The Temporary Wife/A Promise of Spring (3 page)

“I’ll try for this one position,” she said. “If I am unsuccessful, then perhaps I will go back to the country. It is beginning to look as though I am unemployable, does it not?”

“Go back home, Charity,” Philip urged. “I am a mere clerk now, but I will rise to a better position and earn more money. Perhaps I will even be wealthy someday. And indeed you are not cut out to be in service. You do not have the necessary spirit of subservience. You lost the last position because you could not keep your opinions to yourself.”

“No,” she said, grimacing. “I was of the opinion that the children’s father ought not to be molesting the prettiest chambermaid against her express wishes and I said
so—to both him and the children’s mother. He really was horrid, Phil. If you had known him, you would have disliked him excessively.”

“I have no doubt of it,” he said. “But his behavior to another servant was not your concern, Charity. The girl had a tongue of her own, I daresay.”

“But she was afraid to use it,” she said, “lest she lose her position.”

Philip merely looked at his sister. He did not need to say anything.

Charity laughed. “I had no wish to remain there anyway,” she said. “But I do wish positions were more easily come by. Six interviews in the past month and nothing to show for them. Perhaps I had better hope that Mrs. Earheart and her children
do
live in the Outer Hebrides and that no one but me will be intrepid enough to join them there.” She sighed. “Perhaps I should include in my letter of application my willingness to go to the ends of the earth. Perhaps they will pay more to compensate me for the remote situation.”

“Charity,” Philip said, “I wish you would go home. The children miss you. Penny says so in all her letters. You have been like a mother to them ever since Mama died.”

“I shall not mention my willingness,” she said as if she had not heard him. “I might sound overeager or groveling. And I shall try for this one last position. I shall probably not even receive a reply and all your wishes will be granted. But I shall feel such a helpless
woman
, Phil.”

He sighed again.

But Charity was proved wrong in one thing. Five days after she sent her letter of application to Mr. Earheart, she received a reply, inviting her to attend an interview the following morning. She felt her heart begin to palpitate at the very thought. It was so difficult to endure
being questioned, more as if one were a commodity than a person. But it was the only way to employment. How cruel it was, though, to actually have an interview, to be this close, only perhaps to have one’s hopes dashed yet again.

“This will be the seventh,” she said to Philip when he came home from work late in the evening. “Will this be the lucky one, do you suppose?”

“If you really want the position, Charity,” he said with a sigh, “you must behave the part. Governesses, like other servants, you know, are to be seen and not heard.”

She grimaced. Not that she was ever loud or vulgar. But she was a
lady
. She was accustomed to considering herself the equal of other ladies. It was hard to accustom herself to the knowledge that there was a despised class of shabby-genteel people—of whom she was one, at least as long as she sought employment. It was something that had to be ignored or endured. “I must be demure, then?” she said. “I may not offer my opinions or observations?”

“No,” he said bluntly—and she realized with a sudden wave of pain that Philip must have had to learn the same lesson for himself. “You must convince the man, and his wife if she is present, that if they employ you, you will blend very nicely into the furniture of their home.”

“How demeaning,” she said and then bit her lip, wishing she had not said the words aloud.

“And, Charity”—he leaned across the table that separated them and took her hand in both his own—“do not accept the position even if it is offered if he—well, if he is a young man. Not that youth has anything to say in the matter. If he is—”

“Lecherous?” she suggested.

Her brother blushed. “If you suspect he might be,” he said.

“I can look after myself, Phil,” she said. “When my former employer glanced at me with that certain look in his eye during the early days of my employment, I looked right back and chilled my eyes and thinned my lips.” She repeated the look so that her brother grinned despite himself.

“Be careful, Charity,” he said.

“I shall be,” she promised. “And demure. I shall be a veritable mouse. A quiet, drab, brown little mouse. I shall be so self-effacing that he will not even realize I am in the room with him. I shall be …”

But her brother was laughing out loud. She went around the table to stand behind his chair and wrap both arms about his shoulders. “Oh, you do that all too rarely these days, Phil,” she said. “All will work out, you will see. We will be rich somehow and you will marry Agnes and live happily ever after.”

“And you?” He raised a hand to pat her arm.

“And I shall live happily ever after too,” she said. “Penny will be able to marry and I shall stay with the children until they are all grown and happily wed, and then I shall settle into a contented and eccentric spinsterhood.”

He chuckled again as she lightly kissed the top of his head.

But for all that she was nervous the next morning when she arrived at the house on Upper Grosvenor Street to which she had been summoned for an interview. The hall was unostentatious but elegant. So was the servant who answered her knock on the door. So was the empty salon into which she was shown. She instinctively sought out the part of the room that was out of the light from the windows. She tried to master the beating of her heart. If she did not secure this position,
she would begin to lose confidence in herself. She had already half promised Phil that she would go home without trying further. She would … But her thoughts were interrupted by the opening of the door.

He
was
young—no more than thirty at the outside. He was also handsome in a harsh sort of way, she thought to herself. He was of somewhat above medium height, with a slender, well-proportioned figure, very dark hair and eyes, and a thin, angular, aristocratic face. The sunlight shining through the windows was full on him as he came through the door. In its harsh glare the cold cynicism of his expression made him look somehow satanic. He was expensively and elegantly dressed. Indeed, he looked very much as if he might have been poured into his well-tailored coat and pantaloons—a sure sign that he was a gentleman of high fashion.

He did not look like a kind man. He looked like the sort of man who would devour chambermaids more than he would seduce them. But she must not judge the man before he had uttered even a single word. She felt demeaned again, alone in a gentleman’s house without servant or chaperon, because she herself was now a servant—an unemployed one. Her eyes dipped to focus on the carpet before his own found her in the shadows. She concentrated hard on cultivating the manner of a typical governess.

“Miss Duncan?” he said. His voice was as haughty and as bored as she had expected it to be, though it was a pleasant tenor voice. There was no pretense of charm in it. But why should there be? He was conducting an interview for a governess for his children.

“Yes, sir,” she said, trying to look dignified but not over-proud. She kept her back straight. She was, after all, a lady.

“Please be seated.” He indicated a chair that was close by and out of the glare of the sunlight, for which fact she
was grateful. Interviews did not get easier with experience.

“Yes, sir,” she said, seating herself, keeping her eyes lowered. She would answer the questions concisely and honestly. She would hope there would be no awkward questions.

Mr. Earheart seated himself on a chair opposite hers. He crossed one booted leg over the other. His hessian boots were of shining, expensive leather. His valet must have labored hard to produce such a shine. There was an air of wealth and confidence and power about the man. Charity felt distinctly uncomfortable in the pause before he spoke again.

H
OW DID ONE CONDUCT AN INTERVIEW FOR A
future wife? the Marquess of Staunton wondered.

“The letter of recommendation from the rector of your former parish is impressive, Miss Duncan,” he said.

“Thank you, sir,” she said.

“However,” he said, “it was written all of one year ago. Have you had employment since then?”

She stared at her knees and appeared to consider her reply. “Yes, sir,” she said.

“And what was it, Miss Duncan?”

“I was governess for eight months to three children, sir,” she said.

“For eight months.” He paused, but she did not pick up the cue. “And why was the position terminated?”

“I was dismissed,” she said after hesitating for a few moments.

“Indeed?” he said. “Why, Miss Duncan?” Had she been unable to control the children? He could well imagine it. She seemed totally without character.

“My—my employer accused me of lying,” she said.

Well. She was frank at least. He was surprised by her reply and by the fact that she did not immediately proceed to justify herself. A meek mouse indeed.

“And did you?” he asked. “Lie, I mean.”

“No, sir,” she said.

He knew how it felt to be accused falsely. He well knew the feeling.

“Is this your first attempt to find employment since then?” he asked.

“No, sir,” she said. “It is the seventh. The seventh interview, that is.”

He was not surprised that she had failed to get past any of those interviews. Who would wish to employ such a drab, spiritless creature to educate his children?

“Why have you been unsuccessful?” he asked.

“I believe, sir,” she said, “because everyone else has asked what you just asked.”

Ah, yes. Her confession doubtless brought any normal interview to an abrupt halt. “And you have never thought to lie?” he asked her. “To pretend that you left your employment of your own free will?”

“Yes,” she admitted, “I have thought about it, sir. But I have not done so.”

She was also a very moral little mouse. Someone once upon a time had told her that it is wicked to lie, and so she never lied even in the service of her own interests. Even if it meant she would never again be employed. She clung to a puritanical morality. His father would be appalled.

“For which proof of your honesty you are to be commended, Miss Duncan,” he said. “I may be able to offer you something.”

She looked up into his face for the first time then, very briefly. Long dark lashes swept upward to reveal large, clear eyes that were as blue as the proverbial summer sky. Not the sort of gray that sometimes passes for blue, but pure, unmistakable blue itself. And then the eyes disappeared beneath the lashes and lowered eyelids again. For one disturbing moment he felt that he was about to make a ghastly mistake.

“Thank you, sir,” she said. She sounded a little breathless. “How many children are there? Do they live here with you?”

“There are no children,” he said.

He waited while she studied her knees, transferred her gaze to his knees, and raised her eyes to his chest—perhaps even to his chin.

“No children?” She frowned. “My pupils, then, sir, are—are …”

“There are no pupils,” he said. “I am not in search of a governess, Miss Duncan. It is another position entirely that I have to offer.”

The little mouse obviously sensed that a big bad cat was about to pounce. She jumped to her feet and turned in the direction of the door.

“I am not about to suggest anything improper, Miss Duncan,” he said, remaining seated. “Actually I am in search of a wife. I am willing to offer you the position.”

She half turned back to him but did not look directly at him. “A wife?” she said.

“A wife,” he repeated. “I am looking for a Mrs. Earheart, Miss Duncan. Temporarily, that is. At least, the marriage would be forever, I suppose, since such things are next to impossible to dissolve by anything less drastic than the death of one of the partners. If you have any romantic notion of marrying for love and living happily ever after, then I must bid you a good morning and proceed with the next interview. But I daresay you have not, or if you have, then you must realize that such a dream is unrealistic for someone in your situation.”

She raised her eyebrows but did not contradict him. Her body was still turned toward the door. Her head was still half turned toward him.

“The marriage would be permanent,” he said. “But our being together as a married couple would be temporary—for no longer than a few weeks at a guess. After
that you would be free again, apart from the small encumbrance of being Mrs. Earheart instead of Miss Duncan. And you would be very comfortably well-off for the rest of your life.”

She was frowning down at the carpet. But she was not hastening from the room. She was clearly tempted. It would be strange if she were not.

“Will you not be seated again, Miss Duncan?” he asked.

She sat, arranged her hands neatly in her lap again, and studied her knees once more. “I do not understand,” she said.

“It is really quite simple,” he said. Her face was perhaps heart-shaped, he thought. But that description glamorized her too much. “I need a wife for a short period of time. It has crossed my mind that I might employ someone to act the part, but it would be far more—effective to have a real wife, one who will be bound to me for life.”

She licked her lips. “And after the short period of time is over?” she asked.

“I would settle five thousand a year on you,” he said, “in addition to providing you with a home and carriage and servants and covering your year-by-year household expenses.”

She sat very still and said nothing for a long while. She was thinking about it, he thought. About five thousand a year, about a home and a carriage of her own. About never again having to apply for a position as a governess.

“How do I know that you speak the truth?” she asked at last.

Good Lord! He raised his eyebrows and favored her with his frostiest stare while his right hand curled about the handle of his quizzing glass. But his indignation was wasted on her lowered eyelids. Her hands, he could see, were clasping each other rather tightly in her lap. He
supposed that to someone like her there must seem to be the very real possibility that this was all a cruel joke.