Carola Dunn (11 page)

“I-I have never had an opportunity to develop the habit.”

“Indeed?” His dark eyebrows rose enquiringly, but she said no more and he did not press the question. He took the cup of tea she passed him. “Should you wish to develop the habit, you may order it, you know.”

“I would not wish to encroach.”

“Nothing of the sort. In this household a governess is regarded as a lady, not just another servant. Miss Prescott frequently dined with my sister and me when we had no guests. In your case,” he said with a wry smile, “I think it wise to allow the invitation to come from Daphne. It will, I’m sure, as soon as she is convinced you are here to stay.”

“Then I am not to be dismissed?” Lissa asked tentatively, reassured enough to sip at her tea.

“Good gad no! Whatever put that idea into your head? I have never seen Colin happier, and his manners are no end improved, by your teaching or by the example of your brothers, or a bit of each. Believe me, you’d have heard from Daphne long since were it not so.”

“He behaves better because he is no longer bored and discontented.” She did not want to take more credit than was her due. “Miss Prescott taught him well, I collect, but he has been sadly isolated.”

“Chiefly because of his health. What I want to consult you about is whether you think him strong enough to take up serious studies for a few hours a day. If so, I’ll have Voss look about for a tutor. School is beyond Colin, I fear, but to let him grow up an ignoramus would be to fail in my duty as his guardian. He will have an estate to manage, his place to take in Society and his seat in the House of Lords.”

So it was no vague fondness which led the baron to take an interest in his young nephew. He took his responsibility for the boy seriously. Lissa was discovering unsuspected depths in Lord Ashe’s character this evening.

“I am certain two or three hours a day would not hurt him. It is excitement and overexertion which make him ill. His brain is not at all weak--indeed, I should not be at all surprised if he is almost as clever as...oh!” She clapped her hand to her mouth.

“About to boast of your brothers’ prowess, Miss Findlay?” Lord Ashe drawled, smiling.

“I do not consider Michael’s mental abilities anything beyond the ordinary,” Lissa protested, “though perhaps he is too young to judge.”

“But Peter?”

“It is not my place to claim that Peter is more intelligent than Lord Orton.”

“But such is your opinion. I am glad you don’t think my nephew lacking in wits.”

“Oh no! Why, he learnt the Greek alphabet in no time and has already begun to...oh!” Again she cut herself short, dismayed at the way his informal friendliness made her tongue run away.

“To?” He waited.

After all, if he did not hear from the boys, he would from the new tutor. “To get a few words by heart. You see, Peter studies his Greek every day, and Michael is beginning to learn, so Colin wanted to join in.”

“Peter taught Colin the alphabet?”

“No.” She sighed. “I did. I read Greek.”

“Good gad!” Ashe was astounded. Though aware that there was some mystery about her, he had never dreamt it included so masculine and intellectual an accomplishment.

And young Peter was studying Greek? Ashe had been slightly taken aback by the way the Findlay boys treated Colin as an equal, more an honorary brother than a superior scion of the nobility. He would have expected their sister to teach them a proper deference towards their betters. But Peter had not only the manners but the instincts of a gentleman, including a lack of subservience, and he was studying the Classics.

Who the deuce were the Findlays?

Ashe found he was staring at Miss Findlay like the veriest gapeseed, and the poor girl looked deucedly apprehensive. “No need of a tutor, then!” he remarked cheerfully. “Colin will learn better from you, I don’t doubt.”

“But I know no Latin,” she confessed warily. “I expect you wish him to study Latin.”

“It is usual,” Ashe admitted. Greek but no Latin? More and more intriguing. “What of mathematics?”

“Nothing beyond elementary arithmetic, just enough to keep household accounts.”

“Then I must find a tutor. Needless to say, he shall teach Peter and Michael as well.”

Miss Findlay leaned forward eagerly. “Truly? You meant it? I should like it of all things.”

“I trust they will feel the same way!”

“Peter will be pleased as Punch. We have never read anything but the New Testament and the early church fathers, and he is dying for something new.”

“What,” Ashe exclaimed, “no Homer, no Sophocles or Aeschylus or Aristophanes, no Herodotus, no Plutarch, no Plato?”

She bit her lip. “I have heard of Plato. Have you read all those?”

“Not since my schooldays, I confess, but they are all here in the library. Peter--and you--must borrow whatever you wish.”

“May we?” Her face lit up. “English books too?”

“Whatever you wish,” he assured her, warmed by her pleasure. He had not considered that poverty might have deprived her mind of nourishment, as well as her body.

“Are there any medical books?”

“Not recent publications. I have not purchased any. Why? Does Peter wish to become a physician?”

“Good gracious, no, he will have.... I mean, no, it is just that I had hoped for some advice. You see, I have observed that Colin has more difficulty breathing when he has recently drunk milk, and I wondered whether the same has been observed in other people. Should you object--do you think Lady Orton would object--if I tried what a few days without milk will do?”

“By all means try it,” Ashe said a trifle doubtfully, “though I understood the doctor advised plenty of milk to build up his strength.”

“He cannot gain strength if he is too breathless to take proper exercise,” Miss Findlay argued earnestly. “If I find not drinking milk helps him, I shall try if junkets or cheese suit him better, which have the same nourishment in a different form. Or perhaps plenty of milk to drink in the morning, when he is going to sit still at his studies for several hours.”

“A good notion.” Ashe was impressed. “I can see you have thought deeply on the subject. It is kind in you to take such an interest in my nephew’s health.”

“Kind?” She looked surprised. “How can I not take an interest when it affects him so deeply and he is in my charge? Besides, I am already very fond of Colin. I cannot claim,” she added with painful honesty, “to love him as much as I do my brothers.”

“Blood is thicker than water.”

“Yes, but.... Yes. But I am sure my affection for Colin will grow when we have been together longer. After all, I have known Peter and Michael forever.”

“True. Are they happy here?”

“Can you doubt it?”

“I’m referring not to a comparison with your attic in Lambeth,” Ashe said impatiently, “but to...before.”

“B-before?”

Her obvious alarm made him moderate his tone. “Come, Miss Findlay, you cannot expect me to believe you and your boys were bred to such a life. Indeed, I cannot believe you lived it more than a few months without sinking into degradation. What brought an educated, virtuous young lady to cavort upon the stage for the delectation of rakes and ‘sad rattles’ like me?”

His quotation of her view of him brought a fleeting smile to her lips, but she said with anguish, “I cannot tell you!”

“Then it can be no ordinary tale of lost fortune. I must surmise that you were rendered penniless by a close relative’s disgraceful conduct.”

“No! Not exactly.”

“Not exactly disgraceful? Not exactly a close relative? Will you not trust me? Perhaps I can help.”

Shaking her head, she bowed it over hands clasped so tight the knuckles showed white. “You cannot help, but I owe you some sort of explanation, I know. We are not truly penniless, only I cannot obtain any funds without revealing our whereabouts. The relative is my...stepfather, and his conduct was not what most people would call disgraceful, only so dreadfully harsh I could not bear to let the boys suffer any longer.”

“You stole them away from their father!”

She looked up at him, fear in her eyes. “I should not have told you. Pray ask no more!” And springing up, she fled.

Chapter 9

After his violent reaction to her disclosure, Lissa expected Lord Ashe to follow her and press for more details. When he did not, when a sleepness night was succeeded by a perfectly normal morning, she feared he meant to report her to some authority or other as an abductor.

Nothing happened. She began to wish for a chance to explain herself further, but he did not even come as usual to talk to the boys after their luncheon.

Colin was sent for to the drawing room. On his return he reported that his uncle had gone off to Ashmead with Mr. Telford, the engineer.

Lissa assumed that Lord Ashe’s preoccupation with his bridge had driven her misdeed from his mind. After all, her predicament was none of his affair, except insofar as it affected Colin. She had no conceivable reason to steal the child away as she had her brothers. Colin was thriving. Why should his uncle upset the applecart?

His mother, more emotional than logical, was another matter, but by the time three days had passed without a word, Lissa began to feel safe.

Then Lady Orton sent for her.

Lissa hastily tidied her hair. Wisps would escape, however carefully she knotted it and hid it beneath the cap she had made as appropriate to her new station in life. Not that her appearance was likely to make any difference to her fate if Lord Ashe had suddenly recalled her confession and written to his sister.

She hurried down to the front parlour.

“Shocking!” exclaimed Lady Orton as Lissa entered.

“Ma’am?” Lissa’s dismay faded as she realized her ladyship’s head was bent over a periodical, which had aroused her disapproval. Her canary-yellow gown, trimmed with white mull flounces, certainly provided no cause for censure, nor did the delightful Leghorn hat on the table at her elbow.

“Oh, Miss Findlay! Pray come here and tell me if you do not think this the horridest thing in creation. I cannot abide this new fashion for toques to be worn with evening dress, can you?”

“I fear I know little of fashion, ma’am.”

She looked Lissa up and down. “Dear me, so I see. How odd, I quite thought actresses always dressed to the nines.”

“I am a governess, Lady Orton.”

“And a singularly ill-dressed governess,” said Lady Orton severely. If Lord Ashe had revealed Lissa’s “abduction” of her brother’s from their guardian, her dowdy appearance had driven the fact from Lady Orton’s mind. “Sober colours are no excuse for such shockingly bad design and execution. Did you sew your gown yourself?”

“No, ma’am.” Lissa bit her lip to stop a giggle escaping.

“Have you an evening dress? Is it any smarter?”

“It is silk, but no better cut, I believe.”

“Oh dear, Miss Prescott was positively modish in comparison. I had intended to make plain that you are welcome to dine with my brother and me when we are alone, but I shall not be able to swallow a morsel with such a horrid sight in view. You must have a new gown made up.”

“I must regretfully decline your kind invitation,” Lissa said firmly. “To open my slender purse for a gown, when I have several which are perfectly wearable, would be the height of folly.”

“Wearable? Hmm.” Lady Orton set down
La Belle Assemblée
and once more looked Lissa up and down. “You are somewhat shorter than I, and as slender as your purse. I have several half-mourning gowns put away somewhere, from when Lord Orton died. They are by no means in the latest fashion, of course, but at least they are well made. Marlin shall alter them to fit you.”

Lissa was sure she ought to refuse, but she simply could not bring herself to do so. Her mouth actually watered at the thought of a few elegant gowns--and any gown of Lady Orton’s, even half-mourning, was bound to be lovely.

Mr. Exton, her stepfather for want of a better word, considered vanity akin to the deadly sin of pride, as well as a precursor to envy, covetousness, and lust. Himself full of pride in his lack of covetousness, he had never begrudged the money spent on Lissa’s clothes. He just made sure they conformed to his grim notions of modesty and propriety.

Any confidence in her own looks had been sternly suppressed by Mr. Exton and the Dissenter school he had sent her to. On the other hand, Lissa had been much in demand for hymn-singing, and it was only her voice which had given her any hope of being hired by a theatre. That she had, in scanty stage draperies, attracted the interest of not one but two lords had greatly surprised her.

 In Lady Orton’s pretty cast-offs, might she not herself aspire to being pretty?

If so, the effect on Lord Ashe’s already tender susceptibilities was to be feared. In addition, pride rebelled against wearing cast-offs. Nonetheless, Lissa heard herself accept. “Thank you, ma’am, you are very generous.”

Lady Orton waved away her thanks. “Not at all. I have no use for them and I cannot abide ugliness about me. Do sit down here beside me, and do take off that hideous cap, Miss Findlay, I beg of you. Your wearing a cap when I do not makes me feel monstrous old, for I fear I can give you ten years.”

“I thought as a governess I ought to wear one,” Lissa said uncertainly, untying the ribbons.

“You are too young,” her ladyship affirmed. “La, my dear, Marlin must do something about your hair, also. Simply looking at it scraped back like that gives me the headache, I vow. It is not quite so dark as mine, I fancy.”

“No, mine is merely dark brown, while yours is true jet-black, and as lustrous as jet.” Lissa spoke with honest admiration, hoping her words did not sound like fulsome flattery.

Lady Orton’s smile was innocently self-satisfied. “I fancy so. I use a basil wash to make it shine. You must try it. What is it, Halsey?” she asked as the butler stepped in.

“Lord Quentin, my lady.” He moved aside to admit her cicisbeo.

Lord Quentin advanced, his smile turning to a frown as he noticed Lissa. She rose and curtsied but, ignoring her, he kissed Lady Orton’s hand. “If we are to drive in the park, we ought to be off, dear lady.”