Nell (11 page)

With which, Nell seated herself at her own desk and folded her arms upon it, meeting the violent black eyes with an assumption of cool indifference.

The little girl’s expression altered a trifle. Was her interest caught with the unexpected? Deliberately, Nell looked away and began to hum a simple tune—one that she had introduced with the toy soldiers. Her glance went about the schoolroom, but she managed not to include Henrietta. For a few moments, this treatment was productive of a profound silence. Nell longed to check, but she contented herself with what she could see in the periphery of her vision. Hetty remained unmoving, but Nell could swear the scowl on her face had worsened.

A low growl emanated from the child. Startled, Nell’s eyes turned towards her. Had she truly heard what she thought? It had sounded like the threatening menace of an animal! She broke the silence.

‘I beg your pardon?’

The growl was repeated, louder this time.

Nell raised her brows, and cast a swift look about the room. ‘Heavens, is there a cat in here?’

A stifled giggle rewarded her. Pursuing her advantage, Nell pretended to look under the desk. ‘Puss, puss! Where are you? Dear me, now where is the creature hiding?’

Next moment, Henrietta had dropped to the floor. Crawling about, she assumed the mien of a kitten, yowling and growling by turns. Nell sprang up, and at once made a game of it, scolding the ‘kitten’ and asking if it
was hungry. The child allowed her head to be stroked, and by degrees was coaxed into laughter.

Nell’s relief proved to be short-lived. The moment she attempted to resume lessons, the little girl withdrew into her sulk. She would not co-operate, and complained bitterly throughout the morning—albeit in a variety of unintelligible noises rather than words! It would have been tempting to allow her the afternoon off, but Nell knew this would set an undesirable precedent. The Duck had been clear. One did not reward bad conduct. That was only to reinforce the notion that the pupil could get her own way by this means.

Accordingly, Nell suffered through a wearing afternoon session as well. She would not allow the child to escape lessons altogether, and indeed taught each subject scheduled without regard to the fact that Henrietta participated not at all and achieved no results. Equally, she received no praise, and Nell made her feelings clear when Duggan came to fetch her and they parted.

‘This has not been a good day, Hetty. I trust that you will do better tomorrow.’

To which, the little girl had only one response uttered in a frenzied manner that was typical of the passion she had exhibited all day.

‘I hate you! I hate you!’

Nell watched her slam out of the room and listened to the clatter of her footsteps down the stairs. It was a sentiment Nell might well have reciprocated! She felt battered, and it was only by force of will that she remained standing. For no consideration would she show Duggan how she had been affected.

The nurse was eyeing her with an ill-concealed smirk upon her face. ‘Given you a hard time, has she, miss? You should’ve taken a stick to her.’

Nell gave the woman a cold stare. ‘Is that what you do?’

Duggan shrugged. ‘Only language she understands at times.’

‘Indeed? It is not a language I choose to adopt. Nor, if I have anything to say to it, shall it be used by anyone else while I am here!’

There was no mistaking the light of triumph in the creature’s eyes. ‘Then you’d best tell the master so, or he’ll be speaking it hisself before the night’s out.’

Upon which, she flounced out of the room, leaving Nell furious. She did not know whether she was angrier at the implied threat or the idea that Lord Jarrow could be guilty of such cruelty. Not that there was anything unusual about the habit of beating the young. Only it was not a remedy that the Duck had recommended. Nor, to Nell’s knowledge, had Mrs Duxford once resorted to it in the entire period she had been at the Seminary.

‘If one cannot reason with a child, one had better think again. No child has ever been brought to reason with the rod.’

Not that Mrs Duxford had been against punishment. But she held to it that a period of incarceration and deprivation was a much more useful tool. The time might be spent in thinking it over, hopefully to arrive at the conclusion that the bad conduct was not appropriate. The Duck’s methods had been almost uniformly successful at the Seminary, with a few notable exceptions—Miss Katherine Merrick for one!

Henrietta, however, was a special case. How Nell wished she had not fooled herself into believing in her success. Today’s conduct was not that of a mischievous or volatile temperament. Nell wished she knew its origin. Was it a result, as Lord Jarrow feared, of a disorder of
the mind? There was a possible reason, she remembered—today at least. The sleepwalking. Hetty may merely have been excessively tired. Only she had been more than bad-tempered. She had been actively hostile.

It had been a question with Nell whether she ought to tell her employer the whole. In the event, she had no need to do so. When they met at dinner, he appeared to be well informed.

‘I gather you were treated to one of Hetty’s temperamental moods today, Miss Faraday?’

Before she could reply, Mr Beresford butted in, his utterance preceded by his usual hearty laugh. ‘What, has she been in a tantrum again? Knew that saintly conduct wouldn’t last. Gad, ma’am, rather you than me who has to deal with it!’

‘She was not in a tantrum.’ Nell heard the reproof in her voice and made an effort to amend it. With a little difficulty, she forced herself to meet Lord Jarrow’s dark gaze at the head of the table. ‘She was sulky and scarcely manageable, sir, and I encountered a good deal of hostility from her. I would not allow her to abandon her lessons, however.’

‘Bravo, Miss Faraday! Don’t let the little devil win, that’s my advice.’

‘Toly, do hold your tongue!’

Nell cut in quickly. ‘My suspicion, Lord Jarrow, is that Hetty was overtired. She was sleepwalking last night.’

‘Was she, by Gad?’ Mr Beresford whistled his concern.

Too late, Nell recalled his lordship’s earlier remarks upon the possibility. And then she remembered the
nurse’s refusal to believe her. ‘Perhaps Duggan mentioned it?’

‘She did not.’ Lord Jarrow’s features had tightened.

‘What happened?’

Nell tried to make light of it. ‘Nothing much. I woke and found her standing by my bed. She did not move upon hearing my voice, but when I led her back to her own room, she came willingly. I tucked her up, and then—’

She checked herself, realising that she did not wish to disclose the snatch of argument she’d had with the nurse. The uncomfortable reflections engendered by that had best be kept to herself!

‘Hell and the devil!’ It was softly uttered, but it was clear that Lord Jarrow was upset.

‘Funny, that,’ commented the other man.

His brother-in-law turned to look at him. ‘What is funny?’

‘Well, it appears she didn’t fight Miss Faraday. Unusual. But a good sign, don’t you think?’

‘They never do, sir,’ Nell broke in. ‘Sleepwalkers, I mean. They are usually perfectly docile.’

Another of his irritating guffaws erupted. ‘Docile? Not Hetty, I’ll be bound. Been known to batter at anyone who said her nay.’

‘Not while she was sleepwalking,’ argued Lord Jarrow.

‘That’s not what Duggan says.’

There was a silence. His lordship eyed his brother-in-law in a manner that sent a chill down Nell’s spine. What in the world did this mean? There was an edge to his voice.

‘What does Duggan say, Toly?’

Toly Beresford appeared a trifle conscious. He fidg
eted with his utensils, and then laid them down and made a play of sipping his wine.

‘Well?’

There was almost menace in the one word. Nell had stopped eating. She hardly dared breathe, her eyes riveted upon the man’s handsome features. She watched him lift a hand and thrust back that unruly lock that had once more slipped over his brow.

‘Well, you must know, old fellow,’ he brought out at length. ‘Woman talks to you more than she does to me.’

‘I doubt it.’

Nell had never heard his lordship as dry. What did it betoken? An incredible supposition leaped into her mind. Could there be something between Mr Beresford and the nurse? It was not unknown—and the proximity in this place must make it tempting.

‘What I wish to know,’ pursued Lord Jarrow, ‘is what Duggan may have said about Hetty’s sleepwalking. She did not report it to me.’

‘Dash it, Eden, I’m not privy to the child’s activities! She may have mentioned it once, that’s all. I’m sure she said Hetty fought her tooth and nail once when she tried to steer her back to bed. For all I know, the brat wasn’t sleepwalking at all. May have got up out of bed and started to wander. No saying what she’ll do, and you know it!’

‘Alas, yes.’

Lord Jarrow resumed his meal, relapsing into the brooding silence that was habitual to him. Casting a glance across the table, Nell caught a shrugging look of appeal from Toly Beresford. He grimaced comically, casting his eyes to heaven and jerking his head slightly to indicate his brother-in-law. Nell kept her gaze steady,
refusing to be drawn into complicity against Lord Jarrow.

Wrath crept into her breast. Did he imagine she would show herself either amused or insolently intolerant of her employer? She was evidently meant to understand that his lordship’s moods were as unpredictable as his daughter’s had been today. It was not for her to censure the man, but she could not prevent the reproof showing in her eyes. He saw it, for his expression changed to one of rueful apology. He gave her a shrug and a grin, and took up his knife and fork again.

Nell followed suit, wishing she might have something concrete she could offer to assuage Lord Jarrow’s troubled fancy. From what she had seen, she had no reason to suppose Henrietta to be even marginally deranged. On the other hand, there was evidently a good deal she had not been privileged to see, and she had little knowledge of insanity.

She retired immediately after dinner, but she could not sleep. She felt decidedly on edge, and prey to a feeling of failure. At last she gave in, and got up, pulling on her dressing robe. Where to go? She needed air, and the moon was well out tonight. Slipping on her shoes, she dug out her cloak from the clothes press and slipped out of the room to steal along the corridor and into the turret that led to the schoolroom.

The familiar shapes looked eerie in the semi-darkness. But Nell slipped out onto the battlements, and sighed in immediate relief. The world was motionless, bathed in a silver glow, and a measure of peace began to seep into Nell’s soul. She wound her cloak about her, and strolled gently along the roof walkway.

The change in her life was enormous, but it felt now as if she had been here forever. She had expected to feel
unfamiliarity for a good length of time. She had adapted all too readily. Was it because everything at Castle Jarrow was so intense that she hardly missed her previous existence? If it was not true to say that she had not thought of Kitty or Prue very much, at least she had not felt the want of their company. She had Mrs Whyte to thank for that, perhaps. And, truth to tell, there was a more cogent reason. But Nell refused to give it voice. Yet for that alone, she found herself wondering for the first time in an age why she could not have chosen to go elsewhere.

‘Are you thinking that you should not have come here?’

Lord Jarrow’s voice jangled into her thoughts so that she leaped with shock, turning to find him standing almost immediately behind her. The uncanny perspicacity of his question slipped through her mind, and was gone. She let fly.

‘Must you do that? You made me jump half out of my skin!’

Was there a look of amusement in his face? It was the more visible for the melting of his black clothes into the darkness. Pale in the moonlight, he looked curiously young, the troubled clefts smoothed out. He did not apologise.

‘From the look of you, I would suppose you to be already in a state of unnatural agitation.’

‘On the contrary, my lord, I was just beginning to achieve some much needed peace.’

The tartness in her tone was not lost on Jarrow. ‘A commodity in short supply here, I grant you.’

She did not answer. His gaze roved her face. It was softened by the light, the halo of her fair locks gleaming silver. A riffle disturbed his senses. Involuntarily he
shifted, looking quickly away. He would not go one step down that road. She was too good a creature to be lured into his accursed destiny. Even if only obliquely.

His tongue gave voice to the tenor of his thoughts. ‘I could wish you had not come here, Helen Faraday.’

‘No one calls me Helen.’

The utterance had a husky quality. Without volition, he turned his head. ‘What do they call you?’

‘Nell, sir.’

The instant it was out of her mouth, she knew it was a mistake. His gaze became intimate, probing hers. She wanted, needed, to look away. She could not. What had possessed her to speak of her name she could not imagine. Except that his expressed wish so closely mirrored her own. It should have distanced her that he said it. Instead it had created the opposite effect. As if a kinship had sprung up between them.

His voice came softly. ‘If I were not an honourable man, Nell, I might well be carried away by the romance of the occasion.’ A wisp of a smile curled his lip. ‘Moonlight and a pretty girl—balm to ease a troubled heart. It is almost unbearably tempting.’

I
n that instant, cut to her own heart by the sadness in his face, Nell was tempted to offer up her own honour—if it might ease him. Common sense tapped a reminder on the walls of her conscience, and the Duck’s sage words popped conveniently into her mouth.

‘I am all too aware of the disadvantages of my situation, Lord Jarrow. Let me assure you that I have every intention of protecting my virtue.’

Jarrow snapped instantly out of the dangerous mood. He withdrew a step. ‘You are very frank, Miss Faraday. Is that a warning?’

The dry note was back. Nell thrust down the immediate rise of disappointment. She backed to the battlemented wall, putting distance between them. ‘You may take it as you choose, sir.’

‘And if I choose to be insulted?’

‘That is between you and your conscience, my lord.’

A burning sense of injustice threw Jarrow into attack.

‘If that is your considered opinion, it was foolish of you to invite me to make free with your name.’

Nell hit back. ‘Did I so invite you?’

‘You know you did! A dangerous game, Miss Faraday, were I any other man.’

Her conscience stung and she sighed. ‘You are right, Lord Jarrow. I had no intention of it. I assure you it was accidental. And I am persuaded you are too much the gentleman to take advantage.’

‘I could though, Nell, very easily.’

What had she done? He no longer sounded angry, but there was something in his tone that both alarmed and thrilled her. Had she awakened it by what she had said and done, or had it been there already, if dormant? Heavens, but this could not be! She summoned all her resolution.

‘Sir, this is altogether absurd. Recollect that I am your daughter’s governess. This conversation had better not have taken place.’

A wry look was cast at her. ‘Backing down, Miss Faraday?’

‘I am trying to be sensible, Lord Jarrow!’

Jarrow felt obliged to relent. Why he had persisted in the face of her apology, he did not know. The interlude had somehow lightened the blackness of his life for a few moments. Truth to tell, he had been more anxious since the girl had arrived here than before. The reason flashed into his head. Had he been so certain that she would not stay? The thought thrust him into speech.

‘Forgive me, Miss Faraday. The last thing I want is to provide you with any added incentive to leave. Your coming has been a godsend. I believe you must be doing Hetty a great deal of good, for she has been much calmer of late.’

Nell held her tongue on the urgent wish to assure him that leaving was the last thing on her mind. The mild words of praise warmed her, more for the ammunition
they provided against the uncomfortable pricks from the nurse.

‘I thank you, my lord. I only hope time will prove that your fears are unfounded.’

The reminder served to blacken his mood. ‘You hope, Miss Faraday, for I cannot. Hetty follows closely in those footsteps I can all too easily recognise. Goodnight.’

The episode had not helped to ease Nell’s path into sleep. She lay wakeful for some time, unable to banish the image of Lord Jarrow’s features in the forgiving rays of the moon. Her own conduct upset her. She had provoked that intimacy—and he had known it! Yet instead of the shame she knew she ought to feel, Nell could not forbear a disgraceful exultance at having discovered in herself the power to attract him. It was abhorrent to be so much at the mercy of her desires. Mrs Duxford had not sufficiently warned her. How lowering it was to find herself so out of control of her own emotions!

And to know, too, that she truly had to thank Lord Jarrow’s sense of honour that nothing had come of it. Nell was guiltily aware that she would not have fought him had he attempted to kiss her. Indeed, the thought of such a proceeding so wrought upon her physically that she groaned aloud.

The sound mingled with some other noise, outside her making. Instantly alert, Nell twitched back the curtains of the bed, half expecting to find Hetty there. There was no one else in her room, but the sound increased in volume. Nell got up and went first to the door, pulling it slightly open.

Voices, unmistakably male, were raised somewhere down the corridor. They were receding, however, accompanied by clattering footsteps. Nell strained to hear as
they died away. Then a distant bang indicated the slam of a door. She closed her own door, and retreated into the bedchamber. Almost immediately the sounds of altercation came again. Nell crossed quickly to the window and looked out.

In the courtyard below stood two men, evidently in hot argument. A third held a horse, a great restless stallion, sidling on the gravel. Detling? It must be. And there could be no doubt that the two in altercation were Jarrow and his brother-in-law, although Nell could not judge in this light which was which. They were much of a height, and dressed alike in dark clothing. She saw one of them pull away and mount up. The other stepped up to the horse to say something more. But the rider gathered up the reins.

‘Stand aside!’

She heard it clearly, but could not recognise the voice. Next moment, the horse was clattering forward and the image sliced into Nell’s mind. The footpad? Then she had seen him here! He was not wearing a mask, but the outfit was so similar as to beg the question. Was one of the gentlemen playing at highwayman? If so, one of them must be Lord Nobody. She watched transfixed as the rider passed out of her sight into the arched entrance below her window.

In a daze, she saw the one who was left watch him ride out, exchange a brief word with Detling—if the other was he—and turn for the main doors of the castle. She was nettled to think that the aged groom had deceived her. The wretch knew the identity of the fellow perfectly well!

Which of them had it been on the horse? Not Jarrow! A horrible sensation of nausea rose up. By his own admission, he was purse-pinched. Had he sought this
means of mending his fortunes? And if it was he, her whole judgement of him was mistaken. For had not Lord Nobody shown himself to be affected by her that first day? Had he not spoken as if he knew her destination? What had he said—that he envied Lord Jarrow? Her heartbeat speeded up. Then it must be the other! Lord Jarrow had never until tonight given her any reason to suppose that he thought her anything out of the ordinary. And that had been due to her mismanagement. Or had it all been an act?

Nell became aware of cold and realised that she was standing in her nightgown, fully exposed to the night air. She returned to the bed and snuggled under the covers, still warm from where her body had been lying before. Yet the chilling sensation would not leave her, and the sickness grew in her stomach.

She had remembered the words of Mrs Whyte. Had it not been the fell hand of Lord Nobody who was thought to have murdered Julietta Jarrow?

Henrietta was late. Nell glanced impatiently at her pocket watch, which she always set upon her desk. It was near fifteen minutes past the hour. It did not help that the day was overcast, threatening rain, in keeping with Nell’s mood. Herself in a state of near exhaustion from lack of sleep, she wondered whether the child had been disturbed by the activities of the night. Should she perhaps go down to the bedchamber and find out what was keeping her? She had scant faith that Duggan would trouble herself to come up and let her know what was going forward. Before she could make a decision, the outer door opened and Lord Jarrow entered from the roof walkway.

Nell rose from her place at the desk, damping down upon the upbeat of motion in her pulses. ‘My lord?’

He looked heavy-eyed, the clefts more firmly etched into his features. He was holding out a package as he came across to the desk.

‘Detling went to the Receiving Office yesterday. This came for you, Miss Faraday. I had meant to give it to you at dinner, but what with one thing and another, I’m afraid I forgot it until I saw it lying on my desk this morning.’

Nell took the package and read the inscription, realising that it was the first she had received since coming here. ‘This is Mrs Duxford’s hand. I had expected her to have written before this.’

Jarrow felt compelled to apologise. ‘It has likely been lying in Rumford some days. We collect perhaps once or twice a month, and I have insufficient correspondence to justify the expense of having it delivered.’

She looked up quickly, and he warmed to the swift smile. ‘It makes no matter, sir. I cannot think there will be anything in it of the least importance.’

To his own surprise, this answer made him feel worse. She looked a little wan. Was she a trifle out of sorts? Or had last night’s contretemps upset her more than she had allowed him to believe? He found a neutral response.

‘It is pleasant, nevertheless, to hear from one’s friends. It lessens the sense of isolation.’

He noted the fleeting touch of sympathy in the forest eyes, and stiffened involuntarily. She had taken the idea as his. Which it undoubtedly was. The girl was decidedly too intelligent for his comfort. He turned to go.

‘Stay a moment, Lord Jarrow, if you please.’

Was there a hint of censure in her voice? He checked on the threshold and looked back. There was a pause.
She appeared to deliberate within herself, but that bold gaze did not waver.

‘What is it, Miss Faraday?’

‘About last night, sir—’ He made an involuntary gesture as if to silence her, but Nell hurried on. ‘I don’t mean when we met out there, but later. I heard voices—yours and Mr Beresford’s, as it turned out. And then I saw you in the courtyard.’

‘What of it?’

His eyes had turned hard as steel, but Nell met them with challenge in her own.

‘One of you—I could not tell which—rode out.’

‘And?’

She ignored his obvious anger. ‘Nothing, Lord Jarrow. I am merely informing you that I heard it. If there is some circumstance that links the episode with a certain highwayman, I will bear witness—if I have to.’

‘Is that a threat, or merely a warning?’

‘Neither, sir. It is an attempt at plain dealing, and I think you have deserved that of me at least.’

The anger died out of his eyes, but it left them hard. His jaw was tight and he spoke in that old clipped tone. Nell discovered with a sinking heart that it now had the power to hurt her.

‘I am not sure that I understand you. However, let that pass. For your information, I did indeed quarrel with my brother-in-law—and not for the first time. He rode out as he often does. I can say no more than that at this present. Pray believe that the less you know the better!’

Nell watched him walk out, and the door shut quietly behind him. She knew neither what she had expected from him, nor what devil had urged her to speak out. A small voice prompted her honesty. If Lord Nobody did live in this house, she did not wish to identify him as
her employer. She could not bear to think that he might have been responsible for the death of his own wife.

But he had not ridden out! Or so he said. She was annoyed to find that she could not trust his word. Could not? Or would not? He had done nothing to afford her the right to doubt him. Nothing, that was, but to cause her to lose her senses over him!

She discovered that she was holding the package he had brought her, and sat down at once to break the seals. The distraction was welcome, although she was unlikely to have leisure to read anything now. Henrietta must be here at any moment.

As she unwrapped the paper, a trifle of excitement stirred her after all. The abnormality of her existence here had come to seem the norm. It would be good to read of something that she could readily relate to. Perhaps it might serve to set her feet firmly back on the ground.

In the event, there was only a short letter from Mrs Duxford, wishing her well and enclosing three others—one from Kitty and two from Prue. The second had followed so fast upon the first that it had arrived before the Duck had a chance to forward the one.

‘You will be astounded, my dear, at the good fortune that has overtaken our dear Prudence. Utterly unexpected, as I am sure you will agree. But I will let you read her news for yourself. We continue here as ever…’

Discovering the rest of the page to be concerned with the various little crises of the Seminary with which she was all too familiar, Nell discarded it in favour of the letters from Prue. What in the world could be so momentous? Prue had not been altogether happy in her employment at Rookham Hall—that much Nell had gathered from her earlier correspondence—and it had been
but a temporary position. Perhaps she had secured a remarkably good post at some other establishment?

Scarcely had she ripped open the letters and checked the dates to find the later one, than the turret door opened to admit both Duggan and Henrietta. Depressing her frustration, Nell greeted her charge, and refolded the letters. The girl was in one of her better moods, for she actually smiled. Relieved, Nell slipped the package and its contents into the top drawer of her desk and began upon the first of the day’s lessons.

When Hetty retired with her nurse for her luncheon, Nell meant to seize the opportunity to snatch a look at Prue’s letters, but prevention came in the person of Mr Bartholomew Beresford.

He entered close upon a tentative knock, putting his head round the door to the roof. A deprecating expression invited her rejection.

‘Pray don’t hesitate to hurl me forth if I am disturbing you, Miss Faraday.’

Nell perforce disclaimed, but she eyed him with no little distrust as he shut the door upon the spitting rain and advanced into the room, brushing at his black coat.

‘Just beginning to come down. Shame, after all the sun we’ve been having. Let’s hope it won’t last long.’

Too intent upon the reason for his unprecedented visit, Nell made no reply. She could not think but that it must have to do with last night. Nor was she mistaken.

‘Eden gave my head a washing not a moment ago. He says you heard us last night, and he’s afraid of your leaving us.’

Having made no such intimation to his lordship, Nell could not help being sceptical. Was the man making it up? She gave him a bland look.

‘Indeed? I would ask you to sit down, sir, but as you see there is only Henrietta’s chair.’