalier to an innocent young dеbut ante. She had a very long way to look, she decided absently, and put a hand to the back of her head to make sure her cap stayed securely in place. Unused to being towered over by anyone and recalling the humiliation of looking down on nearly all her dance partners during her ill-fated Season, she firmly squashed the idea that to waltz with the very tall and broad-shouldered Mr Shaw could quite possibly feel a little too wonderful.
‘May I not sit beside you for even a short time while I rest my weary bones then, Miss Wells?’ he asked mildly and she wondered what he was about this time, for in her opinion Mr Shaw had never been meek or mild in his entire life and probably only slept when he could spare a few moments from his busy schedule to do so.
‘What a ludicrous idea,’ she dismissed tartly.
‘Ludicrous?’ he echoed contemplatively. ‘I have been called many things during the course of my chequered career, Miss Wells, but so far that’s not one of them. If you can tell me why my sitting beside Miss Alstone’s very respectable chaperon whilst I politely await my dance with her charge could be construed as ludicrous by anyone but yourself, I might even oblige you and take myself off.’
‘For the very reason that I am her chaperon and about as dull a female as you could find if you scoured every ballroom in Mayfair,’ she parried crossly as he sat anyway, despite her embargo.
‘Nonsense, you are very far from dull, Miss Wells, although it’s plain to me, if to nobody else, that you study very hard to appear so,’ he observed coolly and watched her steadily, trying to look as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth and not succeeding at all well. ‘I have the misfortune to be very tall, you see,’ he said with a look of quite spurious innocence as she continued to glare back at him in a most unladylike fashion. ‘You would have got a crick in your swanlike neck had I continued to stand, Miss Wells, and no doubt that would have been my fault as well.’
‘Well, of course it would,’ she answered and made herself look away from the suppressed laughter in his apparently guileless grey eyes.
Finding nothing fascinating enough to engage her attention, she shot him an even more irate glare and wondered how he knew everything about tonight’s dеb?cle was to be laid at his door.
‘You should never have sought me out in the first place,’ she informed him grumpily and turned her head to find him watching her with amused speculation. Sometimes it seemed to her as if the wretched man had been regarding her so since they first met, and she was heartily sick of being the butt of some private joke. ‘I am here as a chaperon, sir, not an idle guest with nothing on her mind but flirtation and gossip,’ she added tartly, hoping he wouldn’t realise she’d been covertly watching him flirt mildly with a lovely blonde widow for most of the evening.
‘I really don’t think it would be a good idea for me to indulge in an amour with you tonight, Miss Wells,’ he murmured silkily, revealing that he was as conscious of her uneasy disapproval as she was of feeling it.
He gave a soft chuckle when she gave him a look that should have turned him to stone and sat on, as serene and content as an alderman at the Lord Mayor’s banquet. No wonder her palm itched to slap that parody of a gentleman’s politely interested smile in the face of small talk off his handsome face.
‘I have no wish to indulge in such wanton behaviour at any time, sir, and least of all with you,’ she said sharply and wished that last caveat were entirely true.
There was a silly, and usually firmly suppressed, side to Charlotte’s nature that had never quite relinquished the romantic rebellion of her youth. That Charlotte had stood to attention the moment Ben Shaw hoved into view two years ago, and had annoyed her everyday self at the most inconvenient moments ever since. Now the silly idiot clearly yearned to become the sort of female who could exchange languishing glances with a gentleman in search of more sophisticated amusements, and lure him to heaven knew what wanton and forbidden rendezvous that a true lady shouldn’t even know about, let alone consider in her wildest fantasies. She was rather foggy about how a femme fatale behaved once she had lured her quarry into her perfumed lair, of course, but that other Charlotte was quite willing to improvise, at least if the shortness of breath she suddenly suffered at the very idea was anything to go by. It was all utter nonsense, of course, sensible Miss Wells informed her fiery secret self, and met Mr Shaw’s eyes with chilly resolution.
‘I, sir, am a chaperon. It is my duty to watch over Miss Alstone and make sure nobody can level the accusation that she was so laxly chaperoned that her reputation might be in danger. That is my purpose and my destiny,’ she finished rather wistfully and quite spoilt the effect of her first chilly statement.
‘Now you are being ludicrous, Miss Wells. Those young cubs wouldn’t even blink the wrong way with your stern eye on them, even if they were intent on mischief, which I doubt as they’re clearly besotted with the little minx and have sickeningly honourable intentions. Besides that, I dare say young Shuttleworth is so upright and respectable he could chaperon Kate himself, if you weren’t here to play the watchdog so determinedly, and nobody would raise an eyebrow,’ he asserted outrageously.
Such a foolish notion appealed to the sense of humour she usually managed to conceal in mixed company and she couldn’t help smiling at such a revolutionary notion. Lord Shuttleworth was indeed a very virtuous and earnest young man, but he would look very odd indeed sitting with the dowagers, frowning at Kate’s many admirers and shaking his head over the more rakish of their number. Come to think of it, he would probably perform the role far too diligently, and make sure Kate only danced with himself.
‘You are most certainly mistaken in that notion, sir, and I still wish you would go away,’ she informed him forthrightly, having long ago discovered there was no point in wrapping up her meaning in the polite conventions where Mr Shaw was concerned—and almost as useless as trying to carve rock with embroidery scissors, in her experience.
‘And there I was hoping you’d take pity on me and grant me a dance. You must admit it’s a confounded nuisance for a tall man to stoop over his partner like a grazing crane every time he’s fool enough to take to the floor with the usual run of female,’ he teased, doing his best to look as if he needed her sympathy when he was the least deserving case she had come across.
Despite his lowly upbringing, or maybe even because of it, Mr Benedict Shaw had succeeded in cutting a swathe through the more sophisticated beauties of the ton, and Charlotte suspected his great wealth had very little to do with that success. He was very much a man among the shallow youths who usually clustered about Kate, and even those gentlemen who were his equal in years faded to insignificance in his vibrant company. She couldn’t currently recall another single gentleman who matched him in either height or presence herself, which was very annoying of them now she came to think of it. No, hardship and sheer bull-headed stubbornness had honed him from an illegitimate waif from the slums into a subtle and dangerous man of power, and only a fool would underestimate Mr Shaw.
If she had ever been among their number, the ease with which he moved among the finicky ton would have opened her eyes to his dubious talents. And he had even done his best to conceal rather than reveal the fact that some very aristocratic blood indeed came to him on one side of the wrong blanket he was born under. He cheerfully admitted to being the son of a seamstress on the other, and still the rigid rules of society had first bent and then broken under the impact of his peculiar brand of charm, and the weight of his lifelong friendship with the current Earl of Carnwood, of course.
Charlotte surveyed Ben Shaw surreptitiously, while pretending to watch the dancers as if utterly absorbed in the figures of the dance. He made few concessions to the outward conventions, she decided, with a sniff of disapproval she hoped would be drowned out by the music. In this day and age, a gentleman did not go abroad with his unruly blond hair allowed to grow so overlong that he had to tie it back in an old-fashioned queue, which she absently noted was tied with black velvet rather than leather tonight, and really rather becoming. Giant that he was, he cut a magnificent figure in a superbly cut black tailcoat and restrained grey silk waistcoat. To herself, she could admit to feeling incredulity that he had donned the meticulously correct knee breeches and stockings of a gentleman’s evening dress as well.
He must be very fond of Kate to have forced himself into such a concession for her sake, she conceded, as Charlotte could never recall seeing him in such garb before. Mr Shaw usually claimed to be far too big for such refinement, but secretly she thought he looked magnificent. It was a demanding fashion to carry off, and some of the dandy set padded their puny calves to make them look shapelier, but he certainly had no need for such artifice. Long, strong and muscular, his limbs were honed to perfection by his energetic lifestyle and, if she secretly compared every gentleman she had seen tonight to his mighty form and found them not only wanting but almost invisible, there was no reason on earth why anyone should know it, least of all Ben Shaw himself.
Charlotte allowed her silly heart to flutter just the tiniest bit as she forced her gaze back up to his perfectly tied cravat, and told herself she should have the experience to hide her thoughts and feelings from him and the rest of the world by now. His face was rather memorable as well, she decided distractedly, trying hard to disapprove of the ridiculous hairstyle he habitually adopted and failing as she finally met his amused grey gaze and realised he had known exactly what she was thinking all along.
‘Am I to have an answer at all, Miss Wells, or do you consider me unworthy of one?’ he asked brusquely and she thought she caught a lightning glimpse of a much younger and surprisingly sensitive Ben Shaw under that pose of indifference to the world and his wife.
‘I thought you merely jesting, Mr Shaw, for you know as well as I that chaperons don’t dance,’ she informed him flatly, even as her heartbeat increased at the very thought of doing so with him, because it would expose her to far too many interested eyes, of course.
‘Nor do cits,’ he replied with a rueful grimace she refused to even countenance—he was far too much at ease in company, of whatever kind, for her to feel the least need to bolster his self-esteem. ‘And I really don’t think Mrs Ramsden agrees with you,’ he added with an expression of such dowagerly shock that she had to suppress a silly urge to laugh with him at the follies of mature society beauties who ought to know much better than to openly pursue rather risquе gentlemen, while supposedly chaperoning her innocent young daughter.
‘Miss Ramsden has my sympathy,’ she said truthfully and shot the still lushly beautiful Mrs Ramsden a covert glance as that lady danced airily past with another admirer and received a furious glare in return. ‘Maybe you should dance with Mrs Ramsden again if you really want to set the dovecotes fluttering,’ she added cynically. Without even trying to, she had won herself at least one enemy tonight, and how right she had been to wish herself a hundred miles away.
‘I’m told the lady has extensive gambling debts and is in search of a new husband with limitless credit and an accommodating nature. As my chief detractor, you must surely admit that she is very much mistaken in thinking I might be that man, Miss Wells,’ he told her with an ironic smile.
‘You would have me save you from fortune hunters, sir?’ she said lightly, in an attempt to avoid the thought that she could indeed pity him just a little after all.
Never to know if the slavish feminine attention he received was the product of lust, or lust and avarice, must be a severe trial to a proud man, and something told her Ben Shaw was a very proud man indeed. Some of the so-called gentlemen she had encountered would no doubt pour scorn on the notion that a dressmaker’s by-blow had anything to be proud of, although probably not to his face, but she thought they erred rather mightily.
‘Or at the very least from a female I overtop by at least a foot and a half and must always make ridiculous, Miss Wells,’ he returned lightly enough, but suddenly she could see something more in those fascinating grey eyes. It was almost as if he could read her thoughts, she decided, resolving to stop them being on show to a shrewd man like Ben Shaw a little more determinedly in future.
‘As ludicrous as you must make a governess by such attentions,’ she told him steadily enough, as she looked coolly away and saw with relief that the quadrille was over at last and Kate was making her way towards them with her very correct young swain.
‘That appears to be a favourite word of yours tonight, Miss Wells, but I have no desire to make you so, whatever you may think. One day, my dear Miss Wells, I’ll have that dance with you and you’ll be forced to agree that we complement each other to the finest degree, or prove yourself a liar to both of us,’ he threatened as he rose to his feet and towered over her once more.
For a moment even she felt a little intimidated by his mighty presence, and Lord Shuttleworth looked as flustered as he might if a mountain suddenly uprooted itself and walked towards him. Profoundly annoyed with her unwanted companion for making all four of them conspicuous against her express wishes, Charlotte forced herself to breathe deeply and evenly as she also rose to greet the newcomers. For a moment there had seemed to be a promise in that complex gaze of his that she dare not read, but surely she was mistaken?
Gentlemen who towered over the general run of their kind with no effort or noticeable gratification didn’t flirt with plain and virtually penniless governesses, who had long ago given up on their last prayers. It simply didn’t happen, not to her and not to any other sensible female in her position who valued her peace of mind. Charlotte ordered her thudding heartbeat to resume some semblance of its usual smooth rhythm, and tried to ignore the disturbing fact that she felt so stupidly at home standing at Mr Shaw’s side. It took an assured gentleman to ignore her inches and, just for once, she felt like most women must as he towered over her. Fragile she most certainly was not, but she felt so for a reckless moment.
Reminding herself it was her declared aim in life to be the most quiet and mouse-like of duennas, despite her natural disadvantages, she forced her shoulders to slump and adjusted the eyeglasses on her nose so she could peer at the world as if quite lost without them. Fortunately for her that was another lie, but there was no sensible reason to waive an extra layer of camouflage in such dangerous company.
‘What a squeeze,’ Kate observed wearily as soon as she had got her breath back, and Charlotte hid a smile at the weary sophistication of the young lady standing in front of her.
Not six weeks ago Kate had begged to be excused her dеbut, on the grounds that she could never learn to comport herself properly in the drawing rooms of the ton, even if she wanted to. As Charlotte eyed her flame-haired former pupil with wry amusement, she knew Kate had grown up at last and told herself to be glad. Even so, she couldn’t help but eye her former charge anxiously. Rich and aristocratic young women had a harder furrow to plough through life than most people thought, and Kate had more brains than were probably good for her. A sillier young miss might be content with a marriage of convenience and quietly bearing the future lords of England, but what would Kate make of the marriage mart and all the pitfalls it contained for a young lady of spirit?
The Honourable Miss Alstone was tall for a lady, although not on her own unfortunate scale, as well as being a beauty of rare distinction. In fact, her former pupil showed every sign of becoming the belle of the Season, and Charlotte silently predicted a procession of smitten hopefuls clogging up Lord Carnwood’s busy schedule when he returned from Ireland. Not that Charlotte had seen any sign of partiality when Kate’s deep blue gaze rested on any of her court. If anything, she thought Kate rather amused by their antics and thought them no more than boys. She was right of course, Charlotte decided, at least for the most part. Young Lord Shuttleworth was sincerely attached to her friend and a warning not to trample too heavily on his dreams might not go amiss when she found the right moment.
‘Would you care for refreshments, Miss Alstone?’ he asked earnestly now with a look of rapt worship.
‘Heavens, no, I feel as if I’m awash with lemonade already,’ Kate replied carelessly, ‘but Miss Wells has not indulged quite as often as I have, so perhaps she is thirsty?’
Lord Shuttleworth bowed politely and tried to look as if he could think of no greater honour than fetching orgeat for a dowd. He really had the most exquisite manners, Charlotte concluded and wondered if he’d truly thought about Kate’s suitability as the wife of such a serious young peer. No doubt Kate would lead him about by the nose if she ever succumbed to his serious air, ancient title and rumoured fortune.
Charlotte sincerely hoped her eldest protеgеe would wait for a gentleman who would challenge and stimulate her excellent mind, as well as doing the same for the more sensual side that almost certainly lay under her innocent impulsiveness and fiery temper. And when had Miss Charlotte Wells become an expert on love and marriage? She refused to answer that question, even in the privacy of her own mind, and obligingly declined Lord Shuttleworth’s polite offer of refreshment. Obviously feeling towered over by Mr Shaw and humiliatingly overtopped by Kate’s chaperon, that young gentleman bowed and took himself off.
‘Never mind, Miss Wells,’ Mr Shaw consoled outrageously, ‘I’m made of far sterner stuff and shall bring you a glass of champagne after I’ve done my duty and danced with this irritating little chit.’
Charlotte contented herself with raising her chin in the air and enjoying looking down her nose at a very disobliging gentleman for once.
‘How dare you call me so in public?’ Kate flamed back at him.
‘Because you’re an appalling brat, and likely to become completely intolerable if these silly young pups convince you you’re a cross between a goddess and an angel come down from heaven to dazzle them, which is very far from the truth, I’m pleased to say,’ he said with a grimace of distaste.
‘Oh, I pay no attention to them,’ Kate dismissed with an airy wave of her hand and Charlotte thought she was telling the truth, even if Mr Shaw doubted her from the frown pleating his unfairly dark brows together.
‘Have a care, princess,’ he cautioned, ‘they’re just whelps and quite unused to dealing with feisty little monkeys like you. You’ll break their silly hearts if you don’t watch out. I don’t want you branded a heartless flirt, for all you’re a confounded nuisance.’
‘No, for you’re as soft hearted as Kit’s favourite mastiff under all that “to the devil with you all” air of yours, aren’t you, Mr Shaw?’ Kate taunted softly.
‘Don’t forget how fearsomely Spartacus barks and growls at anyone he doesn’t like, minx, and have a care for my skin. I make far too large a target to be called out for thumping one of the young idiots when they try to force what they can’t get with your consent.’
‘I don’t see what business it is of yours,’ Kate responded rather sulkily. ‘Anyone would think you were my chaperon, not Miss Wells.’
This last was said with a reproachful glance at Charlotte, who was trying hard to look both innocent and sympathetic, while secretly agreeing with Mr Shaw for once.
‘I’d rather have half my teeth pulled,’ he responded amiably enough and Kate laughed, her temper forgotten as soon as it fired.
‘You really are the most disobliging gentleman I ever came across. I’ve half a mind to marry you and make both our lives a misery, just to serve you with your own sauce,’ she told him, her bluest of blue eyes sparkling with mischief and Charlotte thought not one gentleman in a thousand could fail to be charmed.
‘I’ll manage without any teeth at all to be spared that,’ he responded, giving Kate a straight look to discourage any more experiments in flirtation.
‘Don’t worry, the other half of my mind is the sensible one and couldn’t tolerate a domestic tyrant like you, Ben Shaw,’ Kate replied.
‘Good, you need a stern critic to keep you in line, miss, but it won’t be me. Now, if we don’t make haste they’ll start the dance without us and I’m conspicuous enough on the dance floor without insinuating us on to it after the music starts.’
‘It would give the faster ladies of your acquaintance more chance to admire your manly form,’ Kate teased relentlessly and Charlotte wondered at her courage, but all he did was shake his head sadly, as if despairing of her former charge.
‘Behave yourself, brat,’ he ordered not very seriously, and with one last, complex look at Charlotte that made her feel more confused than ever, he led his partner on to the dance floor.
Satisfied Kate was intending to behave herself, Charlotte could resume her anonymity and brood in peace. She should be profoundly grateful to be spared Ben Shaw’s infuriating company, she decided, but somehow she wasn’t and sat back on her uncomfortable sofa feeling out of sorts with herself and the rest of the world. Watching them dance so harmoniously caused her a pang she had a terrible suspicion might be jealousy. Heartburn, she assured herself prosaically, and considered the idea that Mr Shaw could be the man of sufficient character, humour and humanity to become Kate’s husband.
Some remnant of the silly romantic girl she’d once been rebelled at the notion of that match for the girl she’d come to love over the last two years. And while she was about it, that part of her seemed to hate the notion of Mr Shaw becoming permanently unavailable to plague and infuriate her. Reminding herself never to eat apricot fool again, she tried to divert herself with the company, but failed rather badly as her eyes were drawn to that well-matched pair gliding about the floor in such harmony.
Charlotte suspected she was not the only one speculating that their partnership might become more permanent in time. It would be a splendid match in material terms, she supposed. Kate was very well dowered and of ancient lineage and Ben Shaw was so fabulously wealthy his irregular birth was largely ignored, except in the most finicky circles where she doubted Kate had the least wish to shine. He could be charming as well as amiable when he chose to be, and apparently he could take his pick among the highflyers against some very aristocratic competition. She really shouldn’t know about that side of his life, she told herself sternly, and must stop pricking up her ears whenever his name was mentioned by the Alstones’ footmen and they thought she wasn’t listening. Then there was his avowed intention of never marrying anyone. Given that he would have to be so deeply in love with Kate as not to be able to stop himself offering for her, why did the very idea of a marriage between Ben Shaw and Kate seem an abomination?
Was it because he must be about three and thirty and Kate was just eighteen, perhaps? A significant gap, but hardly insurmountable. Nobody with the slightest intention of being fair-minded could accuse Ben Shaw of being anything but in his prime, and Kate had wit and a keen intelligence to add to her youthful glowing beauty. When she matured, she would be a rare creature indeed, and Charlotte thought her former pupil would become a real force for good if she wed the right man. So was the right man the infuriating giant dancing so lightly with the vibrant young creature who absorbed the attention of most young gentlemen in the room one way and another? No, the bone-deep certainty of that answer surprised her, and sent Miss Wells, governess, home with a very thoughtful frown on her shadowed face as all three sat silent in the Earl of Carnwood’s comfortable town coach later that night.
Chapter Two
Ben lay back against the luxurious squabs, considering a curiously unsatisfactory evening. He’d gone to Lady Wintergreen’s ball to keep an eye on Miss Kate Alstone in his best friend’s absence and, with Miss Wells’s reluctant help, had successfully done so. Yet something crucial had been missing and he tried to reassure himself it wasn’t the lack of a dance with the disapproving dragon seated opposite.
He wondered idly if she concealed an elegant little tail under the acres of grey crepe that she used to conceal her figure from the eyes of the world. There was no doubt she breathed fire, he decided ruefully, as he recalled some of the barbs she had shot at him tonight. Yet there was something about Miss Charlotte Wells that made him eager to know what lay under all that disapproval. Under her formidable exterior no doubt there was a formidable woman, but, whoever she was, she fascinated him, and he’d never been one to shirk a challenge. The question was, a challenge to what?
He wasn’t rake enough to make a dead set at a lady in impoverished circumstances. He frowned as he contemplated the careless actions of such men, for hadn’t his father seduced his mother, then denied her and his bastard as if they were strangers he might pass in the street? Ben admired his late mother more than any woman he’d ever known, but he was certain her life would have been far better if he’d never been born. He could never inflict such suffering on a woman and he’d made sure no woman he was involved with risked carrying his child. So, if he didn’t intend to storm the stoutly defended Fortress Wells, why on earth had he been trying to flirt with her in the middle of Lady Wintergreen’s over crowded ball?
