скачать книгу бесплатно
‘Is she mad or just simple? It has to be one or the other since you believe she’ll do herself a mischief in his lordship’s private grounds.’
‘Miss Selford is a bright and spirited young girl who has trouble keeping her temper in check. A trait I sympathise with at this very moment,’ the governess said through what sounded like clenched teeth.
Now why was arguing with her in the semi-darkness more stimulating than flirting with sophisticated beauties? He heard her take a deep breath and she seemed to call on the reserves of patience his wards hadn’t already tested to the limit. Reminding himself he was here to do his duty, not amuse himself at the governess’s expense, he ordered himself to stop provoking her and get on with it.
‘Never mind, we’ll find her without your help and I suppose you wouldn’t be much use anyway,’ she said haughtily. ‘If you can exert yourself long enough to cross the yard and find Cook, I expect she will feed you, then direct you to your quarters. I wish you joy of the land steward’s house, by the way. You should have told us you were coming—since you are so tardy we had given up on you and abandoned the attempt to make it more welcoming.’ Even in the gloom he could see the glare the Amazon shot him before she turned to march back the way she came.
‘Stop,’ he ordered and she turned as slowly as an offended queen. He wanted to kiss the temper off her lips for a shocking moment. She would slap him and quite right, too, and he hadn’t come here to prove that every hard word his late grandfather had said about him had turned out to be true.
‘No, I’m busy,’ she said and strode towards a path he could only just see in the fast fading light.
‘Two pairs of eyes and ears will be better than one in this gloom,’ he said as he caught up with her, bowed ironically and indicated she carry on leading the way. ‘You know where you’re going,’ he explained, beginning to enjoy himself now he had such a prickly lady to annoy and this new disguise to settle into.
He told himself he wouldn’t have thought of such an impersonation until she thrust it on him, but not announcing who he was to a household he never wanted to inherit in the first place was too tempting to turn his back on. As a ruse for finding out what was going on without putting the entire neighbourhood on alert that the new Earl was home at last it could hardly be bettered. Pretending to be the land steward would save him the huge effort of being the sixth Earl of Barberry and he could spy out the land, then decide if he could endure being here. Perhaps it was as well the Moss boy, who he’d lined up to act as land steward, had backed out of this post for an easier one since his lack of backbone had forced Fergus to come here, but taking up his inheritance in the teeth of the late Earl’s bitter opposition still rasped his pride somehow.
Everything the Selfords had worked so hard to keep from a whore’s son, as they so charmingly called him, was his, but it felt like a hollow victory. After living on his own terms in Canada for almost a decade the rules of a polite little English society felt petty. As a heedless and rather angry young man he had been determined to defy his grandfather and all those who made his time at Eton and Oxford a mixed blessing. There was always some aristocratic sprig ready to deride him as grandson of Lord Barberry on one side and an Irish gypsy on the other. None of them would believe he never really wanted the titles and lands hanging around his neck like a millstone, so he’d left the country when the old Earl was barely cold in his grave. There were so many things he could do elsewhere, so many adventures to have, but he’d been doing his best to ignore the voice of his conscience and his mother’s pleas to come home ever since he’d fallen in love with the vastness and promise of the so-called New World. Another thing he could blame being Earl of Barberry for, having to leave a place he could have made his home if not for all the responsibilities he’d been so intent on running away from ten years ago.
Still, as Moss he could learn what he wanted to know, then go away again if he chose to and nobody here would even know he’d been. He ought to thank the woman striding along the path ahead of him as he stumbled in her wake like a rowing boat chasing a stately galleon.
Now what was her name? He was ashamed to find he couldn’t remember it, despite the quarterly reports she insisted on sending him of the state of his cousins’ health, happiness and progress, or lack of it. Still, she was the latest in a long line of governesses who’d all insisted on writing to him about their woes with the Selford girls when they were paid handsomely to deal with them. Just as well this one had no idea who he was, because he paid little attention to her meticulous lists of how Miss Lavender or Miss Patty, or whatever they were called, were progressing when his lawyers sent them on. Thousands of miles away he’d had to trust that his senior lawyer knew what he was doing when he’d insisted that young girls needed someone youthful to care for their happiness as well as teach them to paint screens and sew samplers, or whatever young ladies did until they were old enough to marry. Considering this female had carelessly mislaid one of his wards, he was beginning to wonder about the fellow’s wisdom and sanity right now.
‘Where are we going?’ he asked as he followed Miss Whoever into a generous old orchard.
‘If I told you it would mean nothing, unless you’ve been studying estate maps before taking up your employment?’ she said with too much irony for his taste.
‘I’m here now, aren’t I?’ he said defensively.
‘And only three weeks late as well. How very diligent, Mr Moss.’
‘That discrepancy is between me and my employer.’
‘And he doesn’t sound the most patient or tolerant of them. In your shoes I’d be careful how I conducted myself, now you’re here at last.’
‘Is that a threat?’ he asked, with what his half-sisters said was his most annoying sneer. Annoying or not, it was wasted on this woman. She was peering at what looked like a tall hutch in the twilight as if he didn’t exist.
‘An observation,’ she said absently. He felt like a fly so trivial it wasn’t even worth slapping him. ‘Don’t get too close,’ she warned and he instantly wanted to.
He was beginning to sympathise with his absent ward’s need to escape her governess’s authority. Then he got too close and an angry buzz shot past his ear. He stepped back hastily as the persistent little creatures took exception to him but, annoyingly, left the governess alone as if she belonged here and he didn’t.
‘I did warn you,’ she said with I told you so in her voice.
‘What is this place?’ he asked gruffly.
‘A bee house, of course,’ she said and followed him away as if nothing about this place troubled her, which it didn’t, he supposed—she wasn’t the one in danger of being royally stung.
‘Oh, of course, and what an ideal place for a runaway schoolgirl to hide.’
‘Lavinia is a fanciful creature and local lore insists the bees be told whatever happens in a household if they are to be part of it.’
‘And they really want to know when a girl is out of sorts with her governess?’
‘It was a possibility. Now maybe you’ll go back to the house and ask for your dinner so I can get on,’ she said as if tired of indulging him.
‘While you wander about in the dark and risk life and limb? Even I’m not that much of a yahoo, Miss... Who are you anyway?’ he demanded irritably, glad now he hadn’t remembered her name and given himself away.
‘Miss Court and I’m not in any danger since, as you pointed out just now, we are in his lordship’s private grounds. And I’ll get on a lot faster if you leave me be.’
‘No, if the wench has done something to herself in the dark you can’t carry her, great girl of fifteen or sixteen as she must be.’
‘How do you know the age of my eldest charge?’
Curse the woman, but now she sounded suspicious. Fergus searched his memory for lies he’d already told her. Even the son of a country squire would know enough to guess how old the Earl of Barberry’s wards must be now.
‘Everyone knows Barberry was left with a stable of female cousins when he inherited,’ he said and even managed to sound plausibly impatient. ‘The old lord’s quest for another male heir is hardly a secret and if those girls were old enough to be presented they wouldn’t need a governess, so even the eldest cannot be out yet.’
‘Clever,’ she said flatly and why didn’t he think it a compliment?
Chapter Two (#ua1a4b546-33e0-5900-aeaf-011528afda02)
They reached the end of the orchards and the interfering female found a wicket gate out into the park as if by instinct, or perhaps she came here rather too often in the dark, a jealous impulse prompted Fergus. The notion she was so familiar with his grounds because she came here to meet a lover and flit through the moonlit park at the idiot’s side for a stolen idyll goaded him to the edge of fury for some odd reason. He hadn’t even seen her properly yet, but she sounded just the sort of woman to order some poor besotted idiot to dance attendance on her in the dusk so they wouldn’t be caught courting and risk dismissal. He employed the woman to look after his cousins, he told himself uncomfortably. She should be keeping a close eye on his little cousins, not planning to run off with a local curate or farmer’s son even her family might consider a misalliance.
‘Where are we going now?’ he demanded rudely, but he’d ridden all the way from Holyhead and felt as if he was entitled to be a little out of temper.
Miss Court might have a lover lurking nearby and she was being rude to the very person she ought to impress if she wanted to keep her post. Was he more impressed by his title than he thought, then? No, he didn’t want to be an earl today any more than he had ten years ago. Miss Court made him feel like a grubby schoolboy who hadn’t washed behind his ears even as his inner demons tempted him to kiss the wretched female and find out if she was as headlong and determined a lover as she was as a rescuer of wild girls in the semi-darkness. And it would be nice to find a way to make her stand back and take notice. Not that she’d waited for him to fight his inner demons back where they belonged. She was almost beyond reach by the time he realised he didn’t want to be left here like the last lame nag in a stable. He speeded up and almost fell over a tree root in the shadows.
‘Devil take it, woman, will you slow down?’
‘No. You didn’t want to come in the first place, so I don’t understand why you won’t go away. I should never have made you come, you’re no help at all.’
‘If the girl doesn’t want to go home, you won’t be able to drag her back,’ he pointed out rather sharply.
Had she paled at the idea of having to force her errant charge to obey her? Hard to tell in the gloom and why should he care if she endured the role of governess or loved it? Catching himself out thinking like the spoilt aristocrat he’d sworn not to be, he wondered if his half-brother was right and he was as arrogant as any Selford in his own way.
‘Hush,’ she whispered. ‘Do you hear something over there, on our right?’
‘No,’ he said in a normal voice, telling himself he was bored with looking for unruly schoolgirls who didn’t want to be found.
‘I wish I hadn’t bothered to find out who was lazing about in the stables when the lads were supposed to be looking for Lavinia,’ she informed him crossly and strode into the night yet again.
‘The wages of curiosity,’ he called, then scurried after her like a tardy footman before she could disappear. ‘Where are we going?’ he asked when he almost ran into her standing still under a tree as if she could hear her way to what she wanted if she tried hard enough. She was warm and rather delightfully curved and he felt passion thunder through his senses until he reminded himself the woman was his cousins’ governess and he was her employer.
‘Will you go away?’ she demanded as if she was oblivious to him and his unruly masculine urges, then she started off again without giving any indication where she was heading.
‘No,’ he said, grabbing the back of her cloak and holding on when she did her best to snatch it away. ‘Tell me, or I’ll shout a warning we’re on our way.’
‘Can’t you hear the poor girl, you blundering great idiot? She isn’t going to run in that state,’ she whispered furiously as she towed him forward by his hold on her cloak.
He wondered how he’d managed to miss it as well now; self-preservation, he decided ruefully. Noisy sobs and the odd pathetic little moan carried on the cooling air as the girl fought for breath against all that sorrow. Fergus wished he’d left the governess to cope with a soggy storm of tears and almost melted into the darkness as Miss Court ordered. On the one hand, he would be obliging a lady, on the other he’d be a coward. He let go of Miss Court’s cloak and meekly followed in her footsteps.
‘It’s me, Lavinia,’ Miss Court said so gently he wondered if he’d been wrong to class her as an irritable she-wolf in petticoats when she’d first loomed out of the darkness. ‘You must be hungry and cold, and you sound as if you need a shoulder to cry on.’
Fergus could make out a Grecian-style temple. As they emerged from the trees he saw the first stars reflected in the lake beyond it and wondered how it would feel to meet Miss Court here for a twilight tryst. Exciting, a forbidden voice whispered in the back of his mind and he uneasily tried to ignore it. He didn’t even know the woman; even if he did it would be wrong to lead her on when he was really her absentee employer and never mind this odd feeling of connection to the wretched female.
‘Oh, Miss Court,’ the girl gasped and Fergus backed away when an overgrown schoolgirl pelted down the steps of the summer house, then flew into her governess’s arms with such force he stepped forward to steady the woman and never mind feminine tears and his dread of a scene. ‘I’m so sorry,’ the girl managed to gasp out between sobs. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever learn to behave properly or keep my temper as you say I must.’
‘Hah!’ Fergus muttered darkly. He felt Miss Court stiffen beside him and knew she must have heard him, but she had lost hers with him several times and if she was going to pretend to be a pattern card she should get her emotions under better control.
‘Never mind that now. I’m so glad you’re safe, even if you are more than a little bit woebegone. And it’s getting dark and chilly, so why not come home and be pampered a little for once? We can talk about your troubles when you’re feeling better. I only want the best for you and, whatever your cousins say when you all lose that fiery Selford temper, they love you, Lavinia. At times I’m even quite fond of you myself.’ Miss Court ended with a laugh in her voice that made Fergus smile in the darkness, so he wasn’t at all surprised to hear a watery chuckle from the drooping young lady snuggled in her governess’s arms as if they’d never had the argument that probably caused this fuss in the first place.
How unworthy of him to envy the girl and wish he was enjoying all that warmth and welcome. Miss Court was a lady and he certainly wasn’t a land steward. He hadn’t even met the woman in the clear light of day, he reminded himself hastily and if this was what pretending to be Moss did to him, he might have to reconsider the plum she’d handed him when she’d made that hasty assumption about who he was. He could have been anyone, he condemned her with a frown it was as well she couldn’t see. Who knew what sort of rogue could be stumbling about in the dark silently lusting after her if he hadn’t found her first?
‘Thank you, but I do wish Mama hadn’t died, Miss Court. There’s nobody left to love me,’ Lavinia confessed in a whisper and reminded him they had a very effective chaperon and Miss Court had only ever seen him as an extra pair of eyes and ears to help her find her charge.
* * *
Nell knew how it felt to be lonely, but at least her brother had always loved her, however determined their eldest uncle might be to keep them apart. ‘All the wishing in the world won’t bring her back, I fear,’ she said gently, ‘but soon you’ll be able to show the world how a true Selford lady behaves and what a shame to waste it on the first callow youth to pluck up the courage to ask you to wed him.’
‘Heaven forbid,’ Nell thought she heard muttered with heartfelt sincerity by the annoying man behind her. She turned around with Lavinia in her arms and the silence that met her glare was so innocent she knew she’d heard aright.
‘Who are you?’ Lavinia demanded and Nell didn’t correct her manners for once because he didn’t deserve any better.
‘Miss Court will tell you I’m the new land steward,’ he said in the lazy drawl that made Nell’s palms itch.
‘And are you?’
‘So it would seem.’
‘You are a very odd person if you need someone to tell you who you are, isn’t he, Miss Court?’
‘Mr Moss seems quite deaf, the poor gentleman. He certainly takes no notice of anything I say.’
‘You don’t look very old, sir,’ Lavinia observed sagely.
Nell had to argue with herself before she corrected her gently. ‘Remember what I said about it being impolite to make comments on the odd behaviour of others, Lavinia?’ she said, but Mr Moss saved the girl an apology Nell hadn’t quite demanded.
‘I could lie and say I’m a mere stripling of five and fifty, I suppose, but it’s hard enough being Methuselah without making things any worse, Miss Lavinia,’ the rogue said with such self-mocking laughter in his voice Nell wanted to smile, briefly.
‘Now you’re teasing me, sir, and, as you don’t seem offended by what Miss Court insists are my bad manners, are you telling the truth about yourself?’
‘Oh, I never do that,’ the new land steward said brazenly. ‘If you choose to believe me, I’ll admit to being one and thirty, Miss Lavinia. If you don’t; I’m five years less because even we gentlemen have our vanity.’
‘Since he has confessed to being a work of fiction, maybe we should add five years to the total and make Mr Moss quite an elderly young gentleman instead, Lavinia,’ Nell said lightly, wishing he could see her best frown through the gloom. She wondered how he managed to irritate her so much when they’d only just met; it was a special gift, she decided, one she was glad most men didn’t share.
‘You have my sympathy, Miss Lavinia. Your governess makes me feel like a small boy with a dirty neck and I thought I was grown up until we met.’
‘Miss Court is a wonderful governess and a very kind person, Mr Moss,’ Lavinia surprised all three of them by saying earnestly.
‘Thank you, my dear,’ Nell said, giving her most challenging pupil another hug and draping most of her cloak around her shivering shoulders. ‘But we must get you inside before you take a chill. Never mind Mr Moss and his poor opinion of anyone who doesn’t fawn on him as if he was your guardian and not the Earl’s new land steward, we must scurry home as fast as may be now I’ve found you at last.’
‘And I have travelled far today, so let’s hope my manners will mend after a good night’s sleep. The lawyers tell me I have a great deal to do if things are to be run smoothly here once more,’ Mr Moss said in what Nell felt sure was a rather kind attempt to divert Lavinia from the last of her sobs and the convulsive shivers that followed them.
‘They’re right,’ she replied as calmly as she could with the chill reaching both their bodies now. The cold was biting even through her sensible gown with Lavinia wrapped up in most of her cloak. ‘Your predecessor should have retired sooner with such a large and complex estate to manage,’ she went on, mainly to distract herself from her own need to shiver and in the hope it would take Lavinia’s mind off her physical woes as they had to pick their way back over roots and rabbit holes in the ever-deepening twilight.
‘Poor man,’ Lavinia said and Nell heard the shake in her pupil’s voice and pushed their pace as hard as she could without one of them falling flat on their faces.
‘Aye, and if you’re not set on catching a chill in order to be thought interesting for the next week, we’d best get you home faster than this, Miss Lavinia,’ Mr Moss said and hefted the girl into his arms when they paused for breath.
‘Gracious, you’re very strong,’ Lavinia said breathlessly.
‘I’ll run ahead to warn everyone you’re on your way if you will direct Mr Moss, Lavinia? You should be safe with him, by the way. He has atrocious manners and a misplaced sense of humour, but he made no attempt to molest me on the way here,’ Nell managed to say brusquely and scampered away before either of them could argue.
* * *
‘Why, thank you, Miss Court,’ Fergus muttered as he eyed the darkness in her wake.
‘She is a very definite sort of person,’ Lavinia said with a catch in her voice that told him she was fighting the last of her tears.
‘Here, let’s wrap you up in this cloak since she’s left it behind. If you can face her wrath if you catch a chill, I’m not sure I can and don’t get us lost, will you? I don’t know the way even by daylight.’
‘How thoughtless of Miss Court,’ the schoolgirl in his arms said sleepily and Fergus suspected he’d have to get them back as best he could, dark or not.
What a good thing he didn’t lead the sort of life most idle earls about town did, he decided, finding a path through the woods almost by instinct. Slight as this girl was, he was weary from his journey and she was almost an adult. He was oddly touched when she fell asleep in his arms, but wasn’t it as well she didn’t know who he was? His wards probably regarded him as a devil incarnate. He changed his hold on the Selford sleeping so trustingly in his arms and marvelled at the toll too much emotion could take on a young lady. Memory of how it felt to be torn between childish simplicity and the need to find your own way in the world made him feel sorry for his young ward.
His mother had dealt with his rebellious and confused younger self with her usual common sense and his stepfather would shrug and take him on one of his adventures whenever he got out of hand. Saints, but he was lucky, wasn’t he? Not for him the starch and disapproval of a Miss Court; or the memory of parents who saw their own child as a failure simply because she was born female. His mother would have loved him if he had been born a dumb, cross-eyed lunatic, but at least Lavinia’s governess hadn’t ripped up at her. Indeed, Miss Court seemed truly concerned that the girl felt she had to sob out her woes alone. The woman could stay until he found out more about her, he decided grudgingly. Now he would take the role she had thrust at him by mistaking him for Moss and what better way to find out if he could trust her with his wards until they were ready to be brought out in polite society? Then he could go somewhere he would like better and forget Miss Court and his stupid reactions to her in the dark.
* * *
What with racing back to the house, making sure the stableyard bell was rung to signal Miss Lavinia was safe and organising a welcome for her, Nell should have no time to think about rude and disobliging Mr Moss. So, of course, she thought of little else while she ordered a hot bath for Lavinia and a warming pan for her bed. Then there were the other girls to reassure that their cousin was in one piece and being brought home safely. The stir of the man’s arrival with Lavinia seemed oddly muted and Nell went to peer over the wooden banister of the staircase leading to the nursery wing. Why did the sight of Lavinia fast asleep in his arms make her heart ache so?
Puzzled by her own emotions at the sight of the girl cradled protectively in a stranger’s arms, she ran up to Lavinia’s room to announce she was on her way. ‘We’ll forget a bath and get her straight into bed as she seems to be fast asleep. The new land steward is on his way upstairs with her right now.’
‘He’s turned up at long last then, has he?’ Mary said, showing more interest in the steward than she ever did in her young mistress. ‘He must be much fitter than old Mr Jenks to carry Miss Lavinia here, then have breath enough to bring her upstairs.’
‘Only just,’ the man himself announced ruefully as the butler shepherded him into the room as if he was important. Mr Moss had impressed someone tonight then, Nell thought ungratefully. No, some were too impressed, she decided, as she watched Mary making sheep’s eyes at the newcomer. The buxom little maid seemed to have forgotten she was employed to look after the young lady they must now try to get into bed without waking her up.
‘Thank you, sir. Mary and I will manage now,’ she told the man coolly as he gently sat his burden in the comfortable chair by the fire.
‘I know I’m in the way now, Miss Court.’
‘Goodnight then, sir,’ she said repressively.
‘I fear not; the housekeeper has insisted I stay here for dinner while my house is being hastily got ready for occupation. It seems it was got unready and left cold when I failed to arrive at the appointed time.’
‘You are very tardy,’ Nell said shortly.
‘But also sharp set after such a mighty journey,’ he told her with a knowing grin, then sauntered out as if he owned the place.
* * *
