Jennie Kissed Me (7 page)

I feared that any possession of Marndale’s must be beyond my purse and inquired for the rent. “Don’t concern yourself about that. The use of it for the Season will be your repayment for helping me out with Vickie. If you wish to continue on after the Season, then we shall discuss terms.”

“But I cannot take it without paying!”

He looked astonished. “None of my other tenants pay me. To tell the truth, I bought it as an investment for the future and find it an excellent storehouse for my various pensioners who would otherwise expect to stay here. Once you let them right into your home, you know, there is no turfing them out. I like my relatives, but I like them at a distance.”

“I feel the same. My Uncle Seth wanted me to stay with him when Papa died, but I prefer him at arm’s length.” No more was said about the apartment. I didn’t know whether I had accepted or not. I would have to discuss it with Mrs. Irvine.

“When did you lose your father?” he asked.

“Six years ago,” I replied. He did not inquire if I had gone to work immediately, and I did not offer the information. We ate as we talked, with no feeling of constraint at all. Marndale was surprisingly easy to talk to till he came right out and said, “How long were you at Mrs. Grambly’s?”

“Oh, a few years,” I said vaguely, for I found it harder to tell an outright lie than I had thought I would.

“Was your father a naval man, like Mr. Irvine?”

“No, he had an estate in the country. Not a large one. He was a younger son.”

“It is really none of my concern, but why did you choose to teach when it was not necessary— financially, I mean? Did you always harbor a wish to teach? Perhaps you are fond of youngsters?”

“Not in the least. I had very little money when Papa died. The mortgage, you know. My fortune—I doubt you would call it that—only came to me last month, when a maternal uncle from India died.”

“I would call ten thousand pounds or more a fortune. One can live with some of life’s amenities on five hundred a year.”

“Well then, it is a fortune—just barely.”

“This baronet you have in your eye—”

“Good gracious, I am not hounding off to London after a husband! You must have noticed Mrs. Irvine has but one thing on her mind, but that is not to say I share her interest. If I happen to meet a gentleman I care for who also cares for me, I would consider an offer. If not, I shan’t be desolated, I promise you.”

He looked across the table with a lingering gaze. “I give you about three weeks before you’re attached.” It was my second blush that morning, and I swear I had not blushed in a decade. “Why are you not being presented formally?” he asked, pretending not to notice my rosy cheeks.

I had no intention of admitting I had no suitable connections. “Everything happened so suddenly, there was not time to arrange it. I just decided to go along to London and enjoy a little culture, as I said. I have lived near or in Bath all my life. I intend to return there eventually.”

He cocked his head to one side and studied me. “Bath is for valetudinarians. You must be strikingly out of place.”

“I have many friends in Bath.”

He continued studying me. “What a slow bunch of tops they must be to have let you escape.”

I laughed. “I took my money and ran. There was no stampede to attach me when I was a working lady.”

“Not even from Mr. Fuller?” I was amazed that he recalled the draper’s name.

“Surely more than one man is necessary to form a stampede.”

It was at this moment, almost verging on intimacy, that Lady Victoria joined us. She looked sharply from me to her father. “Enjoying a new flirtation, Papa?” she sniffed, and placed a cool peck on his cheek.

“You must mind your manners, miss,” he said jovially. “You do not want to give Miss Robsjohn a disgust of you or she will change her mind about staying with us.”

She turned a piercing and very mature gaze on me. “Oh, you have agreed to stay. How lovely.” But her flashing blue eyes belied the words. Then she turned to her father. “You
did
tell Miss Robsjohn that I am no longer in the schoolroom, Papa? She is staying as a companion, not a governess.”

“She is in loco parentis, and will inform me of any misconduct. But we must not frighten her.” He turned to me. “Vickie’s problem is ennui. She is a restless girl. Keep her occupied, and she will give you no trouble.”

“When are you leaving, Papa?” she asked.

“As soon as I’ve finished breakfast. I expect to be home Friday afternoon. Can you two ladies amuse yourselves while I’m gone?”

“I trust we can,” I told him, with a leery glance at Lady Victoria. She went to the serving table and began filling her plate.

Lord Marndale hastily finished his breakfast, kissed his daughter good-bye, shook my hand, asked me to convey his adieux to Mrs. Irvine, and left. I regretted that Lady Victoria had joined us, as her staring presence prevented any warmer farewell.

“What do you suggest we do today, Lady Victoria?” I asked in a friendly way.

“I am going into the village,” she replied, with another of those ice cold looks.

“Excellent. What village is that?”

“Chiddingfold, of course.”

That “of course” revealed her mood. If she  thought to intimidate me with poor manners, she was much mistaken. “I look forward to it.” “Oh, do you want to come along?”

“That is what ‘I look forward to it’ usually means.”

Her lips clenched, but she dared not be too rude. “I shall be leaving as soon as I finish eating.”

“I’m afraid you must wait till Mrs. Irvine is down, to see if she wishes to go with us. Naturally you will not want to offend your father’s guest by leaving her out.”

“Guest? Is Papa not paying you?” she asked boldly.

“No, he isn’t. As you were at such pains to point out I am a companion, not a governess. I thought you realized it.”

“Hired companions are usually paid, too.”

“Hired companions are always paid. It is implicit in the phrase, but I am
not
a
hired
companion.”

She attacked her meal. I sat without trying to nudge her into conversation. The chit had the manners of a guttersnipe the minute her father was away. I had dealt with many such an unruly noble brat in the past. Ingratiation was not the way to subdue them. Their ill manners must be met with firm control. I stared while she ate. She handled her cutlery like a lady but ate with more haste than was seemly. I let her see by the sneer on my lips that I was appalled at her manners.

“There is no need to gobble your food,” I said coolly
.
“Mrs. Irvine has not even come down yet.”

Bereft of a setdown the child said, “Then you will have time to change your gown, Miss Robsjohn. Or did you actually mean to go into the village in that gown?”

I wore a perfectly respectable sarsenet gown, plain but well cut. “No, I thought I might wear my tiara and diamonds.”

“I didn’t know schoolmistresses had tiaras.”

“There is obviously a good deal you do not know.”

“At least I know why you are here,” she flashed back.

“I should hope so. Your father made it perfectly clear, I think.”

“You hope to get an offer from him, but you are wasting your time, Miss Robsjohn. He
never
offers
for my governesses.”

I found a smile more likely to infuriate her than a hot objection, and smiled. She rose with half her breakfast still on her plate and said, “I shall be in my room. Pray have me called when Mrs. Irvine is ready to leave.”

“You may speak to Petty on your way up.”

Her lips drew into a thin line that destroyed her looks, but she did not answer back. She left without saying more. I understood now why she had taken me in such violent dislike. She was afraid she might be saddled with me as a stepmama. I could hardly blame her, but still her atrocious manners must be brought under control.

Mrs. Irvine soon came down and heard the story while she ate. “I’ll just ignore her and act as though nothing is wrong,” she decided. There is a solid bulwark of common sense beneath Mrs. Irvine’s rough exterior.

“That will be best. Ah, here she is now!”

She appeared at the doorway already in her bonnet and pelisse, both the very latest word in fashion. “What a lovely bonnet, Lady Victoria,” Mrs. Irvine exclaimed with a smile.

This greeting met with the young lady’s approval. She had apparently decided to take Mrs. Irvine on as an ally, for she spoke to her in a friendly way about the bonnet while pointedly ignoring me. She told Mrs. Irvine the milliner in Chillingfold came from France and made a very decent bonnet.

It was Lord Marndale’s chaise that awaited us at the front door. Not the travelling carriage of yesterday but a lighter one, harnessed up with a team of grays. The day was fine, and the village only a few miles away. Barring a little constraint within the vehicle, the trip was pleasant, as was Chillingfold. A church with a lancet window was one of the prominent features of architecture in the village. Across from it was the village green, complete with duck pond. There were benches, and some ladies strolling about, showing off their new spring finery. The driver took the carriage to the inn and we alit. The Crown Inn, a drapery shop, a milliner, a cobbler, and a few other shops made up the core of the town with houses spreading beyond.

“What is your errand here?” I asked Lady Victoria.

“I need some embroidery threads,” she said, and headed across the street to the drapery shop. She deigned to tell Mrs. Irvine that she was making her papa a pair of embroidered slippers for his birthday. I bought a quite useless length of blue ribbon, and Mrs. Irvine succumbed to a pair of silk stockings. This done, we returned to the street.

The church was the next stop. The windows were odd, of stained glass but made up of little fragments. Lady Victoria explained that in medieval days the town was a glass-making center. From there we joined the other idlers on the village green. Before we had made half a tour we were joined by some friends of Lady Victoria’s.

A rough-and-tumble set of young ladies came running forward. Beneath their overly ornate bonnets wisps of dull blond curls peeped out. Their faces had the coarse-featured look and sallow complexions of the underbred. “Vickie! You’re back! How lovely. Desmond has gone into a decline worrying about you. Can you come home for lunch, or is your papa with you?”

I came to attention at these remarks. So there was a young man involved! And one that Marndale did not approve of. I doubted he would approve of these hoydens either. Though nominally ladies, they were extremely unfinished articles. I knew now why Lady Victoria had resisted my company. She wanted to consort with this pair of trollops and possibly meet Desmond. Her flaming cheeks were as good as an admission.

“Miss Robsjohn, Mrs. Irvine, I would like you to meet Miss Simon and her sister, Miss Bea,” Lady Victoria said. “They live near us, in that big red brick house we passed on the way into the village.” I remembered a substantial house but was curious to know more of their background.

“We come from London,” Miss Simon assured me.

Their papa, I assumed, had made his fortune in trade and retired to the country to become genteel.

“We are from Bath,” I replied, including Mrs. Irvine with a gesture.

“Oh lud! Poor you!” Miss Simon exclaimed. “Mama dragged us there last year for a holiday. I would as lief holiday in Coventry. It is dull as ditch water. More Bath chairs than curricles, and the gents all stiff as starch. They wouldn’t look at you twice if you danced a jig in church. And are you Vickie’s new governess?”

“Just friends,” I replied grandly.

“Is your papa home?” Miss Bea asked Lady Victoria.

“No, he is in London.”

The eyes of the Simon sisters turned to examine me. “Can you come home for a cup of tea at least?” Miss Bea asked Lady Victoria.

“Someone will be mighty hurt if you don’t,” Miss Simon tittered.

Lady Victoria did not even bother asking my permission for the visit. “I’m afraid not today. We have to be getting home.”

“Tomorrow then? Come for tea.” It was Miss Bea who urged this scheme. “We’ll be expecting you. Now don’t let us down.”

“I’m afraid it’s too early to make a commitment. So nice to have met you.” I put a hand on my charge’s elbow and led her away. The mutinous eye she turned on me clearly expected some outpouring of condemnation, but I refused to oblige her.

I said only, “How encroaching those girls are. One would think they owned you to hear them order you about. Incredible!” After that I ignored the incident as if it had never happened. We left the green very soon, and as we went for the carriage I said, “It is such a fine day, we should give you a driving lesson this afternoon, Lady Victoria. Does your father have anything suitable?”

A smile of surprise greeted this suggestion. “His curricle is at home. He won’t want us to use his grays, but we can use the older pair of bays. He took his better team to London.”

“Do you think he would object to my teaching you?”

“Oh, no! He has been promising to teach me himself forever, but he is so busy, you know. Are you a good fiddler, Miss Robsjohn?”

“I was fair to middling in my day. It will take me an hour to refresh my skills.”

“We’ll have lunch early. Papa says the best road for me to learn on would be the road to Willigan’s farm. There is very little traffic there except for an occasional haywain or dung cart or old Ned Willigan’s jig.”

The trip home was livelier and better-natured than the trip to the village, despite her loss of meeting with Desmond. I decided it was sheer boredom that led her into such unsuitable companions as the Simons. I must keep her occupied, and we would get on fine.

Chapter Seven

Marndale’s sporting carriage and second-best team of bays awaited us at the front door after lunch. His second-best team were still a friskier-looking pair than I had ever driven before. Their coats gleamed like polished mahogany in the sunlight, highlighting the swell of powerful chests and lean, long legs. With my heart pulsing in my throat, I went out to try my skill with them. If I failed, I would lose the vestige of respect I had gained from Lady Victoria. Mrs. Irvine came to the door to see us off with the plan of spending a quiet afternoon looking over the house after we left.