Breaking the Governess's Rules

Chapter Two

A prior claim. Claim to what? To her? To her hand, or her body? Louisa stared openmouthed at Jonathon as the words echoed around her brain. His hooded eyes held a sensuous promise and his lips were a mere turn of her head away.

She stumbled backwards, away from him, away from his body, narrowly missing a gilt-edged chair.

Louisa put out a steadying hand and grasped its back, shifting the chair so it was between her and Jonathon. She attempted to get her emotions under control. Emotions and dreams were the enemy. They had destroyed her before. They could again. Once she had longed to be married to him and to belong body and soul to him. She had considered them already married, soul mates, and had disregarded all the warnings and well-meant advice to wait until the wedding night. She had mistaken a young man’s lust for all-conquering love and had paid a heavy price. But she had finished paying, years ago.

‘Do you agree I have a prior claim, Louisa?’ His hands closed over hers, pressing them against the giltedged wood.

‘Words said in jest can destroy a person’s reputation, Lord Chesterholm.’ Louisa gave a light laugh to show that his betrayal no longer had the power to hurt. It was in the past and she no longer pined for him or her girlish fantasies. She had rebuilt her life on rock-solid foundations. She had learnt from her mistakes. Her heart might bear scars, but it was whole and safe.

‘I am deadly serious.’ He released her hands and moved the chair so it sat squarely between them. ‘Perhaps you chose to disregard such things. But will your intended? Does he know that you bolt? Does he know you are promised to another?’

‘Hardly promised. What was between us ended years ago.’

‘We were engaged, Louisa,’ his voice purred. ‘We were as close as a man and woman could be, but forgive me—when did you sever our relationship?’

Just after your stepmother informed me you were engaged to another woman, and had been promised to her for months before. You seduced me when you were not free. Louisa kept her breathing steady and wished she had not done her laces up so tightly. ‘Your memory is indeed failing. You never returned.’

‘I was in an accident. It was nine months before I could walk any distance, before I was released from my sickroom.’ An ironic smile played on his full lips. ‘Forgive me for being remiss, but then I was otherwise occupied—attempting to survive.’

‘Nobody told me,’ Louisa whispered.

‘Did you ever ask?’ His words were intended to cut, but instead they gave her strength.

She pushed away from the chair and drew herself up to her full height, regretting that she only reached his chin. ‘I am a respectable person. I always have been, despite what passed between us. Despite your stepmother’s dismissal for loose morals.’

The covered tables and gilt-edged chairs with their air of north-east respectability seemed to leer at her and mock her—as if they too knew about her lapse and how, in her headlong rush towards matrimony, she had ruined her prospects for ever. And no matter what happened in this room, society would deem it all her fault and turn its collective back, just as it had done the last time.

‘You had a choice, Louisa. You knew my habits, my friends, yet you contacted not a single one.’

‘And risk further humiliation?’ Louisa gave a strangled laugh. Even the innocent girl she had been knew the sort of company he kept and how women were passed around like gaily wrapped parcels. She had had their child to think of. No child of hers was going to be abandoned in a foundling home while she warmed another man’s bed. ‘I think not, sir.’

‘And do your swains know about your past? Did Miss Elliot?’

‘Do not threaten me, Lord Chesterholm. I have paid for my sins.’

‘Surely you know me better than that.’ He brushed an imaginary piece of dust from his cuff. ‘I never threaten. I make promises and I always keep my promises.’

‘And that is supposed to make me quake in my evening slippers?’ she asked scornfully.

‘You may do as you like—go dance around St Nicholas’s church in your petticoat if it pleases you, but answer my question. Why did you conspire to fake your death?’

‘You should be careful of your accusations. I have never abandoned anyone, nor have I ever pretended to be anything but alive.’ Louisa gripped her reticule tighter. Dance about St Nicholas’s church dressed only in her petticoats? The man was insupportable. ‘Simply repeating lies over and over does not make them suddenly become the truth.’

‘I never lie. Can I be held to blame if people choose to misinterpret my words?’ A muscle tightened in his jaw and Louisa knew she had scored a hit.

Once she had readily believed the words that had tripped off his tongue. I will love you for ever, Louisa. You are the only woman in the world for me. You are my wife in truth. What is a licence but a piece of paper? I will return. I know how to handle the ribbons of a curricle. I will always find you. Your life will be one of luxury. Instead she had discovered the humiliation and degradation of trying to find work without a reference and what it was like to be pregnant without a friend to turn to. It was then she had stopped believing in happily-ever-afters.

‘Piecrust promises, then—easily made and easily broken. Your servant, Lord Chesterholm, but there is no claim on either’s part.’ Her self-control amazed her, but he did not deserve to know of her heartbreak or the baby. She had decided that long ago. She had her pride. She gave a perfunctory curtsy. ‘You will forgive me, but I have other business to attend to.’

He took a step towards her, brushing aside the chair. It fell to the ground with a thump. ‘In the village churchyard where you grew up, there is a stone that bears your name. I have placed flowers there every year on the anniversary of your death.’

‘Your stepmother engineered my disappearance, as you call it.’ Louisa retreated and found herself pinned between the table, a pile of two chairs and the wall. ‘Why would I seek a life of shame? How could I stay after I had been dismissed? A governess has little choice in such matters.’

The shadows deepened in Jonathon’s eyes and his advance stopped. There was the faint hint of hesitation in his mouth as if he had never suspected his stepmother might do something like that. Louisa’s stomach lurched. He did know. He had to have known what Mrs Ponsby-Smythe had done, what she was capable of doing. A tiny whisper resounded in the back of Louisa’s brain—perhaps he hadn’t known.

She quashed it.

‘I was an innocent, Jonathon. You were infinitely more experienced.’ She paused and controlled the faint tremor in her voice. ‘You knew what you were doing. I had no idea, but I knew you were disappointed in me. We quarrelled. You broke with me. It was a late summer romance and then the chill winds of autumn came.’

‘You are wrong, Louisa, very wrong.’ Jonathon banged his fists together and took a step towards her, his face contorting in anger. ‘I wanted you.’

‘You may wish to live in fantasy worlds, Lord Chesterholm, but mine is solidly grounded in reality.’ She kept her voice steady and her eyes on a spot somewhere over his right shoulder. Dignity and hard-won poise would see her through this ordeal, rather than weeping uncontrollably or shouting. ‘You discarded me because I no longer excited you.’

A faint smile tugged at his mouth. ‘Interesting—that is not my recollection of the night. Untried, yes, but passionate and willing to learn.’

Louisa focused on the dust-sheeted furniture, forced herself to remember the awful words Venetia Ponsby-Smythe had said when Louisa had proudly boasted that she would marry Jonathon. ‘You left your stepmother to sort out the mess just as she had sorted out every other scrape from the Earl’s wife to the little dancing girl at Covent Garden.’

‘Which Earl’s wife? What dancing girl from Covent Garden?’ Jonathon tilted his head to one side, his lips a firm white line. ‘What fustian nonsense are you spouting, Louisa? Why would I ever ask Venetia to do something like that?’

‘The women that your stepmother had to pay off. She showed me a list of your women …’

Jonathon’s mouth dropped open and his eyes were wide with disbelief and horror. The expression vanished in an instant. He slammed his fists together. ‘I have never asked for any assistance from anyone in my family with managing my women, as you call them. I never would.’

‘You married another woman, a woman who was far more acceptable to your family. You were engaged to her when you made love to me,’ Louisa continued on, refusing to allow him and this pretended outrage to distract her. ‘You never looked for me.’

‘One does not look for the dead amongst the living, Louisa. Clarissa and I only became engaged after I thought you were dead,’ he said slowly, running his hand through his hair. A small shiver ran down her spine. He was serious. He had thought her dead. ‘As much as I wanted to believe otherwise, I thought you dead—a fact you have not until now bothered to correct.’

‘I refuse to dignify that remark with an answer.’

‘What were you so frightened of that you had to disappear?’ His voice held a new note, a plea for something. In many ways, it was worse than his anger. Anger she could react against. ‘Did our love-making frighten you? There was so much passion between us.’

She gazed up at the ceiling, noticing the swirls and stains from the burning tallow candles. He was right in a way. She had been frightened, frightened of losing him, particularly after their bitter quarrel in the curricle as they had journeyed back to the house. Her cases had been waiting for her in the vestibule as Mrs Ponsby-Smythe had discovered her lie about her ill friend. And Jonathon had departed before she could ask for his help. Very quickly the enchanted afternoon and night had become a nightmare.

His stepmother had said the very words Louisa had half-expected to hear drip from Jonathon’s lips on his return from his great-uncle’s. She had been a mere plaything and had served her purpose.

A great weariness invaded Louisa’s being. This battle was four years too late. Taunting him was beyond her. Venetia bore some of the blame, but she had put her past behind her.

‘Your stepmother would have made a good general. She leaves nothing to chance. And never gives any quarter to her enemies. Should haves and could haves serve no purpose. What was between us ended and you married another while I began my life again.’ She smoothed the folds of her mauve silk gown, a small action, but one that served to remind her of her independence. Jonathon might threaten and bluster, but ultimately she would survive. ‘Let me go, Jonathon. It is over between us.’

In the silence that followed, Louisa could hear the concertgoers moving around outside the room. A woman had lost a glove, another wanted to find her carriage, little snippets of ordinary conversations that reminded her there was another life out there, waiting for her.

He took a step towards her, his blue-green eyes flashed and his fingers flexed as if only through the greatest act of will-power did he refrain from wringing her neck. ‘No, it is not over.’

‘Four years ago we parted,’ she said and hated the way her voice squeaked. She always promised herself that if they ever met she would be calm and collected. She would act as if nothing had happened and as if the grave in Sorrento did not exist because he had no right to know. And now there had to be a way of making him understand, of getting through to him before he did something that they both regretted. ‘The girl I was, the young man you were … they are gone. Dead, if you like. Unwelcome memories.’

He stopped, fingers outstretched as if he had been about to capture her and pull her to him. A small traitorous part of her was disappointed. Louisa quickly silenced it. Jonathon Ponsby-Smythe, now Fanshaw, Lord Chesterholm, had played her for a fool four years ago. His touch might feature in her dreams, but on waking she remembered the aftermath.

‘You are wrong, Louisa.’ He lifted a hand and brushed her cheek, a butterfly touch, but one that sent pulses of warmth throughout her body. ‘My memory of you is far from unwelcome.’

‘I have put the sordid episode behind me. I suggest you do the same.’

She waited. If anything, his eyes glittered more dangerously. The silence threatened to press down on her soul. He had to believe her. All she had to do was to stick to her rules. They were simple and straightforward.

‘The past has nothing to do with my future, Jonathon.’ Louisa started to push past him, but he stepped in front of her, blocking the door. The cut of his evening coat made his shoulders appear broader than ever. ‘Neither of us wants or desires a scandal. Society has rules for a purpose and I for one intend to keep them … this time.’

‘But scandals can be enjoyable.’

Louisa ignored the sudden prickle of heat that coursed through her. It was simply a reminder of why Jonathon was dangerous. He lived and breathed sensuality in a way no man had before or since. In the intervening years she had not been tempted or felt one ounce of breathlessness. But now she spent a few moments in his company and the hot pounding of her blood started again. This time she was wise and mature and recognised it for what it was—a remembrance. She refused to give in.

‘Remove yourself from the door and allow me to be about my business.’

His hand reached out and grasped her waist gently, but firmly enough to keep her there. The prickle of heat threatened to become a flame. Louisa concentrated on breathing slowly. She had survived such things before. Jonathon would be no different than the major who had had too much to drink at the Trasemeno hotel. Her rules had worked then. They would work now.

‘About my business?’ The lights in his eyes deepened. ‘And what exactly is my business?’