Page 65 of Second Chances
“But it is necessary that you dote on her,” Mrs. Crawford said, looking at Bea’s painting again and smiling disdainfully. “Dearborne is fond of her.”
“Perhaps,” Miss Hopkins said, “she can be sent away to school for a couple of years. I am not sure I will enjoy sharing even this large mansion with a bouncing niece.”
Mrs. Crawford, glancing across the room to where Laura was cleaning brushes, coughed delicately. “Have a care, love,” she said. “I do believe there are ears open.”
“Oh.” Miss Hopkins followed the direction of her glance, and for a moment her eyes raked over the governess with some contempt. “Servants who wish to keep their employment and to be given a character when they are dismissed must learn when it is expedient to keep their mouths shut.”
Bea came bursting back into the room at that moment, all bright-eyed and flushed and smiling. “I am ready,” she said. “This is the new straw bonnet Uncle Bram brought me from town.”
“And very handsome it is too, my dear,” Mrs. Crawford said. “Quite in the latest mode, I do assure you. But then one would expect nothing less if Dearborne chose it.”
“I do declare I am quite jealous,” Miss Hopkins said. “You are ten times prettier than I, dear Beatrice. We had to persuade you to come along to brighten our walk, did we not, Clara? I do not know when I have taken to anyone with as deep an affection as I feel for you.”
“So prettily behaved,” Clara Crawford murmured as the three of them left the schoolroom, leaving the door open behind them.
Laura continued to tidy the room. Poor Bea. She was not a particularly intelligent girl or particularly skilled at any of the accomplishments expected of a lady. But she was a sweet and affectionate girl. With the right handling and the right companions she could develop into a warm and loving woman and could expect a happy life.
Bea would not enjoy school. And having been deserted at an early age by her mother and made anxious about whether she was lovable or not, she did not need an aunt who disliked and despised her—and was jealous of her. The Honorable Miss Alice Hopkins had spoken the truth there.
And it was Miss Hopkins he was going to marry.
It did not matter. It really did not matter whom he married.
And then she looked up sharply. He was standing in the open doorway, one shoulder propped against the frame, watching her. She did not know how long he had been there.
“Beatrice is gone?” he asked.
“Miss Hopkins and Mrs. Crawford came to invite her to go walking with them,” she said.
“Ah.” He continued to watch as she straightened papers that did not need straightening. “I knew it, of course. I saw them walking away together. My other guests are all busy about various pursuits. I excused myself on the grounds that I had business to attend to for a few hours.”
She clasped her hands in front of her, refusing to fidget further in his presence. “It is happening already?” she said. “You feel the need to escape the boredom?”
“Miss Melfort.” His eyes bored into hers from across the room. “You are impertinent.”
Yes. She really could not imagine how she had said those words aloud. Perhaps she had felt the need to strike back a little for the humiliation she had just suffered at the hands of his future bride and her sister.
He pushed his shoulder away from the door frame and strolled into the room and across to the window. He stood staring down at the formal gardens below. “And quite correct, damn you,” he said.
“In the rectory where I grew up,” she said, “we were not allowed to use profane language and no one was allowed to use it in our hearing.”
His head turned and he regarded her coolly. She could not decide if his blank eyes hid anger or amusement. “My apologies,” he said.
She swallowed.
“My guests bore me,” he said, “when I must suffer them throughout the daylight hours and beyond. And so I must plot occasional escape. I have come to you, Miss Prim and Proper. Entertain me.”
She wondered if he realized that his words were provocative. And she wondered if she had become very depraved to notice. “I don’t know how,” she said.
He was still looking at her over his shoulder. “And yet we are both thinking with great clarity of one way, are we not?” he said. “It would be inappropriate, Miss Melfort. I do not know if I will ever be able to forgive you for showing yourself to me as a woman on one very memorable night. Or forgive myself for kissing you. Talk to me. About something other than the weather or bonnets or fans.”
He was not flirting with her. He had made that very clear. And yet he had made her suffocatingly aware of him as a man. His fashionable formfitting coat and his pantaloons and Hessian boots molded themselves to his powerful frame. His face was achingly handsome.
“Never tell me,” he said, “that you have no conversation except on those topics. I expected better of you. Come.” He stood back from the window. “Sit on the window seat and make yourself comfortable instead of standing there in the shadows like a statue.”
She approached him hesitantly and seated herself on the padded window seat in front of him, arranging her cotton skirts carefully about her. He continued to stand, though he lifted one booted foot and set it on the seat beside her. He rested one arm across his raised leg, so that his face was on a level with her own and a little too close for comfort.
“The rectory,” he said. “Tell me about it. Tell me about your childhood and girlhood.”
