My Favorite Bride (12 page)

Miss Prendregast didn't smile, didn't frown; her ready, expressive face showed no expression. “Lady Bucknell is my patron, my lady.” As if that explained everything, she curtsied yet again. “If you would excuse us? We have so little time before we must be back in the classroom and learning our . . .”

“Mathematics, Miss Prendregast,” Henrietta told her.

“Our mathematics,” Miss Prendregast agreed. At a nod from him, she led the children off the veranda, through the topiary, and out of sight.

Teresa sat, arms straight at her side, fists clenched. “She's insolent.”

“Really?”
You think that's insolent? You should have heard her the day she arrived.

As if realizing how shrewish she sounded, Teresa relaxed and put her hand over his. “But it's so difficult to get good help these days, and at least she's young and pretty. The children must like that.”

No man was accomplished in handling women, but William certainly knew better than to agree with any fervor. “Yes, I suppose they must.”

“But so . . . sickly-looking.”

“I thought she was rather tanned.”

“Yes, her poor complexion.” Teresa sighed pityingly. “A natural result of having to march the children about the grounds. She is a working girl, after all. We can't expect her to look like a lady. But I was referring to her hair. I wonder how she gets it that color.”

“It's artificial?”

Teresa's laughter trilled out. “You didn't think it was natural?”

“I had wondered.” Damn that Duncan. He'd said it was real.

“And I wonder what color it is that she thinks she should change it. Probably that infernal red that looks so dreadful. Well, some women aren't confident enough to handle the trials God gave them.” Teresa shook her head. “I thought she was thin. Are you feeding her enough, William?”

“No doubt of that.” He remembered very well the amount of food Miss Prendregast could put away. “She eats quite heartily at supper.”

“She eats supper with you?” Teresa's voice took on a shrill note.

“As do the children.” He smiled into her eyes. “Tonight you'll be with us, gracing us with your presence.”

“Why, yes. Of course I will.” She blinked, not that sexy flutter of lashes, but a startled blink. “The children? I always said you were an original, darling.”

He wondered what she meant by that.

She smiled graciously. “Perhaps I could help next time you hire a governess.”

“I thank you, Teresa, but Miss Prendregast has guaranteed she'll stay for at least a year, and I know I can depend on her.” He raised Teresa's hand to his lips. “Wait until you get to know her. You'll see what I mean.”

“I can't wait, darling. I just can't wait.”

Rupert, Lord Featherstonebaugh, complained about the old-fashioned coach and the dust and the
horses until Valda, Lady Featherstonebaugh, was ready to shriek, but shrieking wasn't her style. Instead, she turned to him in smooth savagery. “Would you rather have taken the train, dear?”

“It would have made sense!”

“It would have made sense to do exactly what the Home Office expects us to do? To take the fastest, most luxurious mode of travel? I heard them. They're on to us!”

“Pshaw.” He waved a blue-veined hand. “Why should they be on to us after all these years?”

“Because we've been lucky beyond belief.” With a considerable lowering of spirits, she added, “It was bound to happen.”

“The coach is jarring my bones, and these roads!” Rupert peeked out of the curtained window. “They're filled with holes. The next time I speak to the prime minister I'm going to make it clear—”

“If you ever speak to the prime minister again, it'll be so he can pronounce your sentence. He wants to imprison us. They want to kill us.” She was talking too fast, trying to convince him from sheer strength of will. Will had never worked with Rupert, so she slowed down and carefully enunciated, “And if the English don't kill us, the Russians will.”

“Now, dear, you're overreacting.” He patted her gloved hand. “Have you been suffering from those heat flashes again? Ladies of your age do suffer delusions.”

Still she paced her words. “I do not suffer from
delusions. I heard them talking. I heard young Throckmorton. We're finished in the business. I've been planning for this moment ever since we started. We're escaping England and if all goes well—and it will—in less than a month we'll be living in a palazzo in Italy under false names.”

“Well, you could have planned better. I don't like the coach.” He folded his arms over his chest, his long wrinkled face drooping in a pout. “It's unfashionable.”

Maybe shrieking was her style.

Chapter Twelve

A scratching at her bedroom door made Samantha lift her head from her lesson plans. Who would be out in the corridor at this hour? Darkness had fallen outside, the fire in her grate couldn't completely vanquish the chill of a mountain evening, and she was tucked up in her bed with the feather mattress below and the down comforter above. Her white cotton nightgown was buttoned up to her neck, her blonde hair was braided down her back, and she was loathe to crawl out and let whoever it was in. So in a none-too-gracious voice, she called, “Come in, if you must.”

A long moment of hesitation followed, then the door slowly squeaked open.

Agnes. Agnes stood in the doorway, looking like a miniature version of Samantha in a plain white nightgown, her feet bare, her hair pulled back in a
braid. She shivered convulsively, and her eyes were huge and frightened.

Samantha came out of the bed in a rush, her feet hitting the chilly floor. Then she stood there, not sure if she should hurry toward the child, who looked as if she were torn between bolting and staying, or wait until the girl came to her. In the end, she slipped the shawl off her shoulders and held it out to Agnes. “Come in, my dear, and get warm.”

Agnes's face contorted. Giving a sob, she rushed into Samantha's arms and clung as if Samantha were the last port in the storm.

Samantha smoothed the hair away from Agnes's face. “What's wrong, sweetheart?”

In between sobs, Agnes said, “It's . . . awful. I don't know . . . who to tell. It . . . hurts. I'm . . . dying.”

Startled, Samantha asked, “Dying? Why do you think you're dying?”

“Because I . . . because I . . .” Agnes dug her head into Samantha's shoulder. “It's . . .
so
. . . disgusting.”

An awful suspicion bloomed in Samantha's mind. She took a breath. “You're dying, and it's disgusting?”

“I'm . . . I'm . . .”

The child couldn't bring herself to say it, and why should she have to? Someone should have already told her. “Are you bleeding?”

Agnes looked up with astonished, tear-damp eyes. “How did you know?”

Samantha calmed her own burgeoning anger,
and in a soothing tone, said, “Because that is what women do.”

Sucking back a sob, Agnes asked, “All of them?”

“All of them.”

“When?”

“Once a month.”

Agnes thought for a moment, then burst into a fresh frenzy of tears. “That's . . . horrid.”

“Yes, it is.” By the time Samantha got Agnes calmed down, explained the facts, and helped her deal with her problem, she was both furious and comprehending. No wonder Agnes had been so emotional. The child had been suffering from the buildup to her first menstrual period, alone with her fears and her feelings and without understanding what was happening to her own body.

“Can I sleep with you?” Agnes asked in a tiny voice.

The children go to bed at promptly nine o'clock. There is no exception to that rule.
Well, Colonel Gregory could go hang. He thought he was so incredibly efficient, and look what he'd done to his own daughter through sheer neglect and ignorance. Holding up the blankets, Samantha said, “Of course you can sleep with me. We're the big girls now.”

Agnes clambered in. “Thank you, Miss Prendregast. I didn't want to go back to that bed.” She shuddered. “Everyone's going to know in the morning.”

“Scoot over.” Samantha climbed in, too. “Only the women, and they'll welcome you into the
sisterhood. It's not so bad, you know. Someday, because of this, you'll be able to hold a babe in your arms.”

“Then it should wait until I'm married, thank you,” Agnes said with a return of her previous tart tone.

Samantha restrained a smile. “Anyway, it's time to talk about the best way to put your hair up.”

Agnes sat up, wrapped her arms around her knees, and sounded quite a bit more chipper. “And let my skirts down?”

“Not until you're fifteen. And I'll tell you the truth—long skirts look good, but they get in the way. Think how much trouble it would be to climb a tree in long skirts.”

“I can climb up to this room holding a snake in a box.”

Samantha caught her breath in horror, then turned a killing look on Agnes. “Don't . . . you . . . dare. I promise I would get my revenge.”

“I know you would.” A wicked smile curved Agnes's lips. “But I can get into Lady Marchant's room, too.”

Samantha's heart made a quick, joyful jump. Then she frowned in the proper governess manner. “That would not be the proper thing to do.”

“She wants to marry Father.”

“You don't know that.”

Agnes flayed Samantha with her scorn. “Didn't you see her tonight at dinner? She watches him like a spider watches a fly.”

Samantha should have wanted to laugh. She
didn't, and that was bad. “I think your papa can protect himself.”

“And she sat in your place at the table.”

Funny. Samantha had resented that, too—being reduced to sitting among the children. Being cut out of the discussion, which, she noted, no longer included an educational topic, but now could be rightfully deemed a conversation—led by Lady Marchant, while Colonel Gregory looked on with a bemused smile. “It's not
my
place at the table. Lady Marchant is acting as your father's hostess, and the hostess sits at the foot of the table.”

Agnes crossed her arms over her chest and lowered her chin. “She wants to be more than my papa's hostess.”

No matter how much Samantha would like to grumble with Agnes, she had to remember her position. She had be the voice of reason. “Lady Marchant can't force your father to marry her.”

“I think he wants to. I think he likes her.”

“Then you should be happy for him. He can't mourn your mama forever.”

“I know that. I don't even want him to.” Agnes bit her lip. “I remember Mama really well. So does Vivian. We don't need another mother. But the others . . . a mother would be good for them.”

Agnes sounded so mature, Samantha wanted to cry.

“But not Lady Marchant,” Agnes added. “She doesn't like us. Me and my sisters. You know it, too.”

Without thinking, Samantha answered, “It
would be better if you weren't girls. She sees her rivals growing up under her nose—” She stopped in horror. She had to remember that Agnes was not a friend, and certainly not her own age.

“She doesn't think we're rivals. She's old.” Agnes wrapped her arms around her head. “Where's your mother?”

“She's in heaven.”

“With my mama. Do you think they're friends?”

A lady and a street sweeper? Somehow, Samantha didn't think so. “Perhaps.”

“I woke up one morning and they told me my mama was dead.” Agnes wiped a tear on the pillowcase. “How did your mama die?”

“She got sick, and she didn't have enough food, so she died.” In the cold on some rags on the floor, with her seven-year-old daughter huddled by her side.

“That sounds awful.”

“Yes. She was really a nice woman. She wanted me to be . . . like her. Honest and hard-working. But—” Samantha caught herself. She couldn't confess her past to poor, unhappy Agnes.

“I like you, Miss Prendregast.” Agnes gave her a timid hug.

Samantha hugged her back. “Thank you, dear. I like you, too.”

Agnes yawned. “I'm so tired. My head hurts. My stomach hurts.”

“I know, honey.” And Samantha didn't want to talk about this anymore. “Roll over.” Agnes flopped onto her stomach, hugged her pillow,
and allowed Samantha to rub her back. In only a few minutes, Agnes was snoring heavily. “Poor little girl,” Samantha murmured. She remembered the day she'd started her monthlies. Her father had dumped her in an orphanage while he went off with a lady friend. In a bored monotone, one of the other girls had told her what was happening and what to do. She'd cried herself to sleep, missing her mother as never before. No girl should face this day alone and scared.

A sharp rap on the door brought her head around.
Who now?

She knew, of course. She could tell by that imperative knock that Colonel Gregory stood outside her doorway.

But she had to calm herself. She'd learned her lesson. She had to harness her temper, not allow it to rage out of control, or all the problems that had driven her from London and into this godforsaken countryside would visit her again.

Sliding out of her bed, she caught up her pale blue flannel robe. She slid it on, knotted the tie at her waist, and pulled open the door.

He was dressed in black riding clothes with knee-length black boots. Leather gauntlets hung at his belt. He looked as he had that first night she'd met him on the road, stern, upright, and angry, his straight-winged eyebrows giving him a devilish appearance.

So he thought to frighten her? Her fury leaped to meet him.

Grasping her arm, he pulled her into the
candlelit corridor and quietly shut the door behind her. “Where is my daughter Agnes?”

He knew the answer. He'd seen the child, but if he wanted to play games, she could play with the best of them. “In my bed, sleeping, and do you know why?”

“Because my governess can't follow a simple command.”

“Because her father isn't competent.”

His blue eyes widened, then narrowed. “What in Hades are you talking about?”

“That child”—Samantha waved toward her door—“
your
child didn't know what was happening to her.”

To his credit, he looked alarmed. “What
was
happening to her?”

She didn't give a damn about reassuring him. “She became a woman tonight.”

He stared uncomprehendingly.

In a falsely patient tone, Samantha said, “She started her monthly bleeding.”

He jerked backward. “Miss Prendregast! This is not a subject for me to discuss with you!”

How dared he? “Who should I discuss it with? Or perhaps, more to the point, who should you discuss it with? You're her father. You claim you take responsibility for everything concerning your daughters, but you ignore this basic function which each one of them is going to suffer?”

His mouth opened, then shut. For the first time since she'd met him, he didn't seem to know what to say. At last he managed, “I have not ignored
anything about my daughters, but that is a natural function about which I'm sure one of their teachers has told them.”

“It wasn't on the schedule.” She leaned against the wall and crossed her arms to keep from shaking him. “Women are no different than men. No woman wants to tell a child that her happy, carefree life is about to change, that her body is progressing into womanhood, and that sometimes that progression is painful and messy. How dare you assume someone else is going to take care of something so important?”

“Miss Prendregast, you will not talk to me that way.”

Her resolve to remain calm melted in a blistering rage. “Oh, yes, I will. Someone needs to talk to you that way. You go on your merry way, staying out all night, not knowing your children worry about you, not knowing your nursemaids are plotting against the governesses, unaware of Kyla's croup and Mara's fears, of Vivian's nightmares and Agnes's period. You think it's so democratic that you have dinner with your children, but you make sure the conversation isn't a conversation, but a guided tour through some subject of your choosing.”

He stepped away. “The children are making good use of their time.”

“You don't know your children, and you make sure they can't talk to you. You don't allow them to tell you their fears and their hopes, to ask you how to grow up. You never admit you were ever wrong
and you certainly can't admit you might not know everything. You've proven you know a lot about the fish of the Lake District, and not a thing about your children. You're out every night chasing bandits.” She pointed toward the front door. “It's time to stay home with your children.”