Lessons In Loving (5 page)

He looked at Kate. She saw his tattered heart dripping blood onto his sleeve. She must help him. It shouldn't be so difficult. He sorely wanted to learn. He'd created a practical plan. He'd be what teachers called an enthusiastic pupil. He shuffled his boots on the verandah's wooden deck, straightened in his chair, looked hard at Kate.

‘If youse take the job, you'll find out something about me pretty soon. I like a challenge. It gets me organised. Reckon I inherited that from the ancestors who came here from England all those years ago. They put up with years of pain and sickness and danger, and made all this.' He held out his hands, palms up, spread them wide.

‘I don't give up easy.' He grinned. ‘So in that lonely time, after Laetitia and I said our farewells, I did a bit of thinking. Reckoned whatever it took to win her, I'd do it. Like I said, if it means learning about stuff she likes to talk about, like books and plays and such at them London theatres, then I'd do it. And if she wants me to speak a bit more proper, then I'd do it. There's nothing hurts a bloke so much as being laughed at.'

Kate nodded. She remembered herself as a six-year-old wearing thick glasses, sniggered at by her schoolmates because she couldn't see the skipping rope clearly enough to time her jumps. Being laughed at was the worst thing that could happen to someone raised as Tom had been.

Pain flashed in his eyes as he fell silent. Kate bit her lip. She must let him reveal his all. The silence lasted a long time. Too long.

‘So, Miss Courtney,' he said eventually. ‘Youse asked me why I need a governess to teach me to talk proper. That's why.'

‘Very well, sir. I take that to mean you want to learn The King's English? The language the English gentry speaks?'

‘Yep. If it'll stop Laetitia laughing at me when she visits, then I wanna do it.'

‘You still love her?' Kate asked.

‘Well …' He hesitated. ‘Yep. That's why you're here, Miss Governess.' He slid into another of his long pauses. ‘There's this picture runs in my head.' His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Laetitia walks down the gangway of the steamer that's just berthed at the Sydney wharf. I hold out my arms to her. We hug. We kiss, my first kiss in a long, long time. Then I whisk the family up to Armidale in my private railway carriage. Ride the Kenilworth boundary with Laetitia. She's a horsey lady. Rides at her place in Hampshire. They have a few horses, an estate that's not bad for a few short rides.' His voice softened again. ‘Then we sit beside the creek as the moon rises.' He sighed. For a moment, he looked positively lovesick. Not the way a tall, muscled horseman should look.

‘Youse reckon my plan will work?' he asked. ‘I mean hiring a governess to teach me to talk proper, getting to know stuff about them famous novels and such? So Laetitia, her mother and father, will think I'm suitable?' As he looked hard at Kate, she saw an eager pupil willing his teacher to begin lessons.

‘It just might.' Suddenly Kate knew that her lifelong passion for literature, for language, had found a use at last. ‘When I was eight, I discovered Wordsworth,' she said. ‘Then Shakespeare, Milton, Dickens. I came to be besotted by them. I'm sure I could teach you to love them too.' She hesitated. She'd better speak in language he could understand. Given Tom's deprived childhood, his vocabulary had likely become stuck at the level of an eight-year-old. Every word he'd spoken as they sat on the verandah had screamed that message.

‘Like I said, I've loved such things all my life,' Kate said. ‘And I'd absolutely love to teach you.'

‘Good.' He smiled. He'd shared his painful feelings with her. It was time for her to put a blunt question.

‘Do you think I'm the right person for the job?' she asked. He must learn to trust her, or his plan would never work.

‘Youse were the only applicant.' He looked hard into her face again. ‘Do youse want the job?' He paused. ‘Seems like you're at least a little bit keen.'

‘Yes. Please.'

‘Good!' His smile glowed. ‘Let's talk pay, hours.' He named a fat sum as her weekly salary, much more than she'd have earned as a teacher in a Sydney government school. ‘Reckon we'll need to do the lessons at the end of the day,' he said. ‘Before dinner, perhaps. When I come in from my day on the property.'

‘Very well. I can prepare my lessons during the mornings,' she said.

‘Do we have a deal, Miss Courtney?' The speed of his reply surprised her.

‘Yes!' she said, suddenly too excited to answer like a well-mannered new employee accepting a lucrative position.

‘Good. Let's shake on it, then.' He held out his hand. She took it, felt her fingers crush in his manly grip. What had she let herself in for? So far, it had all been too easy. With one stammered little word, she'd just won herself a new life in this lonely, beautiful part of the world. She remembered again those first minutes after her arrival. As she'd waited on the verandah for Tom to walk from the stables, she'd felt a magic vine spiral round her, bonding her to the house, the hills.

Now she looked at Tom with new eyes. A handsome, seemingly decent man had bared his soul and said he wanted a wife. He'd set up workmanlike plans to court a woman from the ranks of British high society. Surely, she'd be an English beauty, tall, perhaps golden-haired, with the rose petal skin that is compulsory for all high-born Englishwomen.

Little Kate Courtney, with her thick glasses and disobedient dark hair, could never be confused with Tom's intended. Her job was simple. She must train him to win the woman to whom he'd lost his heart. Her own feelings were irrelevant. She'd be paid to teach, not to feel for him as a sister might feel for a brother setting out on a dangerous adventure. From this moment, she must slip into her teacher uniform, focus solely on the job in hand. In another situation, he'd be a man she might come to fancy. But she must never, never see Tom Fortescue as someone by whom she could be smitten. He was her employer, and he was desperately in love with an aristocratic English beauty. In that moment, Kate made a silent vow. Her connections with him must, always and forever, be strictly business.

CHAPTER 3

‘You're happy to start work tomorrow?' Tom said, dragging Kate's attention back to the here and now. ‘This is a full-time, live-in job, don't forget. Your quarters are ready and waiting. To make hot water for your bath, all youse have to do is light the fire to heat the boiler.' His stance told her he wanted to step back into his evening routine.

‘It's getting cold out here,' he said, eyeing her hands as she fiddled with her half-full glass of flat beer, nerves twitching. ‘Come inside. It's about time for dinner.' He led her to a formal dining room adjoining a well-scrubbed kitchen, and waved her towards an armchair. In the next second, a maid would appear, Kate guessed. Then she'd probably ask Kate how she liked her roast lamb.

‘May I ask if there's a bathroom nearby?' she murmured.

‘Along the left corridor to the end. My room. You'll find bath and such inside.'

After a walk down a long corridor with an endless stretch of carpet running the length of its polished floor, Kate stepped through an open door. Judging by the unmade bed, the mess of clothes hanging off chairs and doorknobs, it was a man's bedroom. A photograph on a bedside table caught her eye. A classically beautiful young woman in formal dress stared from the frame. Her smile was forced, artificial, with her lips contorted into a half-kiss. Could it be Laetitia? Kate stared at it. She could almost hear the cultured accent, the scornful laugh. What picture, other than one of his intended, or dream-intended, would a man put on his bedside table? Embarrassed, Kate found the thoroughly modern water closet, then tiptoed back to the dining room.

She watched as Tom stepped past her into the kitchen, tossed wood onto the fire heating the oven, opened a safe. In a second, he returned with a bottle of champagne and two flutes.

‘We gotta drink to our contract.' He popped the cork, filled the flutes, took one, and waited. Still reeling from the last hour's revelations, Kate reached for her glass and raised it.

‘To our future business together,' she said, thankful she'd recovered enough of her tranquillity to make a suitably adult toast. ‘May your story have a happy ending. And thank you for hiring me, Mr Fortescue.'

He kissed his glass against hers, then drank. Nervously, she followed suit. Too often, she'd been given lectures about the evils of drinks foisted onto innocent young ladies.

‘You like roast duck?' he asked.

‘Yes,' Kate said. He smiled at her but said nothing. She must break the silence. ‘You have a cook, then?' she asked. ‘Who'll magically appear in a minute or so?' He laughed and reached for the champagne bottle.

‘Sorry. I'm the cook. Still want roast duck?'

‘I love it. I honestly do.' She battled to hide her surprise. Could the tall, rangy cowboy actually cook, and cook something as ambitious as roast duck?

‘Excuse my question,' she said. ‘But why do you cook? This lady, Mrs Stubbs? Doesn't she cook for you?'

‘I cook because I love it.' A softness whispered across his face, then disappeared. ‘My mother loved to cook. She taught me. Way back when I was just a young 'un, she taught me to help her in the kitchen. First, it was topping and tailing beans. Then she taught me to beat eggs. Make fluffy omelettes.' He looked towards the kitchen, evidently itching to begin. ‘I cooks my roast duck different from most people,' he said. ‘I worked out how to make it real tasty. Most people seem to reckon it ain't too bad.'

‘I still can't believe you cook.' Kate reeled again. ‘In between shearing sheep and rearing lambs and fixing fences and riding your horse over hill and dale all day long.'

‘Yep. Cooking is how I settle down after a long day riding the ridges. Excuse me a moment.' He stepped into the kitchen, peeped into the oven, and returned to the dining room. ‘I put a duck on to roast earlier. I'll just warm up the oven to crisp the skin.'

‘Thank you.' She stood, ready to watch him at his work.

‘I do hope youse'll like my duck,' he said, clearly back in a comfortable space. ‘My stuffing is a secret recipe. But I can tell youse, it has a bit of apple in it. Then a bit of caraway, a bit of garlic, and my secret herb mixture. I let the fire die down to embers for most of the time the roast is in the oven. Then for the last ten minutes or so, I throw a heap of wood on the fire, make it blaze. It makes the skin crisp. I hope you'll—'

Kate waved a limp hand. ‘Stop. Please.' She took a desperate sip from her glass. ‘You simply amaze me. I can't even boil water without burning it. I'd rather read a book than spend precious time in the kitchen.'

‘My mother taught me heaps.' His passion showed as he laid out plates on the bench, peered into the oven again. ‘She taught me to love cooking. She always wanted to be one of them fancy cooks. These days they got a foreign word for it?'

‘Cordon bleu?'

‘Yep. See them books over there?' He pointed to a bookshelf. Kate spotted a collection of cookery books, fat, thin, tall, short, some dog-eared, all showing signs of honest wear and tear. Clearly, Tom Fortescue could read, at least from books of recipes.

‘I've had a load of practice over the years,' he continued. ‘Woulda starved if I hadn't.'

‘You've never had a cook. A housekeeper?'

‘Nope. Not since Edna moved out. Now she comes once a week, as I told you. Cleans the place. Dishes, laundry, sweeping, scrubbing.' He waved an arm towards the rows of cupboards on the kitchen walls. ‘She attends to the scullery, tops up the cupboards. Little things. I like her to be done by late afternoon. So I have my kitchen to myself when I cook. Leastways, that's the way I planned it. But often, she tidies the shelves so well I can't find half the bits and pieces I need. Where on earth has she put my tarragon?' He looked away, spread his hands in frustration. ‘Women! More trouble than they're worth.' He sighed. ‘Women never understand what a man wants. In the way of housekeeping, cooking, all them tedious bits and pieces, I mean.' He allowed a grin to flicker across his face, then erased it as he caught Kate's frown.

Kate cleared her throat, boiling inside. ‘I'm sorry to hear you saying uncomplimentary things about women.' What would Vida Goldstein have said? ‘I'm a woman myself, actually. Perhaps you hadn't noticed.'

‘Sorry, Miss Courtney. Didn't mean you.' Suddenly he transformed into apologetic gentleman. ‘Didn't mean it that way. What do they call a bloke that puts down women?'

‘A bloke
who
puts down women. They call him a bigot. A chauvinist.'

‘Mmm. Better learn them proper words, hadn't I? And not be one of them bad blokes around my governess.' He laughed.

Somewhat uncertainly, Kate thought.

‘We may as well begin your grammar lessons,' she snapped. ‘We don't say “
them
proper words”, Mr Fortescue.' She tuned her voice to give it a slightly acid sting. ‘We say “
those
proper words”.' The time had come. Every time he'd mouthed the word ‘youse', she'd flinched. Now she could act. She cleared her throat. ‘And, if I may be perhaps a little overly schoolma'amish, might it be possible that one of these days you'll desist from saying
youse
and replace it with the perfectly appropriate
you
?'

‘Woops!' He grinned, seemingly glad she'd raised the matter of grammar. ‘Thank you, Miss Courtney. My most respectful apologies.' He performed a mock bow in her direction. ‘Correct my grammar whenever you wish. That's the guts of your contract, remember. The task that brought you all those hundreds of miles to take up residence in deepest Kenilworth.'

‘I'm glad we understand that, Mr Fortescue.'