Kissed at Midnight (2 page)

“Thirty-five then. With room
and board. That is more than fair.”

Ivy swallowed. Thirty-five
pounds was more money than she could have possibly hoped for. The chances were
the family on Elm Tree would have taken one look at her references and chosen
someone with much more experience. And governess jobs were in high demand.
Where else could fairly respectable women work? After a year of trying to carve
a career as a singer, she was down to pennies. Of course not, being able to—

“Well?”

“I’m a governess, Mr Avery,”
she said softly. Well, sort of. “Not a nursemaid.”

“Do you want the job or
not?”

Ivy ran her gaze over the
handsome gentleman in front of her. If she didn’t find what her parents would
call a proper job, she would be out on the streets. Her landlady was already demanding
this week’s rent and she had no food and few belongings left to pawn.

And she could not go back to
her family home. She simply could not. They would be thrilled to see her dreams
had come to nothing. And Mother would dig out the nearest old, crusty, wealthy
man she could find and have her married off before she had even put a foot on
the doorstep.

“I do,” she said huskily.
His brash stare made her feel like shrinking into herself while her body
tingled with awareness.

Mr Avery might be handsome
but he appeared to be quite the commanding man too. She hoped they didn’t
clash. Ivy never did take well to people telling her what to do. It was exactly
why she had run away to London to pursue a singing career. He would not be
around much surely? He hadn’t said what he did but to live in such an area and
dress as he did, he had to be wealthy. A shipping merchant perhaps. Or a mill
owner.

The door to the drawing room
opened and the frailest looking excuse for a footman entered. Ivy clutched her
purse to fight the urge to jump up and snatch the tray from his shaky hands. It
seemed to take an eternity for him to bring the tray over to the table in the
centre of the room and, when he bent, Ivy was sure she heard his bones creak
and click.

“Thank you, Jamieson,”
August said. “Will you see if Mrs Cartwright would be so kind as to put Elsie
to bed now? I’m sure the child will cause no more fuss.”

“Of course, sir,” the old
man responded in a voice that sounded as frail as he appeared.

They both watched the
footman retreat, and she let out a breath when the door slowly shut,
half-relieved the man hadn’t dropped dead in front of her.

“Jamieson has been with me
for many years and served my father before me,” Mr Avery explained. “It would
be a darn sight quicker to do everything myself or replace him, but the old
fool would probably keel over if I suggested he retired.”

“I see. Well, that’s very...
kind of you to keep him on,” she said diplomatically. Mr Avery certainly spoke
with directness. Ivy might have appreciated it had she known him better. After
all, she rarely thought before
she
spoke.

“The only other members of
staff are Mrs Cartwright, the housekeeper, and Tilly, the maid. With just me,
there’s no sense in keeping a large household, and I travel around England a
lot.” He clasped his hands together. “So, you said you have references?”

“Oh, yes.”

She gulped and drew them out
of her purse. She only hoped Mrs Locke’s words were worth more than that of
Bobby, the innkeeper, with whom she had worked a few times when in need of
money.

He took the letters from
her, the baby still held firmly in one arm, and flicked them open with a deft
hand. She observed as he scanned the letters, far too quickly to be reading
them properly, she suspected.

Why was he not married? He
had to be thirty and though he seemed a little abrupt, he wasn’t rude. What was
a little abruptness when faced with a handsome, rich man? He certainly appealed
more than any of the decrepit old suitors Mother had lined up for her. Most of
them made Jamieson look as sprightly as a newborn lamb and ten times more
appealing.

“Your experience is
limited,” he mused.

Her heart sank. “It is. But I
am a hard worker and I’m well-educated.”

Mr Avery pressed a finger to
his lips and met her gaze. “I consider myself a good judge of character,” he
said, casting the letters aside. “I hope you will not repay my trust with
dishonesty.”

“I can have the job then?”

He nodded sharply. “Yes.”

“Oh, thank you.” Relief
washed through her. She would have a nice, safe place to live. Warmth, food,
employment. It was more than she’d had in a year. She beamed at him. “Thank you
so much, sir. I promise you will not regret your decision.”

He might regret it, August thought, as he recalled the
jubilation in those dark, expressive eyes. Yes, he might very well regret
taking on the exotic young creature as a nursemaid. He paused his pacing to
peer out of the drawing room window and pursed his lips. Needs must. He
couldn’t go on for much longer trying to look after the child himself and Mrs
Cartwright was on the verge of rebellion. As housekeeper and cook, she
considered herself far above the station of nursemaid and, he had to admit, she
hardly had time to nurse a baby.

Hell, he certainly didn’t.
With the way things were progressing with the new railway tunnel, he needed to
be on site, not juggling a child in one arm whilst pouring over the designs for
the tunnel in his study. This Miss Davis had come at just the right time. Now
he would not have to get around to putting out an advertisement and
interviewing potential candidates.

She had been quite
attractive, he supposed. She had near glowed with excitement. With deep, dark
eyes and an exotic complexion, he might have marked her as Italian or Spanish,
except her accent was refined with no hint of a lilt.

Still, attractive or not, he
needed a nursemaid, and for some reason this beautiful young woman needed a
job.

“Can you start tomorrow?” he
had asked her.

“Oh yes,” she’d replied
breathily.

For some reason, that
response kept playing over in his mind again and again.
Oh yes...Oh yes.
“Oh yes,” he said experimentally to himself, then smirked. It did not sound
nearly as appealing when he said it.

He glanced at the clock on
the mantelpiece and patted the inner pocket of his jacket, only to remember his
cigarettes weren’t there. “Bugger it.” He had stopped smoking almost a year
ago.

August grimaced at the
coarse words. He was going to have to watch his tongue around Miss Davis. There
was a refined air to her. He wasn’t sure where she had come from or why she had
a reference from an innkeeper, but he knew breeding when he saw it. His own
beginnings were not so shabby, but time spent with the navvies had roughened
his edges.

August began to pace again.
He hoped this was not a sign of things to come. She was half an hour late.
Thank God Elsie had decided to behave and go down for a nap. She had kept him
awake much of the night and Mrs Cartwright looked ready to poison his food. No
doubt the child had kept her awake—and likely the whole neighbourhood too.

He scraped a hand through
his hair and stopped when a flash of pink caught his attention. Hand on her
hat, Miss Davis weaved through the pedestrians on the other side of the road.
She moved with careless grace, as though she might spill to the floor at any
moment, yet somehow her feet always found the right spot. This nursemaid...
governess... whatever she was, was a disaster waiting to happen.

And yet he’d given her a
job.

Letting his hand slide down
to the back of his neck and gripping it, he sighed. Perhaps all the late nights
had addled his wits. But, as he had told her, he was a good judge of character
and she was honest. Hopefully she would live up to her promise and be hard-working
too. He could not abide laziness.

She crossed the road, and he
winced as she barely avoided an oncoming cabriolet. The horses rattled past,
and it looked as though the driver shouted something none-too-gentlemanlike at
her. He saw her sheepish expression quickly vanish to give way to a smile. If
the driver had seen the smile, he might have bitterly regretted his words. It
was quite the smile.

He waited until she made her
way up the stairs, a large brown trunk in hand. She took an inordinate amount of
effort to lift the luggage up to the front door, and he burned to tear open the
door and help her, but she was his staff, he reminded himself. Here to serve
him. No, not serve... Damn it, she was here for Elsie. What was wrong with him
today?

Clearly he was not cut out
for fatherhood. The rattle of the door knocker vibrated through the house. She
had a habit of doing some God-awful rat-a-tat-tat rhythm. Like a little tune. Miss
Davis had done it the previous day too and to say he’d been irritated by it was
putting it mildly. At least he’d never mistake that knock for anyone else.

Instead of waiting for Jamieson
to answer the door—knowing he would be waiting forever—August strode out of the
drawing room to pull it open.

“Come in,” he said, hoping
he didn’t sound as weary as he felt.

Her youthful vibrancy had
that effect on him. Hell, he was only thirty but over a decade of working hard
in the world of men had certainly aged him. However, for the most part, he was
proud of his achievements—being one of the youngest men to become an authority
on railway engineering was no mean feat.

“Thank you.” That wide smile
remained, revealing a flash of white teeth against her sun-kissed skin. She
dragged in the trunk and placed it on the floor.

And his foot. He cursed and
hopped away.

“Oh, I’m so—” She rose and
her pink, feather trimmed hat caught him under his chin, knocking it from her
head and sending a cascade of curls over her face.

August straightened,
grimacing as his toes throbbed, while she fumbled to retrieve her monstrosity
of a hat.

Hands to her hair, she
attempted to stuff all the curls back into place and then shrugged, giving him
a rueful smile. “I am sorry.”

“What do you have in that
thing? Rocks?” He regretted the words when he noted her astonished expression
until she burst out laughing.

“Books mostly.”

Mollified, he nodded curtly.
“Leave it there. I’ll have...” No, Jamieson would keel over with the weight of
it. “I’ll take it up in just a moment,” he corrected himself. “Let me show you
to your room.”

“Where is the baby?”

“Sleeping. She is in the
adjoining room to yours. There’s a door between the rooms, but I expect you to
keep it open at night. She does not sleep well and still requires a night time
feed.”

He put his hand to the
banister of the stairs, only for her to speak again, causing him to pause and
face her.

“And you’ve been doing this
yourself?”

“Yes.”

“I see.”

“Let me show you to your
room, then you can interrogate me all you wish, Miss Davis.”

“Forgive me, sir. I did not
mean to...”

He stomped up the stairs
before she could continue.  He’d already endured many questions when it came to
the care of Elsie.
What was a bachelor doing looking after a baby? Had he
got some poor woman in the family way? Why did he not just send her to an
orphanage?
Then there had been suggestions that he ought to find a wife
sharpish. Bugger that. August had little intention of snatching up the nearest
woman and wedding her.

The rustle of the skirts of
the nearest woman to him right now drew his attention back to the task in hand.
He led her down the hallway to the room next to Elsie’s. The door to the infant’s
room was open so he peered around quickly to check she was still sleeping. The
child slept on, both arms splayed about her head. At times like this, he could
not doubt his decision to keep her. The child was one of his few blood relatives
alive. Why would he send such a helpless thing to an orphanage?

Aware of Miss Davis directly
behind him and the vague scent of flowers—violets he guessed—emanating from
her, he pushed open the door to her room and stood back to allow her to slip past.
Her bright pink skirts clashed horribly with the deep burgundy wall paper and
bedding, but against the dark wood of the canopied bed, she did make quite the intriguing
sight.

Miss Davis lay down her hat
on the dressing table and did a circle of the room, sweeping a graceful finger
over the furnishings. The notion she was far too elegant to be a mere governess
struck him again.

“I hope everything is to
your liking.”

She bestowed him with a
wide, grateful smile. It dived deep down inside him and yanked at his gut. He
quickly crushed the sensation.

“Yes, it’s lovely, thank
you.”

“I’ll bring up your trunk
and once you have unpacked, if you could join me in the drawing room, we shall
discuss your duties.”

“Sounds perfect.”

August skimmed his gaze over
her frightful pink dress, back up to where her black curls having fallen loose
and spilled over her shoulders and finally landed back on those widely
stretched lips.

Perfect.

He grimaced and turned away
before he could think on things any further. He wasn’t the first man to have a
pretty governess, and he certainly wouldn’t be the last.

***

A cry broke the usual sounds of the creaky house with its
occasional dripping taps. August bolted upright, swiped a hand across his face
and put his feet to the floor.

And paused.

His heart leaped when he
heard footsteps. Of course, he wasn’t needed. Elsie was Miss Davis’s concern
now. He listened for a few moments, waiting for the cry to subside. It did, and
along with it came the sound of feminine reassurances.

He slipped back into bed and
sank against his pillow. August couldn’t help but strain to listen to her
words. Would she manage her duties? She seemed confident enough after they had
spoken of them. He had explained fully how Elsie had come to him and his
decision to keep her. The admiration filling her gaze had been mildly
disturbing.

When he was trying to shush
the child to sleep or was fighting to stay awake during the day and manage her
and his work, he could not help but wonder if she wouldn’t have been better off
in an orphanage, under the care of women.

But he knew of those
places—knew people who had come from such homes—and he would not subject an
innocent baby to such a start in life. It was bad enough both her parents were
dead—her father to fever when she was only a month old, her mother not long
after.

August remained against the
pillow until he heard the quiet pad of footsteps. His heart skipped when a
knock rattled through the house. He bolted upright and listened. There it was
again. Not an intruder surely?

Slipping out of bed, he
snatched his robe from the stand and opened the bedroom door. He stilled when
he found Miss Davis silhouetted in her doorway. No candles were lit but the
light from the window at the end of the hall highlighted her enough. Too much
really. He averted his gaze and nodded towards the bedroom.

“Go into Elsie’s room and
shut the door,” he whispered.

She nodded and backed away,
leaving him feeling as though he’d just jumped into a fire. Sweat made his
nightshirt cling to his back. He eased downstairs and paused to listen. The
knock at the door had him whirling towards it.

“Bloody buggering hell,” he
muttered to himself. Who in the devil was knocking at this time of night?

He eased open the door a
fraction and didn’t know whether to slam it shut again or breathe a sigh of
relief that it wasn’t a murderer intent on slaying them all in their beds.

“Mrs Pepperwhite,” he
greeted through clenched teeth. “Whatever are you doing out here?”

“Forgive me, Mr Avery,” his
neighbour said in a sickly manner that made him reconsider slamming the door
shut. “I was just getting a drink and I saw someone snooping around at the back
of the houses.”

“So you decided to go
outside?”

“Well, if it was someone
trying to get in, I couldn’t very well ignore them.”

He glanced over the woman
with her nightcap and evening coat that covered a prim-looking nightgown. A far
cry from the rather pleasant sight that Ivy had presented. Mrs Pepperwhite was
around his age and recently widowed. Since then, she had become a regular
visitor to his doorstep.

Knowing he wouldn’t get any
rest until he had appeased her, he jerked his head towards the hallway. “Why do
you not wait in here, and I shall have a look around?”

She issued a relieved smile
and stepped past him, brushing non-too-subtly against him. He cringed inwardly.
Slipping on his shoes, he pulled his robe around him.

“Be careful.”

He nodded. He doubted he had
anything to worry about. Likely the woman was paranoid or looking for an excuse
to see him. August slipped out of the door and drew it carefully shut. He
didn’t have a weapon or anything with which to defend himself, but he
considered the woman inside more of a threat than anything that could be out
here.

No, make that both women. He
really shouldn’t be remembering what Miss Davis looked like in her nightgown at
all.

He did a quick patrol of the
front of their adjoined houses then slipped through the alleyway farther up
that led to the back.

Nothing save from the hoot
of an owl and the rustle of a creature—either a hedgehog or a fox or perhaps
even a harmless tomcat.

Cool air swirled around his
legs and he cursed his neighbour under his breath.