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Chapter Seventeen
“The girl ca—” Daisy stopped and tried again. “The girl cat-cheese . . .”
“Catches,” Alex gently corrected.
“The girl catches the fish.”
“Very good, darling. Go on.”
Now that she’d been fitted for spectacles, Daisy was flying through her primers. Her mind had connected the letters and sounds long ago. She simply hadn’t been able to see them.
The primers had needed a bit of editing. As originally written by a certain Mr. Browne—who suffered an appalling lack of imagination—the boys did everything interesting and the girls never left home.
Nothing that a few snips of the shears and a couple dabs of paste couldn’t manage.
Daisy turned the page. “The boy wa-shes the dish.”
“Excellent.”
Rosamund was making strides, too. Or if not making strides, at least she’d stopped mulishly blocking the road. The girl had already been a voracious reader, and her command of numbers was well beyond her years. She scarcely needed any lessons. What she needed were the sorts of things she’d never ask for and only would occasionally, grudgingly accept. Things like praise and warm pats on the shoulder. Alex was still working up to hugs.
All in all, she was encouraged. There was still a great deal to accomplish by summer’s end, but both Rosamund and Daisy were on their way.
And then there was Chase.
His amorous liaison with Winifred may not have come to fruition, as it were, but it seemed to have had the intended effect. Chase now avoided Alex with unqualified success. Save for the perfunctory morning condolences (scrofula being the latest ailment to claim poor Millicent’s life), she hadn’t seen him in a week.
Therefore, neither had the girls.
Rosamund and Daisy could memorize the encyclopedia, and they still wouldn’t truly be ready to leave for school—not unless they knew they had a loving home to come back to. There was only one person who could give them that. And when that person wasn’t working with Mr. Barrow, he was hammering at something in his Rake Room.
Alex knew they had an undeniable attraction, but she couldn’t be so irresistible as that. Perhaps she could find some way to render herself entirely undesirable. Daisy might have a noxious skin condition to recommend.
“What’s this?” Daisy twisted on Alex’s lap. She plucked at the ribbon tied about Alex’s neck and pulled the beaded cross pendant out from beneath her fichu. “You never take it off.”
“The beads were a gift from my mother.” Alex untied the ribbon from behind her neck. “You may look, if you wish.”
Daisy ran her fingers over the tiny red beads. “Why aren’t they on a proper chain?”
“Governesses can’t afford gold chains.”
Nevertheless, Alex kept them as secure as possible—individually knotted, on a ribbon that she faithfully replaced every three months, lest it fray.
“They’re corales,” she told Daisy. “Red coral beads. Where I was born, mothers make a bracelet of them and tie it around their baby’s wrist.” She reached for Millicent and demonstrated, wrapping the ribbon around the doll’s arm where the carved wooden hand met the batting-stuffed arm. “Like so. It’s for protection.”
“Protection?” This skeptical inquiry came from Rosamund. Apparently, she’d been paying attention from across the room. “Protection from what?”
“From all sorts of terrible things. Sickness. The evil eye. An aswang—that’s a witch. There are all manner of fearsome creatures. Take the manananggal.”
“Magana-what?”
“Manananggal.” Alex made her voice dark and mysterious. “She’s a lady vampire who can cut herself in two. Her legs remain rooted in the ground like a tree stump, and the rest of her flies out into the night. Her intestines unwind like a string behind her, and she goes hunting for mothers and their children. She lies on the roof of a house, and uses her long, long tongue to reach her sleeping prey, probe down their throats, and suck out their blood.”
“I shan’t be frightened of those,” Daisy said. “The intestine is only twenty-six feet long, and the Philippine Islands are much farther away than that. No mana-thinggum could possibly reach us.”
“Perhaps not.”
“I have a necklace from my mother, too.” Daisy scampered to the trunk that served alternately as treasure chest and Millicent’s burial vault. Rosamund looked on, wary, as her sister sifted through the contents and retrieved a small, gilded box inlaid with French motifs painted on porcelain.
Once she’d returned to the bed, Daisy opened the box and drew out a gold pendant on a slender chain. “Here.”
“Oh, that’s lovely,” Alex said.
“It’s a locket,” Daisy said proudly. She picked open the latch to display a painted miniature. “That’s Mama.”
Alex took the pendant in her hand, holding it closer for examination. “How beautiful she was.”
“Oh, yes. She was very beautiful. She was brilliant at singing and cards. And clever, too. She always knew just how to make you feel better, if you had a stomachache or cough.”
“It would have been better if she hadn’t known,” Rosamund said.
“Why would you say that?” Alex asked.
“That’s how she caught her death. She was helping nurse the neighbor’s boy when he was ill with the putrid throat. He got better, but not before making her sick. She wasn’t so very clever after all.”
“She was,” Daisy retorted angrily.
“She ought to have never gone. Anyone could see what would come of it. It was stupid of her.”
“Rosamund,” Alexandra said gently.
Daisy jumped to her feet. “You can’t say that. Take it back.”
“I shan’t take it back.” Rosamund tossed aside her book and stood. “It’s the truth. Mama was stupid and reckless. She cared more about mending the neighbor boy than she cared about staying alive for us.”
“That isn’t so,” Daisy yelled through tears. “You’re mean and spiteful and I hate you.”
“Well, I hate her.” Rosamund tore the necklace from Daisy’s hand and threw it across the room. It bounced off the wall and clattered to the floor. She stood there for a moment, breathing hard and staring at the wall. Obviously struggling not to cry.
Alex approached her gingerly. “Rosamund.”
“Don’t.” The girl flinched, recoiling from the touch. “Don’t touch me. Leave Daisy alone, as well. Don’t pretend to mother her. You’re leaving at the end of the summer. And when you’ve gone, we won’t miss you at all.”
Rosamund ran from the room. Daisy had retreated to a corner, where she curled her knees to her chest, buried her head in her arms, and sobbed.
Alex wanted to soothe them both, but she knew well from her own youth that the loss of parents couldn’t be healed with biscuits or hugs. The girls needed time, and they needed to know they were safe. Safe to rage or shout or cry, without being told to hush. With her, they needn’t pretend they weren’t hurting inside. If nothing else, she could give them that—for a few more weeks, at least.
She found the locket and turned it back and forth in her hands. Thankfully, it appeared undamaged from its disastrous flight across the room. The hinge had been tweaked, but she was able to bend it back in place with a bit of gentle manipulation. After replacing the necklace in the French inlaid box, she returned it to the trunk at the foot of the bed. In digging for her treasure, Daisy had made quite a jumble of the playthings and blankets that filled the chest. Alex pulled it all out, planning to fold, sort, and organize the contents as she replaced them.
When she reached the bottom of the trunk, however, she found a mysterious bundle, roughly the size of a teapot. It had been tightly wrapped in oilcloth and bound with a length of twine.
Which was tied with a cat’s-paw knot.
Alexandra ran her fingers over the twine, considering. Children needed privacy, just as adults did. Poking through the girls’ secrets could damage what fragile trust they’d built. She decided to replace the bundle beneath the other contents, close the trunk, and say nothing about it.
And then she changed her mind.
An anxious weight had settled in her stomach, heavy enough to pin her to the floor. She wouldn’t rest easy until she learned what was in the bundle.
With a quick look over her shoulder, she picked apart the knot with her fingernail and carefully unfolded the oilcloth. What she found inside made her heart wrench.
Everything two girls might need, should they wish to run away.
Money, chiefly. Alex did a quick counting, and the total was above ten pounds. That was an impressive number of coins, no doubt pilfered one by one from Chase’s pockets and carefully hoarded over the months.
Oh, Lord. Rosamund was always making quips about her “escape plan,” but Alex had believed her to be joking. The preparation reflected in this bundle was serious indeed.
Aside from the purse, Alex found a tiny book of coaching timetables, maps of London and England, a flint and tinderbox, a pocket knife, a ball of twine, and a compass. The same compass that had gone missing a few weeks ago. Apparently, it hadn’t gone missing at all. It had joined the rest of Rosamund’s cache.
Last, she found a simple sewing kit. Needle book, thread, and a small pair of shears. Her lips curved in a bittersweet smile. At least she’d convinced Rosamund of the value of needlework.
Alex hastily remade the bundle, careful to replace the objects as she’d found them, and tied the twine with an identical knot. She reburied the packet at the bottom of the trunk and closed it.
One thing was clear. She would have to redouble her efforts with Chase. She didn’t want to betray Rosamund’s fragile trust by telling him about the bundle, but there was more at stake here than he knew. Rosamund was capable and determined, and if she decided to take Daisy and run away, no headmistress would be stern enough to prevent them, nor quick enough to track them down. They had squirreled away enough money to take them anywhere in England. Possibly farther.
If Chase wasn’t careful, sending the girls to school could mean losing them. Forever.
Chapter Eighteen
With a satisfying whack, Chase drove home the final nail.
There.
He pulled his shirt over his head and used it to mop his face before casting it aside. Then he stood back to admire his work.
His gentleman’s retreat was, at long last, complete. Ready to be christened. By this point, he’d been presented with a myriad of options for its title: Cave of Carnality, Libertine Lair, Rake Room, Passion Palace.
Lately, it had been the Self-Pleasure Sanctum. He’d shared it with no one but his hand since Alexandra Mountbatten arrived in this house. To be truthful, even on those occasions when he satisfied himself, she was still there—in spirit. In fantasy.
It was as if the moment she’d strolled through that door, her dark hair neatly pinned and a weathered satchel in hand, she’d claimed the place. As he looked around at the products of several weeks’ labor, the space that was meant to have hosted a succession of meaningless encounters . . . it had meaning.
There was the chair where she’d been sitting while she enumerated the many deficiencies in his character.
There was the stretch of paneling he’d been hanging when he sliced his thumb and surprised her in the kitchen, and she’d given him the most stirring kiss of his life.
There was the glassware rack he’d pieced together on a night when he’d been aching with want, lost in fantasies of tying her naked to a bedpost mast and licking her body from bow to stern.
She was in every nook and niche of this room. He was having difficulty imagining sharing it with any other woman. If he didn’t act soon, the Den of Deviance would be boarded up before it had even opened for visitors.
Alexandra, Alexandra. What the hell am I going to do with you?
Nothing, of course. He couldn’t do anything with his tempting little governess, and that was his bloody problem.
Someone rapped at the door. When he didn’t answer it directly, the rapping became pounding. Whoever was standing out on the street sounded equally as desperate as Chase felt. He made a vow to himself in that moment.
If the person on the other side of that door was a willing woman, Chase was going to haul her inside and make hot, sweaty love to her. End of discussion.
When he opened the door, he was instantly reminded why he should never, ever make vows.
The woman standing on the other side of the door was Alexandra.
“Do you have company?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“Good.”
She entered without waiting for his invitation, breezing past him and into the center of the room. “So sorry to intrude. I went out on the green to track a celestial object that was passing out of my view upstairs. In my haste, I locked myself out of the house. The night is unusually cold. Thank goodness you were awake.” She looked around her. “And alone.”
She wore only her nightclothes, and her arms were crossed over her chest to soothe her shivering. Good Lord, he’d seen her in her shift entirely too many times. All he could think of was seeing her out of it. He’d spent days struggling to banish this fantasy from his mind, and it was all for nothing in the end. She stood before him, a dream come to life, and he was seized with desperation to take her in his arms and hold her tight, lest she vanish.
He plucked a blanket from the chaise longue and wrapped it about her shoulders, in the interests of self-preservation.
“So was it a comet?” he asked.
“Not this time, I’m afraid.” She hesitated, looking him over. “I’m glad to see you.”
His heart made an embarrassing, giddy flip.
“We haven’t spoken in some time,” she said. “And the girls have been missing you.”
“Is that so?” he said in a low, flirtatious drawl. “And you, Miss Mountbatten? Have you been missing me, too?”
She looked away, flustered.
He was a coward, burying that question beneath jaded swagger when he secretly longed to hear the answer. For his part, he’d been missing her intensely.
She turned her gaze about the room. “My goodness. You’ve been busy, haven’t you? So many improvements. Have you done all the labor yourself?”
He shrugged modestly. “Most of it.”
All of it, but he didn’t want to sound as eager for her admiration and approval as he felt. He’d been telling himself he’d done all this building to take his mind off her, and now he wondered if he’d been telling himself a lie. Maybe he’d done it for her. Not to seduce her, but to impress her. She’d complimented his carpentry, after all. Even named it as one of his redeeming qualities.
You’re good with your hands.
Her gaze landed on the hammer and nails he’d just set aside, and she walked toward his just-finished project—a wide, tall cabinet with two shuttered doors.
“Is this a new wardrobe?” She put her hand on one of the door handles.
Bloody hell.
“Alex, wait.” He lunged forward just as she gave the handle a pull, catching her in his arms and drawing her to the side. Just in time. The contents of the cabinet fell forward as designed, spilling into the center of the room and landing with a crash.
His heart pounded from the urgency of whisking her to safety. It pounded even harder from the thrill of holding her in his arms.
She didn’t seem in a hurry to leave his embrace. Instead, she stared at the room’s new centerpiece and gave a little laugh. “Oh, my. Now that is impressive.”
Alex was awestruck.
A bed.
Really. A secret, stashed-away bed. This was beyond antlers, beyond bawdy house paintings and velvet draperies. He’d tucked a mattress and bed frame in the cabinet, standing it on end so that when the doors were opened, the bed folded down from the wall—ready for use.
It was ingenious in its sheer depravity.
His strong arms remained about her. She probably ought to express some thanks for his swift move to save her from being crushed by the thing. But at the moment, she was too transfixed by his invention. Extricating herself from his embrace, she strolled around the perimeter of the bed, peeking under the frame and investigating the mechanics.
“Did you devise this yourself?”
“I’m not the first to think of a folding bed, if that’s what you mean—but I made my own customizations for this one.”
“Where did these wooden legs come from? The cabinet’s not deep enough to fit them.”
“They’re tucked under the bed frame. When the bed is lowered, they unfold to support it.”
“Remarkable. And it’s even made up with bed linens.” She trailed her fingertips over the satin sheets. When she came to the end of the bed, she peered at the back of the cabinet. “Oh, look. There’s a mirror. You truly are shameless, aren’t you?”
“Never claimed otherwise.” He moved behind her, stepping into the reflection. “There’s meant to be a strap to secure the thing. Keep that sort of accident from happening. But I hadn’t installed it yet. I only completed the thing today.”
If he’d only completed it today, and he didn’t have company tonight . . . that meant the bed hadn’t yet been used.
Good.
The thought of him occupying this bed with another woman made her tremble with envy.
She wanted him for herself.
There was no denying it any longer. Only deciding what—if anything—she meant to do about it.
Alex regarded herself in the mirror, consulting her conscience. In years to come, her memory of the next few moments would either be cause for pride and satisfaction, or a source of profound regret. One way or another, her life would be altered forever.
“The other night, in your bedchamber . . .” She turned to face him. “You told me there were many ways to give and receive pleasure. A great many ways.”
He nodded slowly. “Yes.”
She steeled her nerve. “Teach me a lesson.”
As Chase stared at her, Alex’s nerve endings tied themselves into knots. Individually. By the time he finally spoke, she was nothing but human carpet fringe.
“You can’t mean that,” he said.
“Before you argue, let me assure you—I’ve thought it all through.”
He looked dazed. “But of course you have.”
Alex navigated around him and went to the well-stocked bar. “Let’s count the advantages.” She slid a whisky decanter toward one end of the counter. “There’s too much tension between us. If we can dispel it, why shouldn’t we? We’re both adults.” She sent a bottle of champagne to join the whisky. “You’re frustrated”—a jug of apple brandy—“and I’m curious.”
He had no response.
“You said yourself, you’re scrupulous about preventing conception and disease. That does away with those risks on my end.” She moved a few more bottles to join the rest, then stood back. “Look at the tally. The conclusion is obvious.”
He blinked at the row of bottles and decanters. “What I’m concluding here is that I should send you to bed and then get roaring drunk.”
“Don’t be absurd. I can’t think of any disadvantages at all, unless . . .” She gave him a coy look and pushed a wine bottle toward the “against” direction. “It might be bad?”
With a huff, he crossed to the bar, grabbed the wine bottle, and plunked it down solidly among the “for” arguments. “It would not be bad.”
“Or maybe . . .” She reached out and nudged the bottle back toward the negative side. “Maybe you don’t want me. I know you could have your choice of lovers.”
“Bloody hell.” His hand closed over hers in an iron grip, keeping the bottle in place. “You know that’s not the source of my hesitation. I haven’t wanted any woman with the fierceness I’ve been wanting you. Not in . . .”
She clung to the end of that sentence by her fingernails. Not in what?
Not in weeks? Not in months? Not in years, decades . . . a lifetime?
Instead of finishing the thought, he left her hanging. Impossible man.
He released her and ambled to the other side of the room. “Alex, lovemaking is something you should explore with a husband. Or at least with someone you love.”
“But you’re not married. You’re not in love.”
“No, and I don’t intend to be.”
“Then why are liaisons acceptable for you, but not for me? It can’t be because I’m a woman. You take women as lovers all the time.”
“Not inexperienced women.”
Inexperienced? Now that was too much. She’d endured more in her lifetime than he could possibly imagine.
“You don’t know what I’ve experienced in my life. Just because I’m a virgin, that doesn’t mean I haven’t lived. I’ve earned the right to make my own choices, thank you.”
He rubbed his face with his hand.
Alex went to him. “I know there’ll be no promises,” she whispered. “I don’t expect them.”
“You should expect them.” His arm tightened around her waist, and his intent gaze swept her face before settling on her lips. “You deserve them. I’ve been shameless, letting you squander your first tastes of passion on me. Someday you’ll meet a man who has it within him to promise you the world. And the moon and stars and a few comets, too.”
Curious that he should mention comets. At the moment, her heart threatened to burst from her chest and blaze a flaming arc across the sky.
“Well . . .” She made a show of looking about the room, craning her neck to search the corners. “Unless you see that man standing about, I’m content to be with you.”
“Alex . . .”
Undeterred, she swept a touch along his cheek, treasuring the dark growth of whiskers there. Then, turning her hand over, she laid the backs of her fingers to his neck. In her best attempt at playing the seductress, she traced them downward in one long, sinuous, unbroken caress, past his Adam’s apple and down through the notch carved at the base of his throat.
By the time her fingers reached his breastbone, she’d reached the end of her bravado, too.
His heart pounded fiercely beneath her touch. Breath rose and fell in his chest. The rest of him remained so quiet and still, Alex’s insides began to quiver with doubt.
Please, she silently begged. Take the reins. Make the next step. Don’t force me to crawl farther out on this limb.
After an eternity, it seemed her choices were to act or spend the rest of her life staring numbly at the dark, flat circle of his nipple.
She summoned the last of her courage and lifted her head. “Cha—”
His mouth fell on hers before she could even complete the syllable. As his hand fisted in her hair and drew her into the kiss, sweet relief melted through her bones.
Breaking away, he loomed over her, filling her vision with his raw, masculine presence. She couldn’t see anything else at all.
Only him.
When he spoke, his voice was so perilously deep it needed a fence and a warning signpost. “If it’s a lesson in pleasure you truly want . . .”
“It is.”
“Then it’s a lesson you’ll get.”
