The Game and the Governess (37 page)

“Miss Baker?” he asked again.

“Er, yes, my lord,” she said quietly, remembering to drop to a curtsy.

“Excellent. May I have the next dance?”

Her eyes nearly burst out of her head.

“You are not engaged already, are you?”

“No,” she finally managed.

“Excellent. I will come collect you in a few minutes.” He leaned close to her. “I would have some words with you then too.”

And with that, he was gone.

Phoebe could feel her hands shaking. Words with her? What words with her? What could he possibly have to say to her anymore? She moved blindly through the crowd, trying to find her way back. Back to . . .

“What is it?” Mr. Turner asked, appearing like a beacon before her. “What is wrong?”

She let it gush out of her. “The Earl of Ashby asked me to dance.”

Any other young lady, shaking as she was, would have been doing so for entirely different reasons. But her Mr. Turner knew exactly why she was so unsettled, and took her hand in his.

He swore softly under his breath. “Did you accept?”

“He didn’t exactly allow me to say no.”

“Well, then”—he smiled brightly, his entire features changing into his happy, mischievous demeanor—“that’s no difficulty at all!”

“It’s not?” she asked, unable to hide her surprise.

“Not a bit! Because he can’t dance with you if he can’t find you.”

A light of understanding dawned over her. Her eyebrow went up of its own accord.

“Unless you want to dance with him?”

Slowly, she shook her head no.

“Then would you like to make an escape with me?” The rakish grin spread across his features.

Slowly, she nodded yes.

“Then let us go.”

“Where?” she asked.

A spark lit his eyes. “Wherever you like,” he growled, his thumb rubbing across the back of her hand, wreaking havoc on her senses.

As they threaded their way through the crowd, making their way to the door, Phoebe couldn’t believe her luck, or her brazenness. She was about to stand up the Earl of Ashby. But more than that, she was about to get her Mr. Turner alone, under the cover of stars, with no place they needed to be.

Perhaps she hadn’t been so subtle after all.

WHEN JOHN TURNER
moved through the crowd at the Hollyhock Summer Ball, people parted for him. It was one of the benefits—the few he had found anyway—of being the earl. But when he spotted Phoebe Baker being
led to the doors by goddamned Lucky Ned, for once the crowd did not let him follow. No, they were all moving and assembling themselves into lines for the next dance.

And Turner’s partner had just escaped.

Out the doors. Gone into the night. Of course, Turner couldn’t follow them without causing a scene akin to an uproar. Not when he was the earl. The anonymity of a secretary was but a memory—and something Ned was currently taking advantage of. He stared as their forms retreated, and could only curse himself. This was the last chance he had to make an impression on Miss Baker. To tell her—somehow, without breaking any of the rules—that Ned was not what he seemed, not worthy of her trust. Ned had already gained the first two criteria of the bet. The handkerchief, and tonight, the dance. Would he be willing to go for the third? And was there any way Turner could stop him?

There wasn’t, he realized. Short of walking in on one gaining “intimate knowledge” of the other (which would result in an engagement and kerfuffle, and also break the wager’s rules), Turner could do nothing. It was in the hands of fate now. And the hands of Miss Baker’s judgment, be it good or bad.

“God damn it,” he cursed under his breath. “Bloody damn hell.” And he decided cursing at that moment was very much allowed. He was, after all, about to lose his mill—or win it. Everything hinged on this night. He had played every card and now all he could do was wait and see if he came out on top.

Either way, it was going to end soon. Their wager, their battle. Their lives in this fiction. And it left Turner feeling like his chest was going to cave in.

And the reason why was across the dance floor, smiling at the young gentleman who was her dance partner, all sophistication and grace and life.

“My lord!” the pleading voice of Mr. Fennick assaulted him. He swung about and faced the tweedy little man, who had Mr. McLeavey and Mr. Dunlap in his wake. “Are you not dancing?” he asked. “Well, perhaps now would be the best time to talk about having your signature affixed to some papers, to make the sale of your mother’s house—”

But Mr. Fennick would never get to finish that sentence.

“Hang the goddamned deal, Fennick,” Turner growled, causing the annoying fly buzzing about his head to go white with apoplexy. Then he stalked away from him, not giving the consortium another thought, and across the room to where the countess, his Leticia, was about to begin her dance.

“Excuse me,” he said gruffly to her partner, and cut between them, taking Leticia by the hand.

“Ashby, what is it?” she asked, her face flush with embarrassment but her eyes full of concern. “Is something wrong?”

Was something wrong? Yes, God damn it, something was wrong. He was about to lose his mill. He was about to give up on his livelihood and his family’s name and all he could think about was how he was about to lose
her
.

He just wanted something that was his. Something that couldn’t be taken away from him.

And so, in the middle of the Hollyhock assembly hall, amid hundreds of people, he took Letty’s face in his hands and kissed her.

As he wrapped his arms around her body, she let him drink of her essence. After her surprise wore off, she melted into him, and the din—gasps of shock and cheers of joy—faded around them. There would be hell to pay for it in the morning, or perhaps even sooner, but Turner couldn’t bring himself to care.

This moment, he thought, no one could take away.

      22

Sometimes, even a novice player has to wager everything.

T
hey walked. Walked the length of Hollyhock, and no one noticed or cared. Everyone around them—and they were few and far between, as most people were inside the assembly hall—was as much in their own world as the governess and the earl’s secretary were.

Blind to anything but each other, they kept walking, further away from the center of town, grasping for a place to be together, until suddenly, Ned looked up and discovered himself standing in front of his mother’s cottage.

There was an eerie quiet over the area, as if they were the only two people left, and this the only place.

“I always thought it was a lovely little house,” Phoebe said, seeing the direction of his gaze. “It is a pity it will be torn down.”

Yes, Ned thought. It was.

“It was halfway down already,” he said instead,
“with the hole in the roof. And besides, it will be good for the town. Think of all the funds a new business can bring in.”

“Spoken like a secretary.” She smiled at him. “All figures and business potential.”

“What’s wrong with business potential?” he asked, one corner of his mouth turning up.

“Nothing, I suppose. I prefer to think in terms of life potential.” Reacting to his look, she continued, “That is exactly the kind of home I hope to make for myself in America. Nothing fancy, or grand. Just enough.”

He could see it, he realized. Phoebe in a little house much like this one, standing at a stove or fire, an apron tied about her waist. He could see her reading books in the windowsill, or growing a garden out back, the way his mother had. Or painting. Yes, she would be painting, a little studio given over to her hopes and passions.

He could see her . . . and it made him homesick.

“Come.” Her smile turned impish. “Shall we go inside?”

The inside of the house was much as it had been the last time he was here—well kept, excepting the gaping hole in the drawing room ceiling. And small. Smaller than he was used to now, in his life as the earl. And yet, when Phoebe walked in, she seemed to make the place feel wide and open. She inspected the space.

“Oh, yes,” she declared, putting her hands on her hips. “This will do nicely.”

“You know, I have some sway with the owner of the house,” he began cheekily. “He could be persuaded to part with it to you instead of to the town.”

It popped out of his mouth as banter. But then he
thought about it. Hell, he could give her this house. And he
should
. She was owed. Turner wasn’t wrong to offer her five hundred pounds as recompense for her father’s ill judgment. He only offered too little.

Phoebe shot him a smirk. “I do not believe my savings will cover the cost of the property. And heaven forbid I stand in the way of business potential.” She sighed longingly, letting her eyes roam over the appointments of the room, the furniture under cloths, the ceiling. “But still, it’s nice to dream.”

She kept her gaze fixed on the ceiling, looking up at the damage. But she was smiling—that archaic smile that told him she had found something that she enjoyed but was going to keep it to herself.

Well, not tonight, she wasn’t.

He came over and stood beside her, then glanced up.

And saw the entire universe.

“The canvas has shifted out of place. Was there wind this morning?” she asked, her eyes never straying from the starry night that poured into the drawing room.

“Not that I recall. Could a gale of wind be strong enough to cause it to stray?”

She shrugged, lowering herself to the floor to sit in the pool of faint starlight. “Perhaps the canvas knew it would be intruding tonight, and took itself off, allowing us a view.”

His head swiveled to look at her. She took his hand in hers and gently tugged him down beside her. It was a smooth and calculated move. One that surprised him with its boldness. He wondered whether she realized she was even doing it . . . and then he noticed her hand was shaking.

And he felt every nerve of her body come alive, tingling with understanding.

“Come,” she said, her smile suddenly tremulous. “Come look at the stars with me.”

He settled in beside her, letting his body brush against her. Looked up through the hole in the ceiling. And kept his hand firmly in hers.

“It reminds me of your painting,” he said. “In your room. Looking up at the night sky—the trees surrounding us.”

“Except here it is not trees,” she remarked dryly. “It is pieces of roof.”

“I said it
reminded
me—not that it was an exact copy.” But he grinned at her. And she grinned back.

And got caught in his eyes. Held there for long, aching moments.

“Ah . . .” she said, shaking off the reverie, and returning her gaze to the heavens. “Do you see that one? That’s Ursa Major. And right next to it is Leo the Lion.”

“Always the teacher,” he sighed on a smile.

“It is useful to know things. But she’s always there—Ursa. She has been in this night sky since before she was given a name. And she has looked down on us the entire time, and seen us in every one of our incarnations.”

One eyebrow went up. “Our . . . incarnations?” he asked, hesitantly.

“Us. You and me. As children. As students. As a solider and a teacher. And now, sitting in this house.” She leaned close to him, her breath caressing his ear. “I wonder what she’s thinking.”

A shimmer of relief passed through Ned’s already
too-aware body. Her “incarnations” had not included the Earl of Ashby, so he was still safe.

He leaned in, letting his breath tickle the strands of hair that fell from her coiffure at her temples. Entrancing things—so much so, he reached out with his free hand and began to coil the silky curl around his fingers. “I think . . .” he mused, “that Ursa Major is terribly concerned with Ursa Minor, and doesn’t really care what we are up to.”

His hand gave up the curl and began to caress her cheek, her jaw, the beautiful line of her neck. She leaned in to him, inviting his touch. “However,” he continued, “if she were to take notice of us, I think she might guess that we are a young couple who, having made the purchase of their first house, are now debating the virtues of having a window in their roof.”