The Fifth Kiss (17 page)

“It's not entirely on your behalf, you know. In fact, to be quite frank, it is only in the smallest part in your behalf. I must go for Perry's sake … and Amy's too, for things in this house are becoming quite unbearable and are bound to affect
both
children … although Perry's situation seems to be the most urgent, if one only looks into his eyes, you know …”

“I see.” Mr. Clapham eyed her dubiously. “And you're going
alone
? Without anyone's permission?”

Miss Elspeth nodded, biting her lip worriedly. “Yes, I
must
. I shall try to catch the night mail coach at Devizes … if I can persuade one of the grooms to drive me there …”

“But it's dreadfully cold this evening. The sky is very threatening, Miss Elspeth. It may even
snow
,” Mr. Clapham pointed out.

“Oh, I shan't mind the weather. My shawl is very warm … and they do say that the mail coaches are so very crowded, one is bound to feel warm in the crush of bodies, don't you agree? And even if it
should
snow, the mail coach usually gets through. But you must promise to keep a close watch on the children while I'm gone, Mr. Clapham. This is the most important task of all. May I count on you?”

“Yes, of course. It is very good of you to take this upon yourself. I quite admire you. And I shall do my very best to watch over the children, so long as his lordship doesn't come up and order me away.”

“Oh,” Elspeth cried in dismay, “you don't think … he wouldn't possibly … would he? But he rarely comes up to this floor, and we must hope that …”

With the rest of her thought unspoken, she got up from her chair and, squaring her shoulders resolutely, went to the door. The tutor jumped up, picked up her valise and the reticule she'd forgotten and handed them to her. Wishing her Godspeed, he accompanied her down the hall and watched until she disappeared down the stairway before he returned to his room, shaking his head with misgivings. She would lose her reticule before reaching Devizes, he surmised, and she would be robbed of the rest of her possessions before reaching London. She was too bubbleheaded to carry out such a plan. As far as he could judge, Miss Elspeth Deering was incapable of taking herself to the
stable
without mishap. She would never be able to carry off a trip to London, not in a hundred years.

But Elspeth Deering arrived on the doorstep of the Matthews residence in Brook Street before eight the following morning without suffering a mishap greater than losing one of her gloves. The butler answered her knock wearing an expression on his face that said as plainly as words that the hour was far too early to be paying calls. “I wish to s-see Miss Olivia Matthews, p-please,” Elspeth told him as bravely as she could while shivering with cold and fright.

“None of the family has as yet come down to breakfast,” the butler said reprovingly. “You certainly cannot wish me to disturb Miss Matthews so early.”

“N-No, of course not,” Elspeth said, looking about her desperately, wondering where she was to go on this freezing morning while she waited for a more appropriate hour to pay her call.

The butler, seeing her shiver again, softened. “I suppose there would be no objection to your waiting inside,” he said and reached for her valise.

She followed him into the entryway and down a short hallway. There, at the side of the stairway, he motioned her to a stiff, tall-backed chair and placed her bag beside it. “You may sit here,” he said coldly and left her.

She sat down meekly, pulled off her one glove and folded her hands in her lap, uncomfortably aware of having blundered in at an awkward hour and wondering at the reception Miss Olivia would give her. Soon a step on the stairway set her heart hammering. An elderly gentleman came into view as he turned from the stairway and strolled in her direction. She recognized him at once as Sir Octavius Matthews—she'd caught a glimpse of him at his daughter's funeral—and she jumped up and dropped a quick curtsey. Sir Octavius' eyes brushed her face without interest as he walked right past her. “Good morning,” he murmured absently, continuing without a pause down the hall and disappearing into a nearby doorway. His indifference to the presence of a stranger in his hallway was completely unsettling. Elspeth began to fear that she should never have come. Perhaps she should run out of this place and fly back to Langley Park before …

But her thoughts of flight were aborted by the appearance of the butler with a breakfast tray. The smell of fried ham reminded her that she hadn't eaten for many hours, and she wondered if the butler was bringing the tray to her. But he did not glance in her direction. Instead, he paraded down the hall to the room into which Sir Octavius had gone. A moment later he emerged without the tray and, still paying her not the slightest heed, marched back to the nether regions of the house.

This lack of attention to her existence was extremely unnerving. Her pulse began to race uncomfortably and her indecision grew. Another heavy step on the stair, however, kept her frozen in her place. This time, a younger gentleman appeared, rounding the stairway in his turn. It was Miss Olivia's brother, Charles Matthews, whose high forehead and keen eyes had excited her admiration when she'd seen him at Langley Park. She felt her pulse race even faster and hoped desperately that he would ignore her as his father had. But Charles stopped in his tracks and stared at the unexpected visitor sitting so stiffly in his hallway, his eyebrows raised inquiringly. “How do you do, ma'am?” he asked politely. “Are you waiting for someone?”

“Y-Yes, sir,” Elspeth said, getting up awkwardly and bobbing diffidently. “I've come to s-see Miss Olivia, please.”

“Oh, I see.” The young man smiled at her reassuringly. “I'm her brother, Charles. I believe I've seen you before. It was at Langley, was it not?”

Elspeth blushed and her hand flew to her forehead to brush away a wisp of hair that had fallen over one eye. “Yes, Mr. Matthews. It is … most kind in you to remember me. I'm Elspeth Deering, governess to Lord Strickland's children, you see, and I …”

Charles waited politely for the lady to finish her sentence, but not another word was forthcoming. “But why are you sitting out here in the hallway, Miss Deering?” he asked when he realized she would say no more. “And why has no one taken your shawl? I think you must be frozen! Come in to the drawing room where there is, I am sure, a nice fire. You can warm yourself while I fetch my sister.”

“Oh, no, sir, don't do that! That is, I'm sure you are … very kind … but I would not wish to disturb … I shall be happy to wait for her right here …”

“No need for that, Miss Deering,” Charles said after another brief pause. “If you'll not permit me to call her, you must at least let me make you comfortable while you wait. Please let me escort you to the drawing room.”

“Oh … thank you, sir, but I'm quite comfortable … that is, I would not wish to put you out …”

Charles looked at her in some bafflement. Then, with a shrug, he said, “Very well, then, Miss Deering, if you're certain there's nothing I can do for you, I'll take myself off.” He made a little bow and continued down the hall. Suddenly he paused and turned back to her. “I say, have you breakfasted? Because if you haven't, I'd be delighted to have your company at the breakfast table.”

Elspeth, who had sunk down on her chair as soon as Charles had turned away, jumped nervously to her feet again. “Well, I've not exactly breakfasted,” she murmured awkwardly, “but a gentleman who sat next to me … on the mail, you know … was kind enough to give me some bread and cheese … and I'm not feeling at all hungry … although I do thank you for your … quite overwhelming kindness … and I don't wish to keep you from your …”

“You have offered me a great many thanks for very little, my dear,” Charles said in amusement, studying the young woman curiously. “You can't pretend that a bit of bread and cheese is an adequate breakfast on a day like this.” The girl was a strange creature, he noted. Her conversation was somewhat disjointed, but Charles was touched by the frightened look in her eyes, the redness of her upturned little nose, and the way her fingers nervously twisted her one glove as she spoke. “Oh, come along with me, do! Here, let me take your shawl. If nothing else, you can do with a cup of hot tea to warm you.”

Without permitting her to resist, he removed the shawl from her shoulders and threw it over the bannister. Then, taking one icy little hand in his, he pulled her forcibly behind him into the morning room.

When the butler appeared with another tray and found her sitting opposite Mr. Matthews in apparent familiarity, his manner to her became more deferential. She was supplied with more eggs, hot biscuits, ham slices, toast, jam and jellies than she could have consumed in a week of breakfasts. Through all this, Mr. Matthews kept up a stream of polite conversation, pausing only to urge more food on her, intending to set her at ease, but she only became more uncomfortable than before. What would Miss Olivia
think
when she came down and discovered that her brother-in-law's
governess
was sitting at her breakfast table, being treated like an honored guest and taking up her brother's time and attention? In spite of Charles Matthews' urging, she could not make herself eat a bite. She was too fearful of what Miss Olivia might say when she discovered that the reliable Miss Elspeth had deserted her post and had come all this way to London for the express purpose of complaining about the gentleman who employed her.

She had not so very long to stew in apprehension, for Miss Olivia soon appeared in the morning room doorway. She had evidently not been told that a guest was present, for she was absorbed in the newspaper she was holding in her hand. “I say, Charles,” she remarked without lifting her eyes, “have you seen this? They've arrested Leigh and John Hunt, simply because of what they wrote in the
Examiner
about the Prince last year. Of all the dastardly—”

She looked up from the paper to find herself staring into Miss Elspeth's very frightened eyes. “M-Miss Olivia—” the governess stammered, starting from her chair.

“Miss
Elspeth
!” Olivia gasped in immediate alarm. “What are you doing here? Good
lord
, has something dreadful happened at Langley?”

“N-No … no!” Elspeth said quickly. She hadn't meant to alarm Miss Olivia unduly. She was doing everything wrong. She must say something reassuring. “Nothing so
very
dreadful …” she said awkwardly, belatedly realizing that reassuring Miss Olivia was just the thing she ought
not
to do. Her throat choked up, and her words became mired down in indecision and confusion. To get herself out of the fix, she did the only thing she could think of, the only thing she ever did in times of stress—she burst into tears.

chapter twelve

When Olivia was finally able to extract from the weeping governess a passably intelligible account of the happenings at Langley Park (her efforts at communication with Miss Elspeth considerably hampered not only by the girl's natural incoherence but by Charles' repeated and irritating warnings to “stop badgering the poor chit”), she knew she had to leave for Langley at once. But all sorts of impediments, both natural and man-made, seemed to loom up to bar her way.

The situation was very much like a nightmare—the sort of nocturnal adventure in which the dreamer has an urgent errand at a particular and distant place and is prevented from getting there by all kinds of phantasmagorical obstructions. In this case, her eagerness to take herself to her nephew's side seemed to grow more urgent as one obstruction after another appeared to block her way. First, there was Charles. He refused to let her question Miss Elspeth until the governess had been taken to the drawing room, installed in the wing chair near the fire, given a sip of brandy and permitted to overcome her bout of tears. Miss Elspeth's tears gave Olivia the first indication that she was about to become involved in a nightmare. Charles insisted that she should not question the governess until Miss Elspeth's crying had ceased, but since the young governess would burst into fresh lachrymal outpourings each time Charles said or did something kind (and Charles was behaving more kindly to the young woman than Olivia could bear), Olivia despaired of
ever
seeing Miss Elspeth dry her eyes.

The second obstacle was her own reluctance to return to Langley Park. According to the disjointed report Miss Elspeth gave, his lordship was still in residence at Langley and showed no inclination to return to London. Olivia didn't know if she had the courage to face him again. Her feelings of guilt for having withheld from him the truth of her sister's illness had not abated, but her dislike of his arrogance, his arbitrary domination of the lives of those around him and his Tory views of the world had not abated either. Although she could not forget her sister's entirely different view of his character, and the tenderness and pain in his face when he'd come to her bedside, she still clung to her habitual, unchanging revulsion toward him. Yet sometimes she found herself thinking of him with a dawning, if reluctant, admiration. This confusing conflict of feelings was complicated by her memory of a shattering, illicit and completely disturbing embrace which she could not manage to erase from her mind. To have to face him again was not a pleasing prospect.

But this obstacle would have to be overcome. Her sister's last words to her had been a plea to watch over the family. If Perry needed her, she had no choice but to go to his side. As the picture Miss Elspeth painted of the unhappy boy pierced her consciousness, Olivia's determination to return to Langley hardened. There was no question but that she must leave at once.

No sooner had she made up her mind, however, when the nightmarish impediments began to multiply. Even Nature herself stepped in to make difficulties for her. All during the previous week the frosty air and the heavy skies seemed to presage snow, but not a flake had fallen. Now, however, at the very moment she decided to make her departure, the snow began to fall. By the time her portmanteau had been packed, the roadway was covered with a blanket of white. To leave for Wiltshire in these circumstances would have been foolhardy indeed, for it was obvious that the roads would shortly be impassable. There was nothing for it but to wait until the storm had passed. But the snow did not abate that day, and Olivia gritted her teeth in frustration as she sent a housemaid to ready the spare bedroom for Miss Elspeth.