“Exactly my point, your lordship.”
“My given name is Robert. Since you are no longer engaged as my governess, there can be no further obstacles to its use.”
“I can think of many! However, I suggest we continue the argument at a more suitable hour.”
Since all her tartness had returned, his lordship felt sufficiently comfortable to leave her, for a moment, whilst he stepped forward into his inner sanctum. She had stopped shivering, the most obvious outward sign of her disquiet. At a future date, Sir Archibald Dalrymple would be called to account for that. In the meanwhile... .
“You will stay there until I return!”
“My, you are imperious! I shall stay merely to keep poor Psyche company.”
Excellent! Her humour was returning. Lord Robert turned on his heel and made for his chamber.
In the stillness that followed, Anne closed her eyes, the better to visualize the features etched so clearly in her memory. How handsome he was! How dear to her he had become, the glorious eighth Earl Edgemere! If only he had not been quite as witty, if only he had been a smidgen less amusing, a tadâthe veriest tadâless handsome! But no, circumstances, as always, conspired against her.
Lord Carmichael was a paragon, and there was no gainsaying the truth. She, Anne Derringer, was doomed to spinsterhood, for there could be no accepting anything less than what he wasâperfection. Or, more rightly speaking, perfection in imperfection. My lord was never tediously correct or predictably proper. How dull he would be if he was! Anne smiled. She adored her spats with him. It honed her wits and made her tongue as razor sharp as her mind. A mind that was complemented by his... . She startled as a flame flickered behind her.
“You have returned!”
“Don't look so shocked, Miss Derringer of Woodham Place! I did say I'd be back directly!”
“I am not of Woodham Place anymore. My brother sold the estate to sell off some debt.”
“I hear it has been sold again. Anne, if you wanted it, would you consider purchasing it?”
“On forty pounds a year? My lord, even
with
your exorbitant salaryâwhich I shall hold you to, by the byâyou must have windmills in your head!”
“Not windmills, Celeste. News.”
“News?” She couldn't keep the faint tremor from her voice.
The earl resumed his seat beside her, silently cursing a splinter of marble that had made an impression on his unmentionableâbut decidedly desirableâposterior end. Anne dropped her eyes, for her gaze rested overlong in that direction, and it was, she knew, quite shamelessly admiring.
The earl's eyes flickered, for a moment, then grew disquietingly sombre. He knew that he could no longer keep from Anne what was her right to know. It would be self-serving beyond all permissible reason. He only hoped that she would not pack her bags at once, now that her circumstances were so vastly altered.
“Anne, I have dismissed you from my employ for two reasons. The firstâthough I shoot myself in the foot to say itâis that it is no longer fitting.”
Anne cast inquiring eyes at him. He concentrated on his fingernails, for the dark, tangled lashes were too intoxicating to contemplate. In a moment, she would know the truth. She would know that she was an heiress, eminently eligible, and worlds away from needing his meagre salary. She would know, not to put too fine a point upon it, that she did not need him.
He chose to cast caution to the winds. There was no point in mincing matters. “Miss Derringer, though you do not yet know it, you are an excessively wealthy woman! As a matter of fact, though you have the face of an angel, you also appear to have the luck of the very devil! You and your
dashed
stars! Who, but a dear, addlepated, hen-witted
widgeon
places their entire fortune on a merchant ship more likely to sink than not, purely on the basis of its celestial name?”
“I
do, my lord. And I am not hen-witted! When the Astor sank ...” She stopped, remembering that she had chosen to remain on as governess despite the impropriety. What construction would the earl put on that? Not, she hoped, the correct one.
He looked at her keenly. “Do I infer that this is not news to you? That you, my dear Anne, are once again an impostor in my household?”
“Imposter?”
“You know very well what I mean! Passing yourself off as an upper servant when you are more eligible than Miss Fairfax and that Wratcham womanâ”
“It is not what you think!”
“No?” A sudden smile lit bright eyes. “Give me leave, Anne, to hope that it is what I think!”
“I could not leave the children in the lurch ...”
His eyes clouded. “No, I suppose not. Anne, can you continue the charade one day longer?”
“It is best if I leave tomorrow.”
“No!” The earl grabbed her hand. For an instant, he held it within his ungloved grip. Anne had never been more aware of him than at that moment. She blushed furiously, then wriggled her fingers free.
“You are imperious, Lord Robert!” Attack was always the best manner of preserving one's dignity.
“I have a right to be! You deceived me, whatever your reasons! No ... don't look so damnably stubborn. I shall change tack and plead instead. Please, Anne! Stay! If not for mine, then for the children's sakes!”
Anne relented. It was hard to resist someone who sent shivers deliciously down one's spine and who entreated one with eyes of hazel velvet.
“Very well, I shall stay until after the ball.”
Lord Edgemere breathed a sigh of satisfied relief.
“Till after the ball, then.”
Miss Derringer stood up, taking care to allow the wrap to envelop her slender, statuesque frame as perfectly as it possibly might.
Lord Edgemere, victorious, leaned back in sudden amusement. It did not matterâthe soft candlelight set her feminine charms off perfectly, wrap or no wrap. His eyes darkened, but he made no attempt to forestall her any further.
As she moved, the nonsensical confection that was her slipper struck something hard. She exclaimed, bent down, and retrieved the necklace. It shimmered like thousands of tiny stars under the little orange flame.
“Good gracious, my lord! This had quite slipped my mind!”
With complete lack of consciousness, she handed Lord Edgemere the gems and muttered something highly disparagingâif not entirely ladylikeâabout the good Sir Archibald Dalrymple.
When she departed for her own wing, the earl was staring after her in dazed amazement. She was quite a lady, the demure Miss Derringer!
In no more than half an hour, she had confounded a thief, resisted a noxious attempt upon her virtue, held a reasoned conversation in disgracefully compromising circumstances, then forgotâ
forgot
, mark you!âthat a necklace of blue-white diamonds lay somewhere in the rubble of marble shards.
Lord Edgemere chuckled. Lord Elgin's Psyche had cost a cool ten thousand pounds. He could not have dreamed up a better use for it himself.
Seventeen
The day of the ball dawned grey and unpromising, causing Mrs. Tibbet to hurry about in a frenzy of anxiety, ordering the potted palms back into the main receiving room, changing menusâiced sherbets on a cold day was unthinkableâand poking her finger outside on a five-minute basis to test for rain.
The children were in high spirits, tasting here, testing there, until even the staid Augustus was forced to chase them with an umbrella, an unprecedented event that caused them to laugh uproariously and hound him all the more. Finally, Anne was applied to, for the servants were at their wits' end, what with one thing and another.
Lord Morrison's coach was too large for the stables, the coal had not yet arrived, one of Lady Dillsworthy's matched team had cast a shoe on the road from Hampton. She had sent a note begging a new conveyance... . The list was endless. Anne offered to help, but was assured by a chorus of upper servantsâand a cheeky lower servantâthat removing the Viscount Tukebury from the house would be help enough. Jeeves chipped in to mention that Miss Kitty Carmichael was none the better, so Anne was immediately apprised of the urgency of the situation.
She discovered the little varmints polishing the floors with an excessive amount of beeswax and knew at once that their industrious and innocent activities were brimful of mischief. She stepped up to little Lord TukeburyâTom, to his intimatesâand curtsied grandly.
“Put down your brushes and dance with me, my good man!”
Tom bowed in excellent imitation of Robert's polished address and took her hand.
“On second thoughts, Tom, I shall sit this one out. Dance with Kit instead.”
“But ...”
“Go on, then, I am in a fever of anticipation to see whether my charges do me credit. Governesses, you know, are always held accountable for such things.”
Tom nodded importantly. “Kitty?”
“Don't be such a gudgeon, Tom! Miss Derringer is awake to all suits! She only wants to see us take a tumble on the slippery boards!”
Anne chuckled. “The game is up, I see. Come, my little chickens, you shall set these floors to rights, return the polish to poor Wiggans, who I am certain must be searching high and low for it, then meet me at the stables. It is an age since we have exercised the horses and given them their head.”
This occupation seemed to be met with approval, for it did not take long for the floors to regain their quietly elegant gleam and for the trio to head out of doors, toward the large, positively bustling stables. Miss Derringer did not have a riding habit, but she did have a dark serge gown that served the purpose, though her ankles were sadly prone to exposure. Since no one of any consequence was likely to see her mount or dismount, however, this seemed of little import. Some days before, Kitty had pressed a rather grown up top hat with frivolous flowing scarves upon her person, so despite her fashionable deficits, she nonetheless contrived to look respectably elegant when confronting the head groom.
He doffed his cap gailyâeveryone had a soft spot for Miss Derringer and the young onesâand saddled the horses quickly, even though several of the houseguests were about to return from hunting and there was “a heap of work afoot, with the ball and all.”
It was not long before they had carefully crossed Tom's stream and were galloping, with abandon, in the meadows. Anne would have been exultant, were it not for the fact that she knew that this was to be her last such day.
Somehow, she did not wish to spoil it by telling the youngsters, so she set aside her nagging heartache and joined in the mirthful exuberance. Finally, the horses were panting from exertion. Anne decided it was more than high time to rein in and lead them down to the stream for water. She resolutely ignored the black clouds that seemed to loom threateningly above them. A wetting would not harm the children overmuch, and for herself, she did not mind in the least. It was better than watching preparations for a ball she would have no part in, knowing that tomorrow, when the excitement was long faded, she would be gone.
London was a daunting prospectâshe had no wish to contact Lady Somerford and certainly none to contact her brother. It struck her that perhaps her best option would be to take up a house in Bath. There she could quietly resume the life-style and accoutrements of a lady of substance while most fashionable eyes were still firmly focused on London. Anne found that she had little desire to cut a dash, or try her hand at a third season. Undoubtedly, now that she was wealthy, she would not have to suffer the indignities or importunities of the past, but this did not weigh with her. She found she had no taste for being courted for her fortune.
What was that? Anne was sure she could hear hooves hard against the pastures. She settled her skirts primly over her ankles, just in case. She had been caught, unawares, once too many at Tom's stream. Half of her hoped it was Lord Edgemere. The other scolded her for being such a ninnyhammer. Lord Edgemere, in residence, had a thousand things to do to entertain his houseguests. He did not go galloping like a wild thing across fields of verdant clover.
“Oh I hope it does not rain and spoil things!”
Tom clicked his tongue. “Kitty, you sound like Mrs. Tibbet!”
“Well, it's true! Our first ball andâ”
Anne broke in. “Not
your
first ball, Kitty! You shall need to be some years older for
that!
”
“Oh,
bother!
I am certain Robert would not mind at all if we were to attend. He might
look
like a curmudgeonly mawwormâ”
“Thank you very much, Kitty! I do not believe I recall ever having before been described in such flattering terms ...”
“My lord!”
“Miss Derringer, your servant.”
Robert leapt nimbly down from the magnificent Arab that Anne had heard a few moments before.
“Robert!
You
do not mind if Tom and Iâ”
“Kitty, it does no good to bob your curls at me cajolingly! I am afraid, in this instance, appearances are correct. I am a curmudgeonly mawworm. No, don't pull such disgusting faces at me. You are a long shot, my dear little sister, from being out, and until then, you shall remain in the nursery.”
Tom sighed. “I knew how it would be! We never have any fun around here.”
“No fun, and you playing truant with your governess? I'll have you know, little sir, I pay Miss Derringer forty pounds a year to tutor you!”
The words were severe; but his eyes caught Anne's, and there was the unmistakible twinkle in them that she had come to find quite distressingly irresistible. She was not, however, going to take his criticismâeven playfulâwithout a scathing retort of her own.
“It is you, sir, who are truant! Galloping about when there is a ball afoot and houseguests aplenty to entertain! We, on the other hand, are diligently involved with Latin proverbs. We are, are we not, Tom dearest?”
“Very true, Miss Derringer!” Thomas could be relied upon to be prompt on the uptake. “We were just learning. . . um ... what
were
we just learning, ma'am?”
Anne looked shocked. “Carpe diem, Tom! Carpe diem! You remember, surely?”
Tom looked dishearteningly puzzled, but his deplorably handsome brother had no trouble in the translation.
“Seize the day? Well, with a picnic hamper that size I should say you will. Do you demonstrate
all
proverbs in such delightfully practical terms?”
“All
respectable
proverbs, my lord!”
Anne's tone was reproving, though a merry little dimple appeared in her cheek. His lordship, she knew, had some decidedly improper Latin proverb in mind. His lips were twitching most suspiciously, and his eyes raked hers with teasing mirth. The mirth, however, was tinged with something else. Especially when his gaze rested on the glory of her trim ankles, momentarily exposed by the overshort serge gown. It was altogether decidedly disquieting and made Anne feel vulnerable and breathless. Despite the chill as grey clouds enveloped the sky, she was enveloped in a rosy warmth that placed a blush on her cheeks and caused her to touch them consciously before pulling her skirts firmly about her.
My lord laughed. “How very disappointing!”
Anne did not know whether he was talking of the proverbs or her ankles, but was too canny to question him. Probably, by his deplorably reprehensible smile, he meant both.
“I...”
He stopped as another rider appeared on the horizon.
“Bother!”
“My lord?”
“It is Lady Caroline! What need has she to go haring about the countryside ...”
Kitty tossed her copper curls crossly. “She has
every
need! She is coursing you, Robert!
You
are the rabbit!”
“Hush, child! ” Anne's tone was sharp, though privately she agreed with Kitty. Lady Caroline, she thought, had no shame. She was stalking Lord Edgemere. It did not take long for her chestnut to pull up alongside the earl.
“Darling! I
thought
I spied the Arab ...”
Lady Caroline was a breathtaking vision in a riding habit of amber velvet, trimmed with embroidered gimp and interspersed with several large pearls. She wore, on her head, a bonnet of chip straw. This was a very modish creation, streaming an amber velvet ribbon the identical shade of her habit and sporting three guinea gold feathers. These, needless to say, offset her flowing locks perfectly.
Anne, despite her own striking features and magnificent dark lashes, felt positively dowdy. Her feelings must have been mirrored in her eyes, for Lady Caroline laughed a little consciously and murmured that all could not be blessed with high good looks, and if Miss Derringer wanted, she could recommend a very good rouge pot... .
The governess declined politely, but was surprised to find her fingers curled in a tense grip at the impertinent condescension.
Lord Robert appeared oblivious to these feminine undercurrents, for he stroked Lady Caroline's mare absently and produced a lump of sugar.
Lady Dashford turned honeyed eyes upon his person. Indeed, he was a magnificent sight, resplendent in cream breeches that left little to the feminine imagination and a multicaped Carrick coat that though heavy and warm, nonetheless moulded to his person in such a way that it was obvious no padding had been employed in its making. The ensemble was finished by gleaming Hessians and a cravat that though loosely tied, was nonetheless the epitome of careless elegance.
Kitty cared nothing for these matters. She glared at Lady Caroline and pulled one of her deplorable faces. Tom giggled and followed suit. Miss Derringer wanted to sink through the ground, for undoubtedly she would have to admonish the youngsters for such a breach of common etiquette. She was spared the trouble by Robert, who frowned frostily and demanded that they apologize.
Grudgingly, they did, though Anne could tell from their mulish looks that they would soon be up to pranks. Lady Caroline, glad to be the focus of his attention, feigned a conciliatory manner and obligingly forgave them, though she did mutter to Robert that clearly they needed a mama. At this, Lord Edgemere was noncommittal, but his former high spirits faded into a polite but impersonal demeanor.
“Are you headed back to Lord Anchorford's, Lady Caroline?”
“Yes, I shall ride with you, Edgemere! I am
agog
with excitement! It is the night of the ball and you know that you promisedâ”
The earl cut in quickly. “Let us hope all your heart's desires are satisfied. I certainly hope that
mine
shall be this evening.”
Anne could hear by his tone that he was sincere. She dropped her gaze and stared at her spangled serge hem. Her heart hammered quite painfully, for she had thought Edgemere's connection with Caroline quite at an end. Now she sawâor thought she sawâthat she had been mistaken in this matter.
Because her lashes were cast miserably downward, she did not see the tender and meaningful glance that was cast her way. Lady Caroline did, and her beautiful lips pursed spitefully. Only a few more hours and Lord Edgemere would be trapped. As soon as the diamonds were about her neck, she would announce her engagement to all her dearest and closest friends. The diamonds would be proofâ
everyone
knew them to be his. They also knew he was not the sort to trifle with ladies of quality. His gift would be a declaration in itself. Let him try to cry off
then!
It would be impossible. No gentleman of honour could show his face under such circumstances. And the little governess ... well! It would be a pleasure to give her her marching papers.
She cooed. “Oh, Edgemere! You have such a way with words! Shall I race you back? I believe you have a gift, of sorts, for me.”
“There is no need, Lady Dashford. I have pressing concerns at Carmichael Crescent. You go on, though. I collect that the gift to which you refer is already in your chamber. I bribed a lady's maid to smuggle it through the doors.”