The Governess Was Wicked (2 page)

Elizabeth had spent the last nine years in limbo—no longer the lady her education and upbringing had prepared her for, but not a servant either. She belonged neither upstairs nor downstairs. Her world was the nursery where she taught, slept, and took her meals alone. To dream of a life any larger than that would only end painfully. It was for that reason that she must stop the little flutter of her heart every time she sent Jeremy to fetch Dr. Fellows. Yet despite possessing all the common sense in the world, she couldn’t help it.

The Edinburgh physician was a handsome man with dark hair cut short—functional rather than fashionable. He had clear hazel eyes and a mouth that smiled easily and laughed freely. When he became excited by some medical diagnosis, he would bounce on his toes. A string of Latin words would tumble from his lips until he’d abruptly stop himself, blush, and explain to her exactly what he was going on about. Those were the moments when she couldn’t help the way her heart swooped low in her chest.

Dr. Fellows was a deceptively dangerous man. He wasn’t slick and charming like the bearded men with carefully oiled hair Mrs. Norton entertained when her husband was at his office. He was kind and sharp, easy with his wit and never condescending. He was the sort of man Elizabeth could imagine forgetting herself with. But a governess could never forget herself, no matter how much she wanted to.

Dangerous indeed.

With a sigh, she glanced at the book in her lap and found she was at the end of the chapter. “Juliana, would you like me to read another?”

The girl nodded weakly and closed her eyes.

Elizabeth wished she could do the same.

Dr. Edward Fellows stretched his neck against the stiffness of his high shirt points and tried his best to squash the anticipation rolling through him. No man should be this pleased to be roused from his bed and forced to dress in the middle of the night, but he could hardly help it. He was about to see
her
.

He followed the Nortons’ butler up the familiar stairs and down a long corridor. It was a routine he’d performed several times over the past few weeks that should be tiresome by now, yet he couldn’t help the little smile that crossed his lips.

Crane opened the door, flooding the darkened nursery with lamplight. Through the open inner bedroom door, sitting next to Miss Norton’s bed in a rocking chair with Miss Cassandra on her lap, was Elizabeth Porter. He sucked in a sharp breath and gripped the handle of his medical bag a little tighter.

She wore a wine-colored dressing gown more suited for a man than a woman over a white night rail that bore little embellishment as it poked out of the folds of her lapels. Her long hair snaked down her back in a thick, dark braid so that only her heavy fringe was free. Society might favor blondes with impossible waists and porcelain skin, but he would forever swear that Miss Porter was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen.

And that was part of the problem. She wasn’t merely a woman. She was something otherworldly sent to torment him every time he tended to the Norton family, for he could never touch her.

Not that he should even be entertaining those thoughts. He was supposed to be counting down the months until he’d sail to America to start a hard-won fellowship he’d prepared half his life for. He should be wrapping up his practice in London, saying good-bye to all but his most delicate patients. Instead, he found himself loath to sever ties with anyone, because that would mean he’d have to stop treating the Norton family and kill any hope of seeing her again.

Miss Porter looked up from the book she held. The flickering lamplight illuminated the exhaustion around her eyes, but she offered him a small smile nonetheless.

“Dr. Fellows,” she said as she stood, easing a nearly asleep Miss Cassandra off her lap and settling her into the chair in her place.

That was when he noticed Miss Porter’s feet. Her bare feet.

“Miss Porter,” Edward said with a little swallow. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen the exposed feet of a woman who was not a patient. It was not a particularly seductive part of a woman’s body—not like the slope of a calf or the curve of a lower back—but, on her, a bare foot seemed thoroughly erotic.

Edward slammed the door on that thought. Desperate to scrub his mind clean, he turned to the best distraction he knew.

The skeleton of the foot consists of three parts: the tarsus, metatarsus, and phalanges.

“How’s the patient tonight?” he asked, feeling a little more in control. Latin had a way of doing that to a man.

Miss Porter crossed her arms over her chest and glanced down at the girl. “A new development this time—Miss Norton is retching.”

He looked down at her exposed toes and swallowed hard. Again.

The tarsal bones are— What are the tarsal bones? How do you not remember this? You’re a
physician.

“Am I to understand that explains your lack of slippers this evening?”

One side of the lady’s mouth quirked up. “You missed a rather violent attack, I’m afraid.”

The tarsal bones are the calcaneus, talus, cuboid, navicular, and the first, second, and third cuneiforms. Breathe, you idiot.

He set his medical bag deliberately on a chest of drawers and unsnapped the top. “Has Miss Norton been out of bed?”

He stole a glance as Miss Porter shook her head. “Her sister woke me.”

If only I could have been the one to wake you.

Edward stilled. Miss Porter was a lady with a quiet but fierce intelligence. A gentleman doesn’t think of ladies in such a familiar manner. The problem was that she didn’t make him feel like a gentleman. Most of the time he wanted to push her against a wall and suck on those lush lips until she whimpered. He dreamed of sliding his hands up her legs to the spot where her garters tied off and stocking met bare skin. Then higher, higher until his fingers found—

Five months. That was all he had to get through without defiling a perfectly respectable woman. If he couldn’t do that, he was a lout.

Dipping his head to hide his face, he rearranged his expression and pulled out his stethoscope. It was one of the new binaural models, and he’d been yearning to use it ever since he’d purchased it earlier in the week. If the bones of the foot couldn’t keep his mind off the proximity of Miss Porter, perhaps a new toy would.

She stepped aside as he approached Miss Norton, leaving only the trail of her clean soap smell behind. Norton’s Soap, naturally.

“Now, Miss Norton, perhaps you can tell me what’s the matter,” he said as he knelt down.

“I feel so ill,” the girl sobbed before dry heaving over the side of the bed. If there had been anything left in her stomach, it would’ve been all over his lap by now.

“I can see that,” he said with a smile. “When did it start?”

“After Miss Porter put me to bed.” Her eyes shot up to her governess before quickly adding, “But I started to feel sick just after supper.”

He looked to Miss Porter for clarity.

“Bedtime was around nine o’clock. Supper ended at seven,” she said, pushing a stray strand of hair off her face. “I felt her forehead before we sent Jeremy to fetch you. It wasn’t alarmingly warm, but she was bathed in sweat.”

“And when did Miss Cassandra wake you?” he asked.

“What time is it now?”

“Half past two.”

She closed her eyes a moment. “Perhaps a half hour ago? No more than forty-five minutes, surely.”

Dry heaving after forty-five minutes. A sweat but no alarmingly high temperature. He must be cautious when facing a potential fever because infections could ravage a patient’s body and mind, but with this particular patient he had his suspicions that something else was afoot.

“Do you feel feverish now, Miss Norton?” he asked.

Her eyes shifted around the room, landing everywhere but on him. “I do.”

He sat back on his haunches. He would bet five pounds that this was a case of psychology rather than physiology, for the little girl was telling bald-faced, unashamed lies.

“Miss Porter, a word, please.”

She nodded, and he followed her out of the room and into the dimly lit nursery, closing the children’s door behind him slightly.

“What do you think, Doctor? Is there any real danger?” she asked, pulling the edges of her dressing gown up around her throat. He wondered if she only now realized the impropriety of the situation he’d been very aware of since he’d entered the room. She was hardly dressed, and he was in a full coat and collar. The thought sent blood rushing to his cock, and he shifted as it stiffened against his trouser leg. He prayed that the low light hid his growing arousal.

“I think the only danger is that neither of us shall get much sleep tonight,” he said.

Her eyes widened and cheeks flushed as he realized the accidental innuendo in his words. “That is to say— What I meant was—”

“That both of us were called away from our beds for no good reason. Yes, I understand, Dr. Fellows.”

He nearly sighed in relief. It didn’t matter that some people looked askance at governesses; to him she was a gentlewoman through and through. He would never dream of propositioning her in such a disrespectful manner. Miss Porter was what he wanted, but she wasn’t what he needed.

He needed to figure out a way to stop her nightly invasion of his dreams, wicked with her black hair hanging loose around her face and her olive skin temping him to taste. All he could hope was that putting an ocean between them might stop the little voice that kept urging him to one day reach out and haul her to him.

“You believe that Miss Norton is faking illness again,” she said, breaking into his thoughts, “but I assure you that my ruined slippers believe it to be very real.”

He watched as an idea dawned across her face. “Unless . . .”

He clasped his hands behind his back and bounced forward on his toes. “Does the household keep any syrup of ipecac on hand?”

“I really couldn’t say.”

“Well, shall we go see?”

“I wouldn’t want to keep you here any longer. I’m sure you must be wishing for your bed.”

This was his excuse to bow out and head home. An excuse he should take. He should absolutely not, under any circumstances, accept an offer to spend time rooting around cabinets in the dark with the woman he desired.

“I think that two sets of eyes will be better than one. Don’t you, Miss Porter?”

Chapter Two

A lady’s reputation is like glass blown so thin that the slightest provocation or rumor could shatter it. It is imperative, therefore, that her governess be above reproach as well.

—Miss Carrington’s Guide for Governesses

Elizabeth tried her very best to ignore the thrum of her heart as she followed Dr. Fellows into the hallway. Something had shifted between them in the darkened nursery. It was just a flash in his eyes, but it betrayed a hunger that stole her breath. That look was the sort of thing that made her hope that, just once, he’d shed his proper, polite exterior. Or perhaps that was simply what she wished she was bold enough to do.

Keeping her head down, she walked beside him, hoping he’d allow her the chance to compose her thoughts. She should have known he’d notice her reticence.

“I hope you aren’t too worried. Miss Norton will grow out of these habits. Most children do.”

She pressed a hand to her temple. “I’m certain she will. I just wish she’d do so sooner rather than later.”

“A headache?”

“It’ll pass,” she said with a small smile.

He frowned as she continued to massage the spot but didn’t push her.

“Other than the occasional sleepless night, are you well?” he asked.

No. She wasn’t well. Not with him standing so close and being unable to do anything about it. They were alone walking down a dimly lit hallway. If she were a different woman with a more adventurous nature, she’d simply kiss him. Then she could indulge her dream that he might get it into his head one day to carry her off so that she wouldn’t have to see that little room off the Norton nursery ever again. Except that was never going to happen because Dr. Fellows wasn’t the sort of man to ravage the governess—of that she was certain.

She fought the urge to wrap her arms across her stomach. Dr. Fellows always looked at her with such intensity, as though trying to figure out what exactly was going through her mind. It unsettled her as much as it thrilled her.

“Thank you for your concern, but I’m sure the trials and tribulations of a governess can hardly be interesting to such a busy man.”

He stopped short. “Miss Porter, everything about you interests me.”

Her heart beat a little faster at his words. No doubt he meant it as a kindness—one of those offhanded comments gentlemen throw around to placate skittish ladies—but it affected her in ways she didn’t dare admit.

“You sail for America soon?” she asked, trying to move the conversation in a different direction for fear she might reveal how much she wanted him to mean every word he’d just said.

He pursed his lips and nodded once. “In April.”

She tried to ignore the disappointment that settled low in her chest. He was leaving. She knew that and yet somehow she couldn’t imagine him not being there, walking in to soothe the girls and her own nerves with the simple competence of his words.

“The adventure of America must be exciting,” she said.

He smiled. “I don’t know how much adventure I’ll find there. I expect that most of my time will be spent inside a laboratory.”

“If I could travel to New York, I’d want to see everything,” she confessed.

“What would you do if you could?” he asked.

“So many things. I would listen to the music at the Philharmonic Society or the Astor Opera House. I’d want to see Mr. Barnum’s museum.”

He laughed. “I read about his collection of curiosities in the newspaper. What else?”

“I’d walk along the river, ride in a carriage up Broadway, and dance with an Astor at a ball wearing a gown made of white silk,” she said, letting herself get swept up in the fantasy of all the things she would never do. “Oh! And I would dine at Delmonico’s, eating nothing but oysters and champagne.”

“It sounds as though you’re much more prepared than I am. You’ll have to write me a list.”

“I would love to travel one day.”

“You’d make an excellent adventuress. Where did you learn about all of this?”

“You mustn’t tell,” she said, lowering her voice to a mock whisper, “but sometimes Mr. Norton leaves his newspaper lying about and I read everything I can.”

He pressed a finger to his lips. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

She couldn’t help the glow of warmth that bloomed in her chest at the little moment they’d shared. She’d collected hundreds of those over the years, holding them close to her like priceless jewels only she knew to treasure.

The little sliver of connection had made her bold. Almost without thinking, she asked, “Is there nothing you’ll miss about England?”

Those whiskey eyes met hers. “I shall miss some of the people.”

Her cheeks flushed deep. She opened her mouth and—

“Miss Porter,” Crane’s deep voice boomed through the hallway.

She spun around to find the butler glaring ominously from the far end of the corridor. He’d no doubt been watching them, imagining things that weren’t there.

“A word,” Crane called out.

“We were just going to inspect the kitchen to see if we could figure out what was making Juliana sick,” she said, fighting the feeling that she was once again seven and had been caught sneaking around the officer’s mess by her father.

Crane raised a skeptical eyebrow. “As I said, I would appreciate a word, Miss Porter. It’ll only take a moment, Dr. Fellows.”

The physician’s hands were now clasped behind his back, his weight shifted onto his heels. He looked at ease, but she could feel the tension rolling off him.

After a moment, Dr. Fellows nodded. “I’ll wait at the head of the stairs, Miss Porter.”

With hurried steps, she closed the distance to Crane.

“Miss Porter, what are you doing running around this house in such a state of undress?”

The butler’s stern tone set her back up. “I’m hardly wandering the halls in my night rail, Mr. Crane. I’m wearing a dressing gown.”

He swept an eye down her body. “And where are your slippers?”

“You know very well that my slippers were destroyed.”

The man sniffed. “It isn’t decent for a woman to be speaking with a man in her bare feet.”

As though Dr. Fellows was going to fall for her just because he had glimpsed her toes. If that were the case, she’d have tried it years ago.

“I doubt the doctor finds my feet scintillating, and even if he does, he’s far too polite to comment on them. I notice, however, that
you
took no time in mentioning them.”

Crane leaned in, the stench of whiskey on his breath a sick perfume. “I could have you cast from this house.”

“Mr. Crane,” she said, drawing herself up to her full height, “do not push me.”

“I’ll do what I please to you,” he said, his eyes lazing over her again, his gaze more licentious than judgmental this time.

The man was a drunk and a boor, and Elizabeth wasn’t going to stand for it. “I doubt that Mr. Norton would appreciate learning about your habit of pilfering his best spirits when he’s not home.”

It was an aggressive shot straight across the bow, and it worked. The butler reeled back and glared at her, his face a little paler than it had been a moment before.

“I’ve no wish to quarrel with you, Mr. Crane,” she continued in as level a voice as she could muster. “I merely suggest that you go about your business as I do mine.”

A wicked glint appeared in the butler’s eye, and he swayed a little as he leaned in. “That trumped-up society doctor wants to lift your skirts and nothing else. And even if he did, he’d never make you his wife, so there’s no point in trying, is there? You’re a governess, and you’re always going to be a governess.”

A slow resignation spread through her entire body. No matter that the words came from a drunken cad who cared little for her feelings; she knew them to be true.

“
Good night
, Mr. Crane,” she said before turning and leaving the butler teetering in her wake.

Dr. Fellows was pacing back and forth at the top of the stairs as promised when she rounded the corner that led to the third floor’s grand landing. He spotted her and his eyes brightened, but then his forehead crinkled into a frown.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

She let out a slow breath. Crane’s accusations of impropriety had shaken her, not because of the vitriol behind them—that was merely the suspicion of an inebriated busybody—but rather because she wanted to be improper with Dr. Fellows. She wished more than anything that the man would get it into his head to brand her with his lips. She wanted to sin with him if only to know what it would be like.

But he wasn’t going to do that. Dr. Fellows was in every way the gentleman, treating her with more deference than most. With him she wasn’t the seductress governess—an unmarried woman who was a constant temptation to the men of a household. Neither was she the dowdy, desperate spinster. Instead, she was a woman who deserved the same courtesy as any other lady.

“Mr. Crane was merely inquiring about the health of Miss Norton and Miss Cassandra,” she said with a forced smile.

Dr. Fellows looked far from convinced. “I hope that my presence hasn’t created any trouble for you, Miss Porter. I shouldn’t like anyone to believe there was any hint of impropriety in our search. I know how quickly rumors can spread.”

Something in his tone had shifted and he sounded almost protective. But he had the same open expression he always did. Nothing was different.

She must have imagined it. She’d just been thinking about how she wanted a little taste of the wild, and now it was skewing her perception of things.

“You haven’t created any trouble for me,” she said.
No matter how much I want you to.

She’d yearned for so long for him to notice her, but governesses were supposed to be like a well-chosen wallpaper that complements its room but is hardly noticed.

“Mr. Crane’s just doing his job,” she said, stifling a sigh as they began to descend the stairs, hating that she was rationalizing the brute of a man’s behavior but unable to deny the truth in it. “You must have learned by now that Mrs. Norton is very particular that everything about her home be above reproach. Governesses in particular are the source of a great deal of anxiety, so it’s only natural that I sometimes bear the brunt of the scrutiny.”

“I can’t imagine that you’d do anything that would earn reproach.”

But didn’t he see that she would for him? How could he not know that every time he walked into a room her cheeks heated? Without her even realizing it, her body would lean toward him like a flower stretching for the sun. She’d watch him as he administered to the girls, memorizing the way that his hair whorled just at the base of his skull where it looked the softest.

And then there were late nights in her room. Sometimes, when she couldn’t sleep because her thoughts of him distracted her too much, she’d reach down between the sheets and slip her hands between her legs. She’d touch herself where instinct told her she wanted his fingers, groaning into her pillow as the heat of her desire grew almost unbearable until it broke over her in waves.

These weren’t the thoughts or actions of a decent woman. They were wanton, foolish, and delicious, and instead of making her ashamed, they made her want to be bold. When she lay blissful in her bed, she’d tell herself that one day she might be able to grab the good doctor by the front of his jacket and press her body to his as she kissed him wildly. That was the truth that burned inside her. That was what no one could know. Not Mrs. Norton, not Crane, not Dr. Fellows. No one.

“No one is above reproach,” she said quietly. “I simply have to make the world believe that I am.”

“It’s an unfair burden to ask of anyone,” he said.

“It comes with being a governess, Dr. Fellows. Now, if you don’t mind the informality, we’ll need to use the servants’ stairs to reach the kitchen.”

They were nearly silent the rest of the way, with Elizabeth murmuring a thanks only when he would stop to open a door and let her pass through. If life was fair, she would’ve been dressed in her best gown with her hair swept up. Instead she was bundled in her night things, no doubt still smelling faintly of Juliana’s vomit.

This wasn’t a romantic errand. She and Dr. Fellows were about to go rooting in the kitchen cabinets trying to figure out how a child had made herself sick. There was no reason to believe that he’d whip her around and back her up against the kitchen’s massive table, his hips pinning hers as he pushed his fingers through her hair. And he certainly would not finally well and truly kiss her.

Still, she was alone with a handsome bachelor, and the very thought of that was thrilling, for governesses were never alone with strange men.
Ever
. Their reputations mattered too much to ever risk such scandal. This little act of bravery—a direct defiance of Miss Carrington’s wretched book—made her feel very daring.

In the empty kitchen, she held her candle up to a tall cabinet. “If Miss Norton got into anything, it’s likely in here.”

“Well then”—he rubbed his hands together—“let’s see what we find.”

They worked quietly for a few minutes, the nearness of him setting Elizabeth on high alert. More than once she had to remind herself to breathe. Once he moved too close, the sleeve of his jacket brushing her arm. She nearly gasped as heat pooled between her legs with an immediacy that shocked her.