The Governess Was Wanton (12 page)

“But I don't care a whit about that,” he protested.

“Yes,” said his daughter with open exasperation, “but she does. Are men always this slow to catch the plot?”

He nudged her. “Don't insult your father. He's in a delicate state.”

Eleanora snorted, showing more than a little of her old childish spunk. “My father doesn't seem to understand how the world works. If Miss Woodward were to harbor any feelings for her employer, she would run the risk of being thrown out without a reference. She wouldn't be able to work. She'd find herself abandoned all over again.”

“But I would never do that.”

His daughter raised her eyebrows. “Does she know that?”

Oh, he
was
an idiot. Of course Mary didn't. He'd never done anything to show her that he was any different from the men who had no doubt approached her before. How was she supposed to do anything but run?

He'd let her down by convincing himself that he had time to tell her all the things he felt, all the plans he'd begun dreaming up for them both.

“I'm a fool,” he groaned.

“I'm so glad you agree,” said his daughter cheerfully. “Now, I just might have an idea about how to bring Miss Woodward back.”

Chapter Twelve

“I'm a fool,” Mary groaned.

“You're not,” said Jane, smoothing her brow. “You're just in love.”

“With an earl!” she cried, lifting her head from her friend's lap. “With a member of the peerage. His country house was built two centuries ago. He has more money than Croesus. He's an
earl
.”

“And you're Mary Woodward,” said Elizabeth, who draped a blanket over Mary's feet. “What does it matter?”

Except it did matter and both of her friends knew it. She'd explained it all when she'd arrived—well, as soon as the tears dried up enough that she could form a complete sentence punctuated by undignified hiccups. Elizabeth had sat there, feeding her cups of tea, until her husband returned with Jane in tow. Then the three of them decamped to the drawing room, locked Edward out, and began to pick over the problem of Mary's life.

It was an unequivocal mess.

“What was I thinking?” she asked no one in particular. “I knew the rules.”

“I broke the rules and I couldn't be happier,” said Elizabeth with a smile.

“But you weren't working for Edward when you two—” She cut herself off out of deference to Jane's quite literally virgin ears.

“Elizabeth already corrupted me with her story of getting caught on the library sofa,” said her fair-haired friend with an exasperated sigh. “You can tell me that you had . . . relations with the earl.”

If she hadn't been so miserable, Mary might have laughed at the little pause before Jane forced herself to say “relations.” Instead it just made her think about Eric and the way she'd felt when he held her against him, pushing her body to heights she'd never been able to see through the clouds.

“It doesn't matter,” she said with a shake of her head. “What's done is done.”

Elizabeth fixed her with a long look. “Tell me, what do you want to do next?”

What she wanted was to curl up in a ball and not see the light of day for a little while. She felt as though she'd ripped her own heart out, and that meant there was no one she could blame but herself.

“Can't I just sit here on your sofa?” she asked.

Elizabeth nudged her with her elbow. “Of course you can for a spell, but then we need a plan.”

She didn't want a plan. She wanted to be left alone to wallow, but she knew that her friend was right. Mary wasn't the sort of woman who simply lay down and let life wash over her. She got back on her feet, checked her coiffure, and then forged ahead. Life would never be the same without Eric, but she would do what she could. With time and space she would soon be back to her normal self.

It was such an easy, convenient lie that she wanted to believe it even if her own heart broke a little more just thinking about it.

“What will you do?” asked Jane.

She took a deep breath and forced herself to think about the future. “I'll find another position. Maybe this time I'll look for a family on the Continent. I haven't lived abroad.”

“That's a fine idea,” said Elizabeth with a nod that conveyed more conviction than her voice held.

“I've always wanted to travel,” she said, pushing herself back up to sitting.

“Some good German air might be just the thing to make you forget the Earl of Asten,” said Elizabeth.

“But
should
she forget him?”

Jane's question sliced through the false hope and optimism that propped up their conversation, and suddenly everything deflated again.

“I don't think I could no matter how hard I tried, but I've got to. I can't be with him, Jane,” Mary said quietly.

Her friend bit her lip. “I just think that if you love him, maybe you should give him a chance.”

“A chance to do what?” she asked. “I haven't spent all of these years building up my reputation only to become some man's mistress.”

The man she loved. The man who made her heart pound and her body ache. The man who challenged her very idea of what happiness was. The man who—if she was a very different woman with a very different story—she might have fallen into the arms of, a willing woman.

“I think that it's time that I grow accustomed to the idea of being happy with my lot in life once again,” she said as somewhere in the house a bell rang.

“Already?” Elizabeth said with a glance at the clock. “I swear Edward's patients call on him earlier and earlier.”

The bell rang again, clanging insistently.

“Maybe it's urgent,” she said.

Elizabeth shook her head. “Mrs. Mitchell will take care of it. She's better than a guard dog when it comes to managing the surgery.”

That might be the case, but rather than accompanying a patient being led in to see the doctor, Mrs. Mitchell came into the drawing room bearing a letter.

“Thank you, Mrs. Mitchell,” said Elizabeth, holding out her hand.

“Pardon me, Mrs. Fellows, but it isn't for you.” The housekeeper held the letter out to Mary. “It's for Miss Woodward.”

Mary's stomach dropped through the floor just as her heart soured. It couldn't be from him, but at the same time how could it be from anyone else?

She took the letter printed on thick, luxurious paper and flipped it over. A wax seal closed it, but the stamp wasn't legible, as though the letter writer had been too eager to post it.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

“The message boy was quite insistent that it make it into your hands directly,” said Mrs. Mitchell before she dipped into a little curtsy and slipped out of the room.

Mary slid her finger under the wax and broke the letter open. Her heart skipped when she saw the handwriting within. It was the sloping, elegant script of Lady Eleanora.

Miss Woodward,

I know that when you departed this morning I said I would keep your secret safe, but I must ask a very great favor of you. Please return to the house, if only for a half hour this morning. Something has happened with Lord Blakeney, and I must seek your advice, but I don't dare write it down. The house will be empty, as my father has a vote on an agricultural bill today. I've instructed the carriage to collect you. Please come. I'm most desperate for your counsel.

—E

The thought of returning to No. 12 Belgrave Square filled her with dread, but how could she say no? One of her charges needed her help. Eric's
daughter
needed her help.

“I need to go,” she announced. “Lady Eleanora's in distress.”

“But what of all of this talk about cutting him from your life?” Elizabeth asked with raised brows.

Slowly, Mary pushed to her feet more than aware that she looked a fright. She'd been crying, she hadn't changed her dress after her early morning flight from the house, and her hair was tucked in a hasty bun on top of her head, secured with a few pins she'd managed to jam into it. So be it. It didn't matter what she looked like right now. She was about to break her own heart all over again by going back to the place she'd vowed to leave just hours before. To
his
home.

“Lady Eleanora needs me,” she said with a conviction that surprised even her. “I won't leave her now. I'll be fine. Lord Asten has a vote today.”

Jane leaned over and plucked up a newspaper Edward had left behind when he'd vacated the room for the ladies after breakfast. “That's true. It's right here in the headline.”

“I'll do this last thing, and then I'll get to work finding another position. I'll make a clean break of it,” she said, promising herself as much as her friends.

Elizabeth raised one skeptical brow, but rang the bell nonetheless to ask for Mary's cloak.

Thirty minutes later, the Asten carriage with the family's coat of arms rumbled to a stop in front of the house. When the driver opened the door, she tentatively poked her head out, wishing she were a thousand miles away.

The door to the house opened and Warthing filled the frame. The butler waited patiently as she drew a breath and gathered all of her strength to her. She'd need it to step over this threshold again.

“Miss Woodward,” said Warthing with a respectful bow. “Lady Eleanora instructed me to show you to the greenhouse.”

He was all politeness, even though the man could probably guess the reason for her flight from the house. Still she kept her head raised high. She wasn't ashamed of what she'd done. Not when her night with Eric had been everything to her.

“I can show myself back, Mr. Warthing,” she said.

He nodded, and stepped aside as she focused on putting one foot before the other.

The greenhouse was only a short walk on the ground floor. The sight of the foliage-filled, glass-paneled walls that abutted the house made her think of the day she'd walked at a generous distance behind Eleanora and Lord Blakeney during his first visit. She'd enjoyed the heat and warmth of the space, even if being back in a garden tempted her to indulge in the seductive memories of the earl's mouth at the apex of her legs, licking her and driving her to pleasure.

She pushed open the door to the greenhouse, the scent of gardenias washing over her. “Lady Eleanora!” she called out among the trees.

When she didn't hear a reply, Mary walked a little farther down the path. There was a potting bench at the very far end of the greenhouse, but the area closest to the house was planted like a lush jungle. It was easy to forget that one was in London amid the magnolia and lemon trees and the lush orchids that hung from mossy branches.

“Lady Eleanora, I've come!” she called again as she closed in on a little clearing. Her eyes swept over the space, and she stopped in her tracks. Laying on a stone bench that stood in the middle of the clearing was a silver half mask.
Her
mask.

She picked it up, her fingers toying with the silk ribbons that dangled from it.

“Mary.”

She spun on her heel, the mask falling from her hand and onto the paving stones. Standing between a pair of orange trees just about to blossom was Eric. He looked horrible and wonderful. He'd left his coat off, his shirtsleeves pushed up to his elbows to reveal powerful forearms dusted with dark hair. He wore no necktie and his hair was mussed, as though he'd spent all morning running his hand through it in frustration. A weak little part of her hoped he had. That he'd paced his study, wondering what to do once he realized she was gone. That he'd thought of her and only her.

No
. She wasn't going to do this to herself. Not when her heart was at stake. She wanted all of him, and she couldn't have him. This needed to end no matter how her heart squeezed at the mere sight of him.

“Mary,” he said again.

“Where is Lady Eleanora?” she asked.

He shook his head. “She's not here. I asked her to call on one of her friends.”

Understanding dawned on her. “And your vote in Parliament?”

He shoved his hands into his pockets. “It's soon to get under way, but I won't be there.”

“That was an excellent detail,” she said. “Something that made her letter seem even more plausible.”

“Please don't blame Eleanora,” he said.

She shook her head. “I'm not blaming anyone, but I want to know why I'm here. I can't be your daughter's governess any longer.”

“I know.” He cast his eyes down, and for a moment she thought he was about to give up without a fight. But then he raised his gaze, and from his lips came the most shocking words she'd ever heard: “Will you consider being my bride?”

She stumbled back, her boots scraping on the path. “You want to
marry
me?”

Eric shot her a crooked little smile. “Is it really so hard to believe?”

“I'm a governess,” she said.

“You say that as though it's a shield. As though if you say it often enough I won't be able to see you. The real you.”

“I can't marry an earl.”

He spread his hands and shrugged. “Why not?” he asked.

“Because . . .” But she couldn't come up with a good reason. Not really. His daughter had written the note that drew her here, meaning that Lady Eleanora approved of what her father was asking. Eric seemed in complete control of his facilities. The only thing holding her back was her own belief that the chasm separating them was too wide to jump. Because it was. Wasn't it?

He took a step forward but stilled when she edged back. “If you'll have me as your husband, Mary, I would never leave you. You wouldn't just have me. You'd have a home. A family.”

His words pierced her with the brutal precision of a well-aimed arrow. There he stood, offering her everything she wanted. Everything she'd craved. She could stop running from position to position, leaving before people could turn her out. For too long what her mother had done had hung like a specter over her life. Wasn't it time to let her past go?

And then there was the little matter of love. She loved this man for everything he was: moral, steadfast, a good father, a secret rogue.

“Mary,” he said, “say you'll marry me.”

There were so many reasons that he could be asking her to marry him. It was the honorable thing to do. He needed an heir. He'd realized that she was good with his daughter. He'd enjoyed the intensity of the passion between them.

Still she couldn't quite believe it. “If you're doing the gentlemanly thing—”

“Oh, the hell with it,” he said with an exasperated laugh. “Can't you see? I love you. Is that really so hard to believe? I love you with every ounce of my being.”

His words squeezed her tight, making her unable to breathe. Unable to think. It simply wasn't possible. This was the single most shocking moment of her life.

He took a cautious step forward, but she held her hand up. “If you come any closer, I won't be able to think, so you stay on that side of the clearing and explain yourself.”