The Impossible Governess (21 page)

But Georgeanne found she was too distraught to do much more than brusquely order the maid to keep Marissa in her bed while gently pushing the sobbing child away.  Running to her own bedchamber, she quickly retrieved the bags she’d packed.

Cautiously, she crept down the stairs and let herself out the front door to flee into the damp, early morning fog.  For once she was thankful for the heavy mist, so typical of London weather, to cloak her escape.  Before turning the corner, she stopped and longingly glanced back down Curzon Street.  There was little that she could distinguish between the gray swirling cloud and her tears.

She smiled ruefully to herself, remembering her inauspicious start at the townhouse.  Was it only a few scant weeks ago that she’d stated her unusual proposal to Lord Raynor
. . . and what had it gotten her?  Double the heartache!

Well, there was only one place for her to turn to now.

Seated behind the desk with her shrewd eyes drawn together in a forbidding squint, Mrs. Hawkins of Hawkins Employment Agency for Domestics peered over her wire rimmed glasses at the young lady.  Sure as she was that the appearance of this young woman bode no good news, Mrs. Hawkins was fast coming to regard Miss Georgeanne Forsythe as her nemesis and was sorely tempted to utter an expletive.  Instead, with sublime forbearance, she firmly pushed the spectacles up higher on the uneven bridge of her nose before looking down at some papers, deliberately ignoring the girl’s presence. Let the chit stand for a few minutes, the business woman thought perversely.

Naturally, Miss Forsythe wouldn’t accept such paltry treatment and so cleared her throat to attract the other woman’s attention.  Glancing up with an irritated glint in her eyes, Mrs. Hawkins gave a sigh of resignation before indicating with a flippant wave of her hand for the irritating girl to take one of the two wooden chairs in front of the desk.

“I suppose it was inevitable that you should show up again, Miss Forsythe.”  Under Mrs. Hawkins’s hard penetrating gaze, Georgeanne lowered sad eyes.  Surprised and not a little curious about such meekness from the young woman, Mrs. Hawkins snapped, “Just why are you here?”

Clenching her hands about the reticule in her lap, Georgeanne began hesitantly.  “It is not what you think.  This time I was not asked to leave.”

“No?  I’ll grant you lasted longer with Lord Raynor’s niece than the others I sent him.  Was the brat so very bad then?”

“Oh, it is not because of Marissa.  Indeed, the child is really quite a dear.”

Mrs. Hawkins observed Georgeanne’s defeated and wan countenance with a calculating expression.  Could it be that the nobleman demanded more of the chit than she was willingly to give?  Since Georgeanne was not more forthcoming, she probed, “His lordship was pleased with your service?”  She had her answer when Georgeanne blanched visibly. 

“I cannot go back there, Mrs. Hawkins.”

“Miss Forsythe, exactly what did happen?” she asked gently.

“I can
not discuss it, madam,” replied Georgeanne with conviction.

No, for all her outspokenness, an innocent such as this girl definitely would have trouble talking about the baser side of men.  Mrs. Hawkins sighed, remembering the first time she had laid eyes on the poised young lady.  Just as now, there had been that determined tilt to her little chin when she had entered the office so expensively and elegantly dressed that Mrs. Hawkins had first mistaken her for one of her clients.  It had occurred to her then that the girl was unlike any employee she had ever had the fortune, or misfortune, to manage. 

And blood will always tell out.  There was no denying the queer starts of the Quality, keeping their young girls so closely closeted from life’s realities until they were pitched into cold marriage beds contracted strictly for monetary or social gains. No wonder the chit bolted every time a man made advances. 

The question was whether this lord had actually succeeded in bedding her, for that could lead to further complications nine months down the road.  Well, if that were the case, she’d handle the matter as efficiently as she had done with a number of others in the past.  It was a disgrace but far from unusual for one of her female employees to return after the master of a house or one of his male offspring had taken liberties with the hired help, only to ruthlessly discard the girl once the evidence became visible by throwing her out with nary a penny or backward glance.  That was the way of the world, however, and it would behoove her to determine the girl’s circumstance.

“Perhaps I can help you, Miss Forsythe, if you would explain what did happen.”

Gazing intently on the deep grooved scratches that adorned the front of the old desk, Georgeanne remained silent for a full minute before she dispassionately confessed, “He offered to make me his mistress.”

“Did he force himself on you?” Mrs. Hawkins asked carefully.

Shocked emerald eyes flew up to meet with wiser, sympathetic ones.

“Never!” Georgeanne replied emphatically.

“Well, what’s to be done with you now?” asked Mrs. Hawkins pragmatically.

“I will not go back.” Again, Mrs. Hawkins recognized the defiant tilt of the girl’s chin.

“No, no, I don’t expect you to, Miss Forsythe.  In fact, it would be most unwise of you to do so.  The problem is where can you go?  As you say, it is impossible for you to return to Curzon Street.  But if you will recall, you have gone through three employers without the benefit of receiving a single recommendation.”

“Then you will help me?” asked Georgeanne, brightening somewhat.

“Miss Forsythe, the matter is not whether I want to help you, but what can be found for you to do.  You have proven yourself unfit as a lady’s companion as well as a governess.”

“That is untrue,” Georgeanne spoke up, stung by the unfairness of the accusation.  “I am a governess.  Marissa and I got along very well, and I truly did not wish to leave.”

“Perhaps, but you are like a magnet with your deplorable tendency to draw undesirable attention from the males in a household.  The sad fact is, every one of the requests I have for governesses have males in residence.”

“But it was never my fault.  That is, I never once tried to encouraged Mr. Fench or Lord Raynor.”  But Georgeanne felt a betraying blush suffused her cheeks as she recollected how from the very first she’d been attracted to the haughty peer with the result that she had shamelessly accepted, even encouraged, his advances. 

And wasn’t the very reason she was here because she feared she’d forget who she was, a lady of Quality, and become instead the mistress of the man she loved.  That she could never let happen, she vowed to herself, bringing her chin up in a resolute gesture.

Without commenting on Georgeanne’s argument, Mrs. Hawkins regarded her with a speaking look over the rim of her spectacles.  “Nevertheless, your good looks pose a definite problem.”  She reached for a stack of cards on the corner of the desk and began methodically thumbing through them, discarding each in turn to form a neat pile in front of her.  At last her hand stilled and she pulled one out to further study it.

“There is one possible opening, though I must caution you. It will be most taxing, to say the least.”

“Anything,” pleaded Georgeanne, scooting up on the edge of her seat.

“Merchants.” 
Eying Georgeanne, Mrs. Hawkins spoke the word without any intonation.

Georgeanne understood that Mrs. Hawkins was waiting for her to react with disgust.  It was well known how the nobility regarded with disdain the increasing number of average citizens who acquired riches and power through trade.

When she accepted this pronouncement without so much as a blink of an eye, the older woman nodded her head approvingly. “There are six children, ranging in ages from eight years to an infant.  Horrible family I’m told, but they have one undeniable advantage in their favor.  The master of the house, Mr. Ignatius Kidd, had a stroke two months ago and has been incapacitated ever since.”  She paused, then added meaningfully, “He is completely bedridden, my dear.”

“I will take it,” Georgeanne said, eagerly extending her hand for the card.

But the agency owner made no move to relinquish the card.  “There is, of course, the problem of your references, or rather, the lack of them.  It will be up to you to convince Mrs. Kidd of your competence.”

“Oh dear.”   Georgeanne sank back in her chair.  “Is there no other way?”

“This may not be as hard as it sounds, Miss Forsythe,” replied Mrs. Hawkins with a Machiavellian glint behind her spectacles.  “The, ah, lady is said to be a toad eating social climber.  If you were to drop a few names, flaunt your birth, so to speak, let her know how blue your blood is, it might just do the trick.” 

When George
anne did not demure over the crass suggestion, Mrs. Hawkins scribbled the address on a piece of paper and handed it to her. 

Georgeanne rose, prepared to leave, when a thought struck her, and she froze in place.  Taking a step toward the desk, she regarded the agency owner squarely in the eye. “Mrs. Hawkins, may I have your word that no one will learn of my direction?”

Georgeanne held her head high with what she hoped was a determined expression as the proprietress’s shrewd eyes examined her.

“Do you expect trouble?”

“No, not really, but because of the child, inquires may be made.”  Her heart seemed to actually flip over painfully at the truth of these words.  The only reason Raynor would bother to seek her out would be to placate Marissa.  She was wise enough in the ways of the world to know that no man would present such a sordid offer to a woman he truly cared for.  Though it pained her to think of Marissa once again alone, for her own sanity, Georgeanne could not go back, now or ever.  Besides, Raynor surely learned a few things about caring for his niece over the past several weeks.  And there was always Lady Ashbury who could help comfort the little girl.

“Your whereabouts will be safe with me,” Mrs. Hawkins replied with an assuredness that left Georgeanne satisfied that her destination would remain confidential. 

Still, a hollow feeling invaded her weary heart.  She emerged from the austere agency office into the gloomy mist that still shrouded the city and pulled her black velvet pelisse more closely about her.  With a clamor the door banged shut behind her, sounding a note of finality, giving her the sensation that she had severed her own heart in two. 

~~~~~

Mrs. Kidd, formerly a popular dancer at Covenant Gardens whose stage name was Miss Fannie Hynes, was entrenched in her spacious though cluttered drawing room.  For all the fine appointments of the stately chamber, the grandeur of the woodwork and Adam’s fireplace were almost completely eclipsed by the crowded furnishings, all of the finest workmanship money could buy. 

Unfortunately, the two elephant tables, the two chairs with claw fe
et, and the pair of zebra striped sofas—Mr. Kidd always said if it was worth having, then he should have at least two of everything—clashed dreadfully with the Chinese motif of the red and gold wallpaper and the four black lacquered high back chairs.  (They had been just too good of a bargain to purchase only two).  Plus, there were any number of glass vases, porcelain figurines, wood carvings and other bric-a-brac littering the table tops and the fireplace mantle.

An Egyptian day bed was situated by a tall, heavily draped window in crimson brocade that commanded an expansive view of the street.  There Fannie Kidd lazily lounged, munching on marchpanes while surrounded by mounds of fashion magazines, stacked on the floor as well as the two tables that resembled elephants’ feet at either end of the couch.

In her early thirties with a mass of red hair of a most unnatural shade piled atop her head, she was not unattractive.  Due to overindulgence and motherhood, her once curvaceous figure had blossomed into plumpness, and she tended to look blousy, the cumulative effects of the hard life she’d led prior to catching the lecherous eye of an aging, very prosperous textile merchant.  She was very proud of her exalted position along with the fact that she had done her wifely duty by the old geezer, although she often lamented the fact that their union, though fruitful, had been blessed with only one male offspring. 

And now Ignatius Kidd, the patriarch of this brood, after being struck down by a stroke two months ago, could do little more than lay in his bed, wasting away.  His wife, a veteran survivor of some of London’s toughest back streets, had made it a point to be well informed of the contents of her husband’s will, which left everything to his only male child with his lawyers as executors of the estate. 

Thus, it was easy to understand why of late she coddled the heir with his every wish and went into a panic whenever the child so much as sniffled in front of her.  She also knew that if anything should happen to the precious Geoffrey, all would be inherited by her husband’s business partner, his miserly younger brother. 

When it came to money, Mr. Kidd, it seemed, didn’t trust a single farthing to a woman, whether she be his wife or one of his
five daughters.

Between bites on a bonbon,
Fanny reflected on the tedious chore of once against selecting a governess for her brood.  The last creature, a quarrelsome woman with pinched features, had given no notice, claiming she’d preferred slaving for her brother in his butcher shop than looking after the bunch of snotty nosed brats.