A Governess for the faithless Duke (Regency Romance) (Regency Tales Book 3) (5 page)

“Miss Williams,” he said as he approached. “Good afternoon to you.”

“Your Grace,” she said, lowering her eyes before him, and rising to her feet.

“Why do you always start away when I approach?” he asked. “Are you afraid that I will harm you in some way?”

She flushed crimson at his question, and stammered out an apologetic reply. “Oh, no, Your Grace. I am sure you would never harm me, sir!”

“Then why?”  He needed to get some response from her that was more than the cool aloofness that was her usual demeanour with him, even though he knew he was playing a dangerous game.

“We are not of the same station, Your Grace,” she said, almost reprovingly, “and it would be unseemly of me to encourage any untoward familiarity.”

He smiled, charmed by her words and by the sentiments that they expressed. “How is it unseemly to be polite?” he wondered.

“I am an unmarried woman, Your Grace, and a servant in your household. There are rules on proper decorum in such circumstances!” 

She was still scolding him, although she was doing so respectfully. The thought made him laugh.

“Have you not heard the rumours?” he asked. “I am an unconventional man, who does not follow the rules. It is no consequence to me what others think about my actions, as long as I am happy with my decisions.”

“And what if your actions have dire consequences for others, Your Grace?” she asked quietly, finally meeting his eyes.

“I have always striven to ensure the safety of others, Miss Williams,” he said, realizing that she must have heard about his marital escapades. “But a man must be true to who he is.”

He spoke passionately, needing her to know who he was. She nodded, agreeing with him, then added, “But a man must also be true to the codes of behaviour that govern his station. Surely you can be who you are within the limits of your status in society?”

“Sometimes, Miss Williams,” he said, “one must stretch the boundaries of accepted behaviour in order to find happiness and joy in living. Revolutions are not won by those who take no risks.”

She looked at him again, and smiled, clearly understanding his meaning. “This is true, Your Grace. But I do not think that I am willing to be a risk taker in some matters.”  The she stepped away from him. “If you will excuse me, I must return indoors. Have a good afternoon, Your Grace.”

She left him standing there, bemused and seduced by her.

Charlotte remained in her rooms until the house party broke up, and the Duke’s relatives and friends had all departed. Then she packed a small satchel and was whisked away to her home for three days.

She needed the space away from the Duke, whose attentions were becoming more and more particular. Never had she been so tempted to relax and let common sense be gone with the wind, but she had a reputation to maintain, and he had one to repair.

She could not allow him to declare himself, if that was his intention. The ton would not look favourably on such a match…but how she wished that was his intentions…declaring himself…to her. But she knew the folly of it. The Duke himself had already paid a steep price for flouting the rules, not once but twice. And his Great Aunt Agnes was a sharp-eyed old biddy, who probably knew more about what he was doing, and what he intended to try to do, than she let on. Charlotte did not want to find herself on the wrong side of that venerable lady.

Her parents welcomed her home with open arms, and for the next three days, she immersed herself in life the way it used to be. There were pies to be made, chores to be done, visits to be made, and after hours, stories of village life, and of life in the manor house to while away the evenings until it was time for sleep. She spent a day with Emma, tramping around in the woods, picnicking beside the pond, and confiding her secret struggles with her deepening attraction to the Duke. Emma seemed to be of the Duke’s mind, that there should be nothing wrong with pursuing those things that were important to you.

“It isn’t as though you are the one pursuing him, Charlie,” she said. “Why should you feel guilty when you have done nothing wrong?”

“And I do not intend to do anything wrong, either,” she declared. “This attraction will dissipate if we just avoid each other. I cannot risk losing my job because I find myself hopelessly attracted to my master, Emma. This is a serious matter.”

Emma sighed. “I wish I knew how to help you,” she said. “You are my dearest friend in the world, and I would hate to see you hurt. But I would love to see you happy, too.”

The next day, Charlotte returned to Marbleton House, with no clearer sense of what else she could do. She had not told her mother, whom she feared would be disappointed in her, were she to know of Charlotte’s desires. And how unrealistic they were!  To imagine, even for a moment, that the Duke of Marbleton would ever be interested in her was laughable!  He had his pick of the cream of the society crop. A poor vicar’s daughter was no catch by comparison. A memory of Lady Henrietta Aston strolling in the garden with him, her arm laced through his, hit her square in the chest, and she gasped, as though someone had had to manually restart her breathing.  She would never fit by his side the way that lady had done.

All such sad thoughts were shelved though, once she arrived to find that while she had been away, her charges had become ill. The Duke himself had met her in the hallway as she was ascending the stair, and the look of relief on his face was unaccountably endearing. It was almost as though he had been waiting for her to return. He explained that his nieces had a high fever and hacking cough, and he feared it might be consumption. The doctor had been called away to another village, and in the meantime, it was up to the nursemaid, almost a child herself, and Mrs Thomson, to attend to the girls, until either his own personal physician, or the village doctor, arrived to assess the situation. Charlotte threw herself into the task of caring for them, thereby easing the burden on Molly’s shoulders, and relieving Mrs, Thomson of the extra work.

On her first night with them, the Duke appeared in the doorway as she was sitting next to the bed where the two little girls lay, their laboured breathing filling the distressed silence. They were resting, and Charlotte was about to begin on a new piece of embroidery, while Molly went to have some supper. She stood again as he entered, and he said,

“Please, Miss Williams, sit you down. I have only come to see my nieces,” he said, casting a worried eye over them, before turning to look at her. “Welcome home,” he added. “I forgot to say it earlier, when you returned.”

Charlotte looked at him closely in the dim candlelight, but could not read his face, except to see the lines of strain that were more deeply etched in them. That he was very worried about the girls’ health was evident, but she could feel the tension that surrounded him as he stood there looking back at her, and it had nothing to do with the reason he claimed he was in the sick room. It would be up to her to maintain the distance that was appropriate between them.

“The girls are resting for now, Your Grace,” she said, sitting again. “There is little to be done except to make sure the fever doesn’t get any worse, and really, no there’s need for you to be here.”

“They missed you while you were gone,” he said, as though he had not heard her.

He stepped closer to her, and she saw what the shadows had been hiding before. His words became clearer by the things they had not said. He had missed her, too. Suppressing the desire to say more than she knew she should, she merely nodded and said, “I missed them as well, Your Grace.”

“Thank you for all you have done for them,” he continued. “They have become my whole world.”

He sounded almost desolate, and Charlotte found herself reaching for him in comfort without thinking. The heat of his skin burned right through her, as she snatched her hands away when she touched him. 

“You’re welcome, Your Grace,” she said, “but it is a pleasure to have this job with the girls. So thank you for giving me the opportunity.”

He opened his mouth as though he were going to say something, and then apparently changed his mind. Instead, he walked over to the bed, and reached down to touch the little girls’ foreheads.

Dropping a tender kiss on each cheek, he withdrew, saying a quiet goodnight to her before leaving the room. Charlotte breathed a sigh of relief and prayed for patience, if he were going to visit his sick nieces often while she was tending them. She alternated her time between watching over her charges, and reorganizing the schoolroom. It gave her comfort, as the fever raged on, and the girls continued to be poorly. It surprised her how deeply she worried about the children. It was almost as though they were her own. What would it be like to have her own children, some day, she wondered. She would not mind having babies of her own. Unbidden, an image of herself large with child, assailed her, and she blushed when she realised that she was imagining that the baby was the Duke’s. Such foolish thoughts, she chastised herself. Maybe the fever was also affecting her!

He returned that evening, and this time he sat with her, listening as she read to them. They fell asleep as she was reading, and he kissed their foreheads before turning to her.

“I worry that they are not improving,” he admitted as he sat there, his arms across his chest, he legs crossed at the ankles. “I know now, after having had them with me for so long, how desolate my home, and my life would be without them in it.”

“Your Grace, we must keep hope and pray that they will fully recover. Do not give up hope. Your nieces are strong little girls. They will fight this illness and win.”

“I appreciate your taking such good care of them, Miss Williams,” he said. “You have a kind and nurturing spirit.”

She smiled at him. “It is easy to be kind to them, Your Grace.”

He visited again the next night, when Eliza’s fever broke. Mary Anne remained fretful and hot, and Charlotte asked when a physician would come to see them.

“My own doctor was out of the city, but has now returned and is on his way here. He should arrive by mid-morning. I will bring him right up when he arrives.”

“Very well, Your Grace. I will let Molly know so that she can be prepared.”

She bathed their brows and limbs with tepid water, and forced Eliza to swallow some of the concoction that cook had made up,  but she could get nothing into Mary Anne. The Duke moved closer, taking the spoon from her hands which had gone numb at the contact with his flesh. She stumbled away from the bedside, going to stand by the window, gazing out at the darkness and trying to get control of her breathing and racing heart. When she heard movement, she turned and found him standing close to her.

“She will not eat,” he said, his voice hoarse. “What shall we do?”

“There is nothing to do but wait. The doctor will be here tomorrow. You should get some rest, Your Grace,” she said.

He stared into her face, his eyes boring into her, making Charlotte acutely aware of his body and of her own interest in it. She moved away, and he said, “You make even this sick room a good place to be, Miss Williams. Thank you.”  He smiled and departed.

The next morning, the doctor arrived just after breakfast, and was taken up to the children’s room, where Charlotte was waiting for him. She moved away to stand by the window while he examined the girls. The Duke stood on the other side of the bed, watching the man like a hawk guarding her chicks.

“The good news is, it isn’t consumption, as you feared, Your Grace. However, Mary Anne’s slighter frame and weaker system is fighting it harder than Eliza’s needs to. Eliza is a stronger child, and she will mend quickly. You will need to watch the little one carefully. If there is no change in forty-eight hours, you will need to fetch a doctor again.”

He handed the duke a vial with some liquid in it. “Make sure that they get this, a teaspoonful, twice a day.”

“Thank you, Doctor!”  The Duke smiled at the man, and escorted him from the room, leaving the vial on the side table.

As soon as they were gone, Charlotte fetched the spoon and tipped the vial to it, then raised Eliza to administer the medication. The little girl choked on the bad taste, but she swallowed and Charlotte let her sip some water to rinse away the taste. Then she lay back, exhausted, and was soon asleep again. Then she turned to Mary Anne, wondering how she would get the medicine down. As she contemplated what to do, the duke walked back in. He must have seen her perplexity, because he asked,

“Is everything all right?”

Charlotte turned to look at him and said, “Yes. Everything is well. I just need your help to hold Mary Anne while I give her the medicine.”

She instructed him on how to hold the child, poured the teaspoon’s worth of medicine into the spoon, and pinched her nose, forcing her to swallow so she that could get some air. She also coughed, but hers was a harsher sound than her sister’s. The Duke lay her gently against the pillows.

“Molly will return shortly, Your Grace,” she told him, wondering why he had returned to begin with. Smiling at him, she resumed her seat and he walked over to her.

“You are a tower of strength,” he told her, a smile on his face. “Good morning, Miss Williams.”

He left after that, and Charlotte schooled herself not to feel disappointed that he seemed to be following her lead and keeping the lines clear cut between them. Later, a she took her daily constitutional around the garden, he caught her unawares by the hedge where she had been when she had first heard the three women talking about him and his affairs.

“I am glad to have caught up with you before you returned to the house, Miss Williams,” he said. “I must tell you that I admire you greatly.”

Charlotte stiffened her spine. This could not be happening. She had done everything she knew to do to avoid being caught up in the very situation which now loomed.

“Your Grace, while I appreciate the sentiment, I am sure you recognize how inappropriate it would be for you to act upon such feelings.”

“Miss Williams...Charlotte, may I call you Charlotte?”  At her almost imperceptible nod, he went on, “Charlotte, you have enchanted me from the beginning. You are such a breath of fresh air. I am happy that I chose you.”

He took her hand in his as he spoke, the strength of his feelings making his hands shake a little as he brought it to his lips, turning it over to kiss her palm. She snatched her hand away, though she could not remove the imprint of his heated lips against her skin, and ran as though the hounds of Hell were snapping at her heels. She did not stop until she was safely in her rooms, away from the temptation that was the Duke.

Edmund let her run away, though he did pause to wonder if he had offended her. He knew what he had to do. He had told her before that he must be himself, and he refused any longer to deny his feelings for the woman raising his nieces. He would ask her to marry him, conventions be damned!  The people who cared about him would be happy for him, even his sharp-tongued Aunt Agnes. He would need to speak with her father before he addressed her, and obtain his permission to marry his daughter, who was still below the age of consent. No one could be more mature than Charlotte, he knew, but this was one convention he chose to follow, as it would make her happy, and please her parents, who no doubt also knew of his reputation.

He visited the girls once more before he left to see her father, choosing to go when he knew Molly was there, and the following morning, before he took himself off to see her parents, he stopped by the schoolroom, where he knew she hid from him, to ask her,

“Did I offend you yesterday with my attentions?”  Clearly shocked by his directness, she answered no, and he continued. “Then what did I do wrong to make you run from me?”