The Runaway McBride (10 page)

The girls giggled. The visitors chuckled. Faith managed a tight smile. She wasn’t impressed, or intimidated, or won over. He wanted to take the measure of her girls? Let him! She had prepared them well.

“Perhaps,” she said, “you’d like to hear the girls translate a passage from the histories of Herodotus? They have their books right in front of them.”

“Ah, no.” He rubbed his chin with his index finger. “I expect them to be word perfect with you as their teacher, Miss McBride. What I want to know about is their hopes and aspirations. You see, I couldn’t help overhearing Mrs. Elphinstone’s words as I approached the door, and that set me thinking. What do these young women see in their future? I know they are preparing themselves for the professions, but what about marriage? Children? A home of their own? And dare I say it—a husband?”

Faith’s confidence began to waver. She wasn’t worried about the girls but about the visitors. Some of the opinions that the girls would express, she was sure, would make their hair stand on end. She gazed briefly at these unsuspecting pillars of the community: the Bishop of Hemmel and his wife, Mrs. Powell; Mrs. Brown and her husband who was a member of Parliament; Lady Frances Hollister, an advocate of universal suffrage. How much did they know about what went on inside their daughters’ heads?

She opened her mouth to tell James, pleasantly, of course, that he was out of order, but he spoke first.

“Shall we let the girls speak for themselves? Miss Winslet, I’m sure you have given the matter some thought. What say you?”

Dora stared at her open book as though lost in thought. When she looked up, her dimples were flashing. “Why is it,” she said, “that no one ever asks a boy what place marriage has in his future, leastways not until he has reached his thirtieth birthday and his doting parents are becoming impatient to dandle their grandchildren on their knee?”

Faith gave a heartfelt sigh of relief. The girls murmured their approval.

Dora wasn’t finished yet. Adopting a playful tone, she went on, “We might ask you the same question, Mr. Burnett. What about marriage? Children? And dare we say it—a wife?”

James blinked then slowly nodded. “That’s a fair question. I was married once. Perhaps you didn’t know that I’m a widower?”

Dora had the grace to look contrite. “No. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

Faith interjected tactfully, “Perhaps we should stop there? In another five minutes the bell will ring.”

Dora ignored the hint. “Does that mean you will never marry again? Are you confusing marriage with love?”

“Dora!” protested Faith. “That is a personal question.”

She looked at James and was taken aback by the intensity of his stare. His look spoke volumes, but she did not know what to make of it.

The ever precocious Dora was not cowed into silence. “Love,” she said, “is not the same as marriage. Love is freely given and taken. It’s what the poets write about. Marriage is about money and contracts. It’s how solicitors make their living.”

“Miss McBride?” Lucy Elphinstone held up her hand.

“Yes, Lucy,” replied Faith, glad to have a reprieve from Dora.

“Love can come after marriage, can’t it? If two people like each other?”

Faith was beginning to feel as though a creature of the wild had been unleashed in her class. She felt trapped. Smiling as pleasantly as she could manage, she said, “Since I have no experience of love or marriage, I am reserving judgment.”

When the girls made hissing sounds to demonstrate their displeasure at this evasive answer, she held up a hand to silence them. “Just because you are St. Winnifred’s girls does not mean that you have to have an opinion on everything. It’s all right to say, ‘I don’t know.’ No, no more arguments. I want you out of here when the bell rings, so let’s not begin a discussion we won’t have time to finish.”

She ignored James and braced for the comments of the esteemed visitors. The bishop beamed at her. “Solomon could not have said it better,” he enthused when he came up to her. “Too many people spout their opinions on something they know nothing about.”

His wife gave Faith a commiserating look. “Are they always like this? Poor Miss McBride. If I had charge of them, I’d be tempted to beat them all soundly and send them to bed.”

The bell rang. The ordeal was over. As the room began to empty, Faith went around the room collecting Herodotus’s histories and other texts that were on display for the benefit of the visitors. “Dora,” she said, “will you stay behind and help me?”

James deposited a pile of books in her arms. Keeping her voice low so that Dora would not overhear her, she said crossly, “You certainly know how to put a cat among the pigeons. What was that talk about marriage and love in aid of?”

He answered mildly, “I was testing your girls. Seems that they’re more conventional than you give them credit for.”

“And you approve, I suppose?”

He chuckled. “Of course I approve. It gives me hope that the human race will not become extinct.”

She made a harrumphing sound.

“I was surprised,” he said, “when you said you’d never been in love. Didn’t you love me, Faith, when you agreed to marry me?”

“Was it love? It was so long ago I don’t remember.”

Fearing that she would explode, she marched to the book cupboard with a stack of books in her arms and came to a sudden halt. She couldn’t open the door without dropping the books.

“Dora?” she said in a pleading tone.

The door was opened, and she entered the cupboard that stored not only school texts but also as much as she’d been able to salvage from her father’s library. The only light came from a small window high on the back wall. There was a small stepladder that she used to reach the topmost shelves.

She stepped on it, climbed to the next step, and began to totter. In her determination to ignore James, she’d forgotten to hike up her skirts, and now the hem was caught beneath her shoes. She wiggled, she jiggled, she twisted this way and that. The result was, the books flew out of her arms.

“Bloody hell!” said James Burnett from the bottom step. “That hurt!”

Quite forgetting her precarious position, Faith twisted to look down at him. That last twist was her undoing. She lost her balance. With a cry of fright, she toppled straight into James’s arms, then he, too, went toppling to the floor.

The door clicked shut.

In the fall, James’s elbow had inadvertently connected with
Faith’s chin. Spots danced in front of her eyes, and she collapsed against him.

“Bloody hell!” James tried to ease from beneath her, but one side of his head struck a shelf. “Bloody hell!” he repeated, but this time more viciously. Spots were dancing in front of his eyes, too. Faith’s whimper brought him to his senses. “Talk to me, Faith,” he said. “Are you all right?”

Faith moaned and came to herself slowly. Tears of pain welled in her eyes and spilled over. Her words were punctuated by the rasping gasps of air she tried to draw into her lungs. “A few scrapes and bruises, that’s all.” Then crossly, “You shouldn’t have closed the door. It only opens from the outside. Now what are we going to do?”

He was still trying to ease from beneath her but stopped at her words. “I didn’t close the door,” he said, “but I can guess who did.”

He was remembering Dora Winslet and all the impertinent questions she had asked. Was this the conniving chit’s way of getting Faith and him back together? And how did she know about Faith and him? Were they so obvious?

Similar thoughts were going through Faith’s mind, but she was more alive to the perils of their situation. “We can’t be caught here like this,” she cried. “What will the headmistress say? And the girls? We’ve got to get out of here before we’re discovered.”

James’s thoughts had taken a different turn. He’d wanted to get close to Faith, and he couldn’t get much closer than this.

She raised her head. “Are you smiling?”

His lips flattened. She was right. He had been smiling, and there was nothing in this situation to smile about. This is what had gotten them into trouble in the first place.

He tried to force himself not to think of the warm woman’s flesh that was intimately wrapped around him. He tried to remove his hands from the undersides of her breasts, breasts that he had once kissed and petted so intimately.
Intimate.
The demon word kept popping into his brain.

“Don’t be daft,” he said. “I wasn’t smiling. Anyway, There isn’t enough light in this box to see your hand in front of your face.”

She snorted and made to move off him then stopped.

“What is it?”

“I think I’ve twisted my ankle.”

There was more to it than that. She felt light-headed, not because of the fall, but because things that she had forgotten were forcing their way into her head. He smelled of soap and freshly starched linen. He was hard and lean but with the gentlest hands of anyone she had ever known. And those hands . . .

They were clasping her waist, but his thumbs were feathering the underside of her breasts. Wide awake now, she swallowed a breath. Her skirts were hiked to her thighs, and her knees were spread on either side of James’s flanks. He was half propped against the door, and she was clasping his shoulders for support.

She tried to push away from him, but the pressure on her ankle made the pain worse. She was in agony, and he was smiling again!

“You think this is funny? I could lose my job! I can’t be found here like this with you.”

He tried to straighten his lips, but they wouldn’t obey the commands of his brain. He tried to remind himself of his resolve to keep his hands to himself, but his hands wouldn’t cooperate, either.

What the hell, he thought, giving up the struggle. They were in a tiny cupboard with no room to move. How much trouble could they get into?

“If I’m smiling,” he said, “it’s because I’m remembering the day of that awful storm when we took shelter in the summer house.”

“I don’t remember.”

“Of course you do. It was at the house party at Mrs. Rowatt’s country place. We went out riding early in the morning, under a cloudless sky.”

He could almost feel the warmth of the sun’s rays on his face and the pleasure of being with Faith. She was so easy to talk to, so interested in the things that interested him. Whenever he’d mentioned the word
railroad
to other young women, they’d nodded and smiled, but he’d known that they were bored out of their minds. With Faith, it was different. She’d asked intelligent questions. She’d understood that he wasn’t investing every penny he possessed just for the profits he hoped to make. He loved railroads the way his father loved Drumore. He loved their smell, their clean lines, their speed. And he’d wanted to be part of that world.

He could see in retrospect that he’d taken a great deal for granted when he’d left Faith in London, while he went north to salvage his company. She hadn’t given him a chance to explain. They had planned their lives together in that summer house. How could things have gone so wrong?

“I wish we could turn the clock back to that summer house,” he said, voicing the thought that came to him. “A ferocious storm came up, don’t you remember? And we dismounted. We were walking our horses when lightning hit the ground. They bolted, and we were lucky to find shelter in that neglected summer house. We didn’t realize that the main house was just beyond the wilderness of trees and brush.”

The memory was burned into Faith’s mind. They’d reached the summer house before the rain became a torrent, turning day into night. She’d groped her way past obstacles only to trip over her own feet and had landed with a thump on a sofa that smelled revoltingly of dogs. James tried to help her up, but another thunderbolt shook the ground, and she’d grabbed for him. He fell on top of her, and that’s when the trouble started.

“I don’t want to think of that day.” Her tone was belligerent.

His was whimsical. “Don’t you? It was magical, wasn’t it, Faith? We were so young and impetuous. We were in love—don’t deny it—how could we help ourselves?”

She had to swallow the lump that was stuck in her throat. Of course she remembered every little detail: how he’d laughed softly before he kissed her, how she’d clung to him, how one caress had led to another. And she remembered with breathtaking clarity the moment when the slow-burning fire that he’d ignited inside her had suddenly blazed to a white-hot inferno. Just thinking about it made her shiver with anticipation.

“You were trembling, then, just as you’re trembling now,” he said.

His voice was low and husky and had taken on that soft Scottish burr that she’d always found irresistible. Her erotic memories, the suggestive position they were in with her knees splayed over his flanks, his beguiling voice—everything was conspiring to make her excruciatingly aware of how her body was responding. Her breasts were beginning to swell, the crests were tingling, the slickness in the core of her femininity made her flush with embarrassment—or was it desire?