The Game and the Governess (33 page)

“And now my husband goes behind my back a second time and forbade me to forbid you from attending the ball with the man!” she snapped, more to herself than anyone else. Her eyes narrowed as she sneered, “Do you think you are the first woman he has tried to lure? Why, on his very first night here, Mrs. Rye says—”

“All right, Fanny, that is enough.” Countess Churzy put a hand on her sister’s arm, stopping her speech as well as the erratic bobbing of the feather sticking out of her turban. “What my sister means is that she is concerned that you are becoming too close to Mr. Turner. You have known him little more than a week. I know the earl has expressed . . . similar concerns.”

“I’m sure he has,” Phoebe murmured, her eyes flashing. She expected that the earl’s concerns were rather conversely phrased. “How long an association would you consider appropriate, before consenting to an outing, my lady?”

The countess smiled hesitantly. “I suppose enough time to understand their intentions.”

“And the Earl of Ashby agrees?”

“I would assume.”

“And yet he is escorting you to the Summer Ball, correct? He has only been here a little over a week, after all.”

The countess’s smile dropped from her face in an instant. “There you are mistaken. I have known his lordship since we were children.”

“You watch your tongue, girl!” Lady Widcoate gasped.

“I . . . Forgive me, my lady. Countess. It was a point badly made.” Phoebe immediately backed off, and reassumed her role as the meekly employed.

“I understand, Miss Baker.” The countess granted amnesty. “And, in fact,
my
point still stands. I know the earl’s intentions. Or as much as anyone in my position can,” she could not help but purr a little smugly. “Do you know Mr. Turner’s?”

“He is a reprobate,” Lady Widcoate chimed in. “I never wanted him here. I thought he would have been staying in town. Completely threw any plans I had awry! I tell you, there is something
wrong
with that man.”

Phoebe could only blink at Lady Widcoate’s misplaced vitriol. Indeed, she could tell it was misplaced from the apologetic look that the countess gave her.

“I am afraid I don’t understand. Am I forbidden from attending the dance?”

“No,” snapped Lady Widcoate. “Didn’t you hear me, girl? I have been forbidden from forbidding it!
My husband has dropped so low as to collude with Mr. Turner—they made some sort of deal. And I would never, ever undermine my dear Nathan when he insists upon something, but he really should just listen to me and everything would be so much—”

“There you have it, Miss Baker,” Countess Churzy interrupted, forcing everyone back to the subject. “You are being courted by someone your mistress does not approve of. However, you are neither underage nor under her protection, and she can do nothing to stop you. But Mr. Turner’s character has been called into question. And you do represent this household. Do you understand?”

Phoebe nodded slowly, understanding the words, if not their meaning.

“As far as I am aware, your conduct has always been exemplary, Miss Baker. But a woman’s reputation is everything. So you are going to have to think very hard about whether or not it is worth it to attend the Summer Ball with your Mr. Turner. After all, he could be playing some sort of game with you. If that’s the case, your disgrace would be my sister’s disgrace. And we would not wish for that.”

Phoebe took a deep, considering breath. “No,” she conceded. “We would not wish for that.”

“WOULD YOU CARE
to tell me what the point of that little exercise was?” Fanny twitted, as she poured herself tea.

“Now, now. You did the girl a kindness,” Leticia answered, rising and going to the window, looking out on
the lane. “She deserves fair warning about your reservations.”

“Fat lot of good it did her.” Fanny’s brow lifted. “She didn’t seem to care at all. You saw her, carrying her head high, proud and defiant as you like.”

“Yes,” Leticia sighed. “I fear you are right.”

“Then again I ask—what was the point of that? Besides unsettling my nerves all over again.” Fanny eyed her sister. “Why did you insist upon that interview?”

“Because he asked me to,” Leticia murmured.

The earl had asked her to make this last attempt to separate his secretary from the governess. He did not provide the particulars, but she could tell his previous attempts had failed.

If she had concerns about his increasing interest in the governess, they were abated by the way he looked when he asked her for help. By the way his eyes met hers, and the desire he kept banked in its depths.

Desire for her
.

She should preen. She should triumph and crow to the heavens that she had done it. She had captured the heart of the man she desperately needed. But she couldn’t.

One small thing kept stopping her.

The way
she
felt about
him.

“Fanny . . . I think I would do anything for that man.”

Fanny looked up from her tea, and let out a low whistle. “The plan was to turn his head. Not to have yours turned by him.”

“I know,” Leticia replied, her eyes still on the window. “But I am very much afraid my head has been
turned around so much that I can barely keep my eyes on the horizon.”

“After all this time . . .” Fanny mused. “After Churzy . . .”

“I know!” Leticia cried, surprised at her own vehemence. “I should not let this happen.”

“Perhaps not,” Fanny agreed. “But then again, if there is one man you
could
let this happen with, it would be he.”

Leticia thought for a moment. Lord Ashby wanted her. She knew it. And not just in his bed.

Could her silly sister be right? Could it be that falling in love with a man whom she intended to ensnare in marriage was not a catastrophe?

“So you have lost your heart to an earl.” Fanny shrugged, returning to her tea. “There are worse things. Just be glad you’re not the governess, and risking your entire future on a dance with a secretary.”

THE DRAWING ROOM
safely behind her, Phoebe exhaled slowly. How dare Lady Widcoate and the countess try to influence her! She would shake with anger at being so handled, she would rail against it, but that would come when she was on her own. She knew enough of her place to know that she could not outwardly show displeasure—ever, but especially not now.

When she was in her rooms after the day was done, she could seethe by herself—and by that time, she likely wouldn’t even care to. By that time, maybe she could laugh at it. But right now she had children to teach.

She sought them out in the nursery, certain they
would still be at their luncheon. But instead, she found Nanny just clearing away the plates, and the children gone.

“Your Mr. Turner came by and took them to the stables, Miss Baker,” said Nanny with a wry smile. “Although, if you ask me, he was really looking for you.”

She should go down to the schoolroom. Clean up the morning’s lessons, correct the children’s slates, and prepare for the reading she wanted them to do after tea.

But instead, she found her feet carrying her outside. Found herself idly moving toward the stables. And found her mind caught on the warnings she had just received.

Do you know Mr. Turner’s intentions?
She . . . she thought she had. True, his intentions may not have been very good at first, but accidentally poisoning her had made him remarkably penitent, and he had been nothing but honest and honorable since. Coming to her aid multiple times—even when she did not know she needed it.

He could be playing some sort of game with you.
The game had been played—his wager with the earl regarding his stick-in-the-mud status. She had no idea if he had claimed victory or not with their kiss in the road. But it had the benefit of explaining his early faux pas with Mrs. Rye.

But was a man who agreed to such a wager someone with whom she should be spending time? That was what sent fear rolling through her.

A woman’s reputation is everything.
It was. Unfair, true, but there was nothing to be done about it. And, as a woman in a situation that was . . . friendless, it was less
than ideal. If it happened to be the case that Mr. Turner was not someone to be spending her evenings with, then it was her reputation on the line. Her situation with the Widcoates was on the line as well, it seemed. Was she willing to risk it? She stood so close to her goals—being able to travel, to go to her relatives in America . . . would this one night, this one dance, risk it all?

As she turned the corner, Phoebe was still lost in her own thoughts, her head down, watching as her toes bent over blades of grass in her path.

Then her head came up.

There, in the field abutting the stables, Mr. Turner sat astride the earl’s big black horse, Abandon. The midday sunlight caught his hair, giving it a streak of bronze. His coat lay over the fence and his shirt was open at the neck, exposing the bronze hollow of his collarbone. His sleeves were rolled up, revealing tantalizing extra inches of skin and strong forearms.

He was putting the horse through its paces, showing the children, who were safely back by the fence with his coat, what a man and a beast could do together. His thighs gripped the horse’s flanks as he took Abandon from a trot to a gallop. His muscular legs clenched when he loosed the horse and let him fly, jumping over a fallen log on the far side of the field.

Rose gasped when she saw the jump. And so did Phoebe. Then they landed perfectly on the far side of the log. The children clapped. Phoebe could only sigh in relief.

They moved together as one, Mr. Turner and the horse. They were beautiful.

He was beautiful.

Suddenly, the roll of fear that had overtaken her belly released its grip, and something new took its place. A warmth, tingling awake, spreading from her chest. Lower, lower, down to the core of her woman’s body, and then out in all directions, to the top of her head and the tips of her fingers.

Something went soft inside her, and for the first time in a very,
very
long time, “want” won out over “prudence.”

“Hello,” he called out as he cantered back up to the fence and brought Abandon to a stop.

“Hello.” She smiled back, entranced.

“I want to try!” Rose cried, practically vaulting over the fence.

“Not on your life or my head,” her Mr. Turner replied immediately. “You will be doing no more than a trot, and that on the mare.”

Rose’s bottom lip stuck out, until a moment later, when she realized—“I get to ride today? By myself?”

“Yes, I will not be up behind you. You will be on your own.”

Rose practically vibrated with excitement.

“But first you have to help Kevin with the saddle and bridle, understood?” Mr. Turner intoned, and was rewarded with solemn nods of the head from his pupils. “Off you go.”

As the children took off at a run for the stables, he turned his wide smile to Phoebe.

“Hello.”

“You already said that.”

His grin widened further. Strange—she had once thought his smile overly toothy, but now that seemed
impossible. Instead, there was something irrepressible about it, like the excitement of a puppy.

“So I did,” he replied. “You’ll have to forgive my enthusiasm. I have a ball to attend tomorrow, and reason to believe I will get to dance with the most beautiful girl there.”

Beautiful. He thought her beautiful? The words went through her like lightning. How long since anyone had claimed her beautiful?

Her stunned silence must have unnerved him, because his smile slipped. “Nanny said you had been called to attend Lady Widcoate over luncheon. Is everything all right?”

Is it worth it to attend the Summer Ball with your Mr. Turner?

Yes, it was, she decided in that moment. It would be entirely worth it.

“Everything is brilliant,” she declared. “Marvelous.”

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