Corey McFadden (4 page)

None would see beneath the paint and powder to the souls rotting within.

“I am here at this ungodly—as you put it,

madame—hour because I am leaving in a few minutes for Dufton. You were in no condition for me to speak with you last night, so I had no choice but to awaken you this morning.”

“There’s nothing you have to say to me that couldn’t be communicated through Hawton,” Lady Eleanor snapped back. “You’re only here because you take pleasure in disturbing my rest.”

“On the contrary, madame, I take no pleasure in the sight of you at all, resting or awake. And I wish to speak with you about this matter directly because I want to be absolutely certain you understand my instructions.”

“Say what you have to say and get out,” she spat. Despise him she might, but he held the purse strings in this family and he knew she had no wish to see her entertainments curtailed, as he had threatened to do on occasion.

“I have written to London for a new governess for the children....”

“You have the nerve to barge in here unannounced and wake me up to talk about that half-witted, drooling boy and his mealy-mouthed sister?” she interrupted with a shriek. “I have told you they have nothing to do with me and I meant it! They are your brother’s brats, not mine. It’s embarrassing enough that you insisted on bringing them here.” She flounced herself back down to her pillow, pulling the covers over her head.

With a snarl, he crossed the room in two long strides and ripped the covers away from her head, careful to pull them no lower than her neck. If she slept naked he had no wish to see it.

“You will listen and you will obey me in this, madame. I have sent to London for another governess. I have hopes one will arrive within the fortnight. When she does, I expect her to be treated with appropriate courtesy. So help me God, Eleanor, if you drive away one more governess you shall have the post yourself!” he finished in a near shout. The woman had the power to infuriate him beyond reason.

There was a slow, malicious smile from her, a bad sign.

“And what if I refuse, dear brother?” she purred. “I don’t believe even you can make me nursemaid those brats. Anyway, I don’t think you’d like what I would teach them.” She stretched languidly, sensuously, under the satin sheet, aware from long practice that he was discomfited when she teased him with her sensuality.

“Actually, no, I don’t want you anywhere near the children, but I can cut off your considerable expenses. I do not think your fast set would enjoy your company for long if they were to discover that you had no money with which to wager or to feed them.”

Recognizing that she was on boggy ground, Eleanor sat back and contemplated a change in tactic, surveying him through half-lidded, puffy eyes. It always came down to money. She, daughter of an earl, long in lineage and short of scratch, was forced to beg for her very bread from this pompous, over-principled stick, this bumpkin, his knighthood conferred recently by the king for technical improvements in canal design or some such trivial, merchant-class detail. Giles’s father had been a wealthy merchant, nothing more, and her mother had stooped to wed him on the strength of his bank accounts, when her husband, the noble but near penniless Robert Holcombe, Earl of Bickham, had had the ill grace to die and leave them much in debt.

She sighed. If only Giles would give up and simply let her seduce him. Then, perhaps, he would cease to be so niggardly with his money. He was handsome still, she thought to herself, as she gazed at him, gauging just how far she could push him this morning. His hair was dark brown, thick and pulled back in a queue. He disdained the short, powdered tye wig, so popular now, saying he couldn’t gallop a horse and worry about his hair flying off. At thirty years of age, he was lean and well-formed, his broad shoulders and torso tapering to a hard, flat belly and well-muscled thighs. He had large dark eyes that had once been warm with a puppy-like passion for her, and a generous mouth. But an ugly scar ran from the corner of his lip down his cheek, and when he smiled it pulled his mouth into a cruel twist. That was perhaps her one regret with regard to their relationship—that in a fit of temper she had slashed his face with her riding crop when he had sought to curb what he called her unsavory pastimes. She had not been able to bring herself to apologize, and it did seem, in retrospect, that that incident, more than any other, had marked the beginning of their descent into the mutual dislike that ate into the very soul of this house. It was perhaps an unfortunate facet in her personality that she couldn’t let well enough alone, that she felt obliged to go on with the small needles and torments, long after it had really ceased to matter. But it was so much fun to see him squirm in his prudishness, to know that by the terms of his father’s will he was required to take care of her until she married or died. And it still rankled so much, after all these years, that old Henry, Giles’s father, had left nothing outright to Eleanor, going so far as to mention in his will that he considered her a profligate, not to be trusted with money. That nasty little phrase had made her embezzlements over the years all the sweeter.

“I don’t understand what you are going on about, Giles,” she stated coolly, determined to defuse his temper. If he was going away this morning she wanted plenty of cash available in the accounts for her pleasure. “I’ve no intention of driving away the governess. If the others left, it was because they could not bear looking at the drooling half-wit, not because of anything I’ve done.”

“You managed to get rid of each one of them, Eleanor, and don’t tell me the boy drove them away. Only the first one had difficulty with the boy, and that was because she was an ignorant country girl with irrational, fanciful ideas in her head about his sort of affliction. The other two got along fine with him—I made sure of that before I went away each time. Then when I returned they were gone, with no explanation. No, madame, you may not blame little Tom for this. And let me assure you that if we cannot find a governess to suit, I shall cease traveling and stay here. I am sure neither of us wants that.”

Eleanor froze at his words. As much fun as it was to annoy him, it was no pleasure at all to have him around for long periods. He was so stifling and disapproving, with such conventional tastes. As long as he busied himself in Dufton looking after his lead-mining operations she was free to come and go as she pleased here.

“I will give you my word, darling, the new governess will be treated like royalty. She’ll have absolutely nothing to complain of in me. Now, whether she can tolerate the brats is something else.” She smiled sweetly at him.

“They are my brother’s children, Eleanor. They have been orphaned. They deserve some kindness in their lives. All I ask is that you stay out of the way so that they can get it.”

“Nothing pleases me more, dear boy. I won’t bother them and they won’t bother me.” She smiled up at him again and turned her back to him with a much affected, weary sigh. She was through teasing him this morning.

“Then I’ll bid you good morning, Eleanor. I shall not return for the better part of a month. If you have need of anything, ask Hawton or write me.”

“Good-bye, Giles,” she said languidly, eyeing him from the rear as he left. The man still had a remarkable derriere, tight and well-formed. But then so did Hawton, and the steward had fewer inhibitions. She smiled to herself when she thought of how the last governess had bolted in the middle of the night when she had finally figured out what they were getting at. She had been a lovely little thing, and Hawton had been, as ever, eager to oblige. But the girl had been such a prude, not wanting Eleanor to participate. Pity. And the one before that had been so horse-faced and fat they had run her off in no time. Now it seemed she and Hawton must stay their games, at least for now, until they could see which way the wind blew. It would not do for Giles to decide he must spend more time at home. No, it would not do at all.

* * * *

Joanna emerged from the tiny, airless office of the employment agent and took a deep breath, only to be sorry. Pah, how this city air stank! She turned to the left, as Mrs. Sneed had suggested, and began the two-block walk to the Hart’s Leap, which the woman had assured her was a respectable inn, at least by London standards.

Joanna had secured a position as a governess. After all the uncertainty and the nameless fears, Mrs. Sneed, the agent to whom the bishop had recommended Joanna, had offered her a post, in spite of what the woman had termed Joanna’s overly academic, woefully insufficient womanly skills. Womanly skills, indeed. It hadn’t seemed to matter at all that Joanna could read and write in both Greek and Latin, and that her mathematics could have qualified her for university study. No, all Mrs. Sneed had cared about was that Joanna could not play the stupid pianoforte, could not sing a note, and, when pressed, had had to admit that her needlework was nothing better than utilitarian.

Mrs. Sneed had made it clear that with no prior experience and such an odd assortment of skills, the only position to which Joanna could aspire would be one in a remote location or where the children were perhaps on the difficult side. And Joanna was willing to accept this. But Cumberland! Up north on the west coast, right up next to the Scots border. The very end of the universe!

Mrs. Sneed had obviously expected Joanna to balk, but not because of the location. There were two children at Queen’s Hall, a very bright ten-year-old girl and a younger boy. Mrs. Sneed had described him as a half-wit, an idiot, but it was clear to Joanna that the child suffered from the same affliction as Mistress Gertie’s overgrown bear of a boy, Tom, with his lumbering, heavy body and his great moon face, marked by oddly rounded and creased eyes. But Tom was a warm, benign presence in Mistress Gertie’s old age, and Joanna, taught by her father that God prized all of his creatures, had found nothing to fear in Tom, and much to love.

So she had swallowed her fear of the unknown and accepted Mrs. Sneed’s offer. Not that she had had any choice. Mrs. Sneed had been tight-lipped and stern and had made it clear that it was this post or none at all, bishop’s reference or no.

So Cumberland it would be.

Joanna sighed as she thought of climbing back into a fetid, badly-sprung public coach tomorrow. It had taken two full days to get to London from Little Haver and now it would be four more days to Queen’s Hall.

Well, at least tonight she could have a nice wash and something decent to eat. And, she fervently hoped, no lice to share her bed.

Chapter Three

Joanna nodded fitfully, grateful to be alone at last. The Chapman carriage was well-sprung and well-padded and smelled of oiled leather instead of unwashed bodies, a welcome change.

She was exhausted. For the last four days she had burned with fever, sleeping in snatches to the rhythm of the horses and the sway of the public coach, only to be jolted awake every few minutes by a rut or rock in the road. Awake, she was in pain, tormented as much by her fears as by the fever. Sleep offered little better—nightmares of strange landscape and malevolent figures. There was no love or kindness for her now, awake or asleep.

Last night, in Barnard, she finally had been able to rouse herself to think clearly. She had asked the innkeeper for a private room, pleading a fever and the danger of contagion. She was cheated on the price nonetheless, but paid without protest, thankful for a clean, quiet bed, a warm fire, and a great deal of hot tea.

She remembered little of the travel as far as York, where she had changed to a local coach night before last. Perhaps that was merciful since what little she did remember involved having a constant, vicious headache, and being horribly cramped in a fetid coach with the same sort of anonymous, noisome fellow travelers as had accompanied her on the trip from Little Haver to London. In her fevered brain, she rather wondered if they weren’t actually the same people, doomed to travel the length and breadth of England forever, in public coaches, bathless and friendless, for eternity.

It was early evening by now and the light slanting through the chinks in the window flaps was fading. She sat up with a stretch, trying to still the fears of her heart. The Chapman coachman had met her in Penrith. He was pleasant-faced but seemed shy and awkward, offering only that it would be about three hours to Queen’s Hall and asking in a red-faced stammer if she’d care to use the inn convenience before they got started. She would indeed. She’d had about enough of being at the mercy of the public coach company’s schedule for comfort stops. The coachman had introduced himself as Charles and helped her with her meager belongings, closing her firmly but alone inside the coach. She knew as little now as she had learned sitting before Mrs. Sneed’s austere countenance.

For the hundredth time Joanna berated herself for failing to get even the most basic of information from Mrs. Sneed about this post. She knew nothing more than that Queen’s Hall was the home of Sir Giles Chapman and his stepsister, Lady Eleanor, and that there were two children. She had no idea how much she would be paid, and no experience whatsoever in asking about her duties or her days off. And what she had been told only served to feed her fears. Mrs. Sneed had almost casually let drop that she had placed two young women in this same position, each of whom had lasted only a matter of days before bolting mysteriously. Then the woman had asked Joanna to please let her know if there were anything unsavory or untoward about this post! Perhaps Joanna should have thought to ask whether anyone had actually laid eyes on either of these two women since they allegedly left. Perhaps she’d be murdered in her bed and buried in an unmarked grave on a rocky beach in Cumberland!

Well, like it or not, she was here, a million miles from anyone she knew or who cared about her. Not that there were so many left who did. She thought with a pang of Mistress Gertie and Tom. She had promised to write the woman and had, indeed, sent her a hastily penned note from the inn last night, the first night she had felt well enough to put pen to paper. Mistress Gertie had been kind enough to give Joanna a place to stay for a few days while she awaited a reply to the rather desperate letter she had sent to the bishop. It had been obvious she could not stay in the vicarage—not after the words she had exchanged with the odious Ambrose. And Tom, with his great strength and good nature, had moved Joanna’s few belongings from the vicarage, treating her watercolors with an awed reverence. There had not been much, really. The furniture itself belonged to the vicarage. Papa’s belongings and her own amounted to no more than a few bags. And now it was all reduced to these two bags at her feet, and one well-wrapped parcel—-her water-color of the vicarage in late spring, rife with the flowers Joanna’s mother had adored and Joanna herself had so lovingly tended. She wondered what Conny Almquist would do with her mother’s flowers, being “a bit of a pig,” as Ambrose had described him.