Etiquette With The Devil (14 page)

Clara dropped the edge of the curtain, smiling as Molly’s little boy Teddy chased after Grace in the gardens down below. Ned was turning over another garden bed and Molly was seeing to the mending, while she watched over the two children.

“Are we done yet, Miss Clara?” Minnie whined.

Clara turned in time to catch the girl wilting over the table like the flowers Grace had picked yesterday and scattered about the kitchen floor.

“We will be when you are. I want you to recite the conjugations of
danser
to me one more time.”

Minnie shook her head, her strawberry blond hair coming loose from its bow. Against Minnie, even ribbon could not tame all that was wild about the child. Her spirit was simply too big for such a little body.

“Your Lords—James?”

He squinted, fiddling with the globe by the school table. The world spun and spun, a whirl of great continents, until they bled into oceans.

“Well, it seems I have a mutiny on my hands.” Clara hefted her hands to her hips and tilted her head toward the two eldest Ravensdale children. “I suppose it’s better than ink in my tea or frogs in my bed,” she muttered to herself. Minnie and James did not move, nor acted as if they listened. “That’s too bad, because I had it on good authority that there’d be a picnic later if we finished our lessons.”

Minnie sat up, wiping the hair from her face. Those hazel eyes of hers, the same as her uncle’s, startled Clara. She wondered if he was in better health today, still caught up on the sight of his sickly pallor last evening and the sweat that beaded at his forehead as he accepted his dinner plate from her. His eyes had been full of fever, those lips of his, that she almost kissed, had been dry and chapped. She had wanted to run balm over them with the pad of her thumb, to settle him back in bed, to see him well. The very notion is what made her convinced she was the one suffering from a fever.

“And kite flying,” Clara finished. “As long as the wind continues.”

The globe stopped spinning and she was met with another set of wide eyes, those of James. They were two wholly different children. One, quiet and withdrawn. The other, every polar opposite. Minnie possessed the same fire as her uncle, the same innate ability to touch and move over nearly every surface of a room. She was quite certain if she could find a way to connect with James and that strange brain of his, he would prove an excellent student, and though young, Minnie already showed signs of having no head of lessons, drawing, or comportment. Heaven help Clara when she finally broached the subject of embroidery. She feared it would be the same as furnishing the girl with a weapon.

“Ah, so now I have your attention. Very well.” Clara walked across the school room and sat on the petite chair, her hands clasped on her lap. “I know that this year has been full of trials for you both. It is very difficult to have to grow up all at once, but you are both such brave children and are doing well. I am very proud to know you.”

“I want to return home,” Minnie said. “Can we go back to India, Miss Clara? You can come with us. And Lucy and Raja, too.”

James peered at his sister, then at Clara, dropping his eyes back to the globe. “India isn’t home for us any longer, Minnie. We live here now.”

“Uncle gets to return to India.”

“And Burton Hall is my home now, too,” Clara said. “We will make the best of it. Even the bad.” Two heads nodded solemnly. “And that goes for lessons as well. You are both exceedingly smart and I daresay smarter than me.”

“Or uncle?” James asked. “He knows seven languages.”

Clara somehow doubted that. He showed a poor execution of his own native tongue. She pressed on, ignoring that last point. “You can know that many as well. Tomorrow will be begin with Italian.” Their excitement was nonexistent at this news. “How about this? Before we break, you each tell me your very favorite fact about India and one question about England you would like an answer to.”

“Your uncle knows more than seven languages, in fact,” an unfamiliar man spoke from the doorway.

Clara jerked back, fighting the urge to duck underneath the table. She could not afford to meet new faces when she was still wishing to forget about one in particular. “May I help you?” she said instead.

“No,” the man answered. His hands stretched out across the doorway, drumming on the molding Clara had so thoroughly dusted and scrubbed down. “Not unless you’d like me to conjugate
danser
.”

Perhaps it was his hawkish eyes, the way they scoured Clara and ripped her apart like a field mouse without mercy, or the way ease set into his shoulders as he spoke. He carried the same lie as Mr. Ravensdale—that careful nonchalance that left her uneasy and her cheeks heated.

Clara was not an object to be studied, nor did she wish to be. She had thought governesses were meant to fade into the background of a house such as Burton Hall. Instead, she seemed in a constant battle with Mr. Ravensdale to do as she was hired—him thrusting her into a position of authority when she would rather be left alone in the schoolroom.

“We’re in the middle of our lessons, sir.” Her voice did skip a nervous beat, as though her sentence was a bad attempt of a pebble skimming the surface of a pond. It sank with a quiet thud until his smile spread.

“I don’t mean to alarm you, Ms. Dawson. I’m a business associate of Mr. Ravensdale, a friend. We met briefly at dinner last evening.”

Of course. In the light of the day, the man was groomed and well-dressed, not at all similar to the unkempt and bearded man of last evening.

“Mr. William Graham,” he continued.

That still did not answer why he was blocking the exit to the schoolroom. He was coaxing, and the way he delivered such information made her accept, for a minute, that she would believe any narrative he fed her. Where Mr. Ravensdale lacked Mr. Barnes’s bright charm, he possessed the same overflowing imperiousness that this stranger held, despite being a more brutish copy.

“Consider yourselves lucky, my dears.” Clara turned her attention to the children. “You may consider lessons finished for now, but I want to know your answers when you return with Molly. I am going to trust that the two of you can bring yourself to the kitchen.”

They both perked up, not adjusting well to the new rules that they must be escorted around the house by an adult.

“Like children, not savages. Well-behaved children who wish to go on a picnic later,” she stressed for good measure.

Mr. Graham moved from the doorway as they walked out into the hallway. A moment out of sight, footsteps raced down the hallway to a chorus of “
je danse, tu danses, il danse, nous dansez, vous dansez, ils dansent
.”

“If I had had a governess the likes of you, I might have amounted to more than a shipping clerk,” Mr. Graham said.

Nerves set on; memories as well. Could she not be left alone in this house instead of always being sought out?

Clara stood, ignoring his comment, pulling her mouth into a tight pucker. She went back to the window, peering out as James and Minnie burst from the house to join the others in the maze of gardens surrounding the house.

“Excuse me, Mr. Graham. I have a short time on my own and I have reading that must be done.”

He folded his arms over his chest and watched as she tidied the room, anything to hide the fact that she wished to flee and scream for the very man she wished not to see the most.

“Pardon if I speak boldly, but it is not proper for you to be here,” she said, snapping up with an armful of school texts.

“Rules are lost on men like me, Miss Dawson. Forgive the intrusion. The trip from India has made me weary and I found myself wandering the halls. It was an innocent mistake.”

It took no skill to denote the man scoured the halls, more like. He did not lay waste to anything; at least that was what Clara could figure by the way he picked at his jacket’s cuffs, so completely bored with her rising temper.

“Where are you from, Miss Dawson? You sound as though you come from the southern half of the country.”

Clara felt the blood drain from her as if he had sliced her wrist with that question. “London, sir.”

“Recently?”

Flustered, she dropped the books on the table, unsure of where they needed to be stashed.

“I suppose you read about this position in the papers. Unless you have a familiar connection with Bly.”

How foolish it was that she had come to claim that name as hers and hers alone to say. Barely a day had passed since she had learned his name, but it had not taken long to find roots in her chest.

Clara held her head high, then dipped into a shallow bow. “I must insist I take my leave. My break is short and there’s much to sort out.”

He allowed her to pass, not saying a word. Brandy soured the air around him as she flew past, sucking in a breath as she reached the hall. Even in the depths of Yorkshire it seemed Clara would find no rest. She had been forced her to live her life braced in a corner, weary and watchful, waiting for the next incursion.

Apparently, this one was named Mr. Graham.

*

Clara was enraptured in her torrid novel, tucked away in her small bedroom for the remainder of her short break. Admittedly, she had a soft spot for the dashing hero. Whether realistic or not, silly novels were her escape. They allowed her to forget, if only for a short time, that she was alone.

A hero was well and good, but she found herself falling back on her encounter with Mr. Graham. No, a hero would fix that sinking feeling in her stomach. Reading had always promised a great escape.

“You have a large collection of novels, Dawson.”

Clara did not look up from her book. “What I could manage to bring.”

She was sitting on the window ledge, her knees drawn to her chest, as she continued reading. She should not be sitting, as she was in mixed company. Try as she might, she did not care when the fate of the novel’s heroine hung in the balance.

“Is reading your favorite pasttime?” Mr. Ravensdale stepped in without invitation.

She had enough lecturing for one day, but even he should know not to step into her quarters. “One of them,” she managed, her eyes focused on the page in front of her.

She did not have to look to know that Mr. Ravensdale was standing by the writing desk in the middle of the room. She felt him in the most disconcerting way. It was similar to the look he flashed from time to time that felt akin to him undressing her.

“
Pamela, Wuthering Heights, Lady Audley’s Secret.
Reading seems frivolous,” he said, leaning up against the desk.

“No doubt.” With the way Mr. Ravensdale behaved, it seemed entirely plausible that he had been raised by a pack of wolves.

“You’ve a very sharp tongue,” he observed with a dry laugh. He stalked closer as she pressed against the window to escape his searching eyes. They were bright, vivid, and burning. “Where’s your bloody etiquette manual? I’ve come to destroy it.”

She dropped her eyes and turned the page, unsure of what was happening to the heroine now as she was suddenly being chased down by her own villain.

“The doctor paid me a visit today.”

“Is that so?” Clara grasped onto the book a bit tighter.

“It’s curious because I hadn’t sent for him. Do you know who did?”

“Why would I know? I am only the governess. I am expected to be in the schoolroom each morning and have been given leave each Tuesday and Sunday afternoon.” Clara could not resist taunting him, although she should have as he took another step closer. She looked from her book, darting a nervous glance in his direction before diverting her eyes back to the page.

“I see. Then perhaps you will be happy to learn that I shall survive.” When she did not answer, he took yet another step, setting her nerves on edge. “Or perhaps you wish I would expire.”

She faced him finally. “Stop talking nonsense.”

“So,” he said, dropping his voice to a smooth whisper. She noted the small upturn at his lips, only lofting her nose at his irritating invasion, effectively putting them in a standoff. He grabbed her book and tugged, forcing her to look him in the eye. She pulled back, but he was too strong.

“You looked feverish yesterday,” she rushed out, her voice barely a whisper. The heat of embarrassment colored her cheeks. For her to notice such things meant that she had watched him closely and she despised having to admit as much, especially to him.

His smile grew ever so slightly at her admission. “This has caught your attention I see!” He pulled the book from her hands and paused in the middle of the room.

“Give that back!” she cried, jumping to her feet and balling her fists. It was unladylike, but there was a strong possibility that if he continued to torment her, she would finally lay a fist into his nose. Perfect face or no.

He held the book high above his head, well out of reach, and began to read.

“‘Marigold gasped as he clutched at her bosom.’” Mr. Ravensdale paused and quirked an eyebrow at Clara before continuing in a high, breathy voice, “‘No, Riccardo, this cannot be!’ Marigold cried, attempting to pull away from the dashing highwayman.”

Clara jumped for the book, but he held out his other arm and blocked her feeble attempt, laughing. “Stop tormenting me, you insufferable lout!”