Tainted by Temptation (3 page)

“I’m lighting the fire.”

Velvet paused, uncertain. Holding the pitcher out made her arm shake. She lowered it. In her present state, could she carry a full pitcher up a flight of stairs? She would have to dress first and then undress again to wash.

She set the pitcher on the floor and sank down on top of her wet clothing on the chair. The room was cold and she wanted a fire. She laid her head on her arm, trying to breathe deeply enough to chase the dancing spots from her eyes.

She just had to get through this evening, and surely the meal would help restore her strength, but the thought of food left her nauseous. Somehow she managed to stand and retrieve her clean gray dress and shift from her portmanteau.

While Nellie worked at starting the fire, Velvet shimmied into the clean shift.

“You ain’t nothing but skin and bones,” said Nellie.

Velvet found the comment offensive, but she wasn’t about to bypass an opening to be chatty. A governess’s lot, caught between the upstairs and downstairs, could be miserable enough without cordial relationships with the staff. “Yes, well I haven’t been eating too well lately.”

“Why’s that?” asked Nellie.

Velvet hadn’t wanted to be that friendly. “Living in London can be expensive, and I went a few months between positions.”

She’d been dismissed from her last position without her pay. She was tossed out in the street in her bare feet and torn nightgown. Her bags were packed and tossed out to her, but her savings had not been included. One of the servants might have taken her money, or a member of the family had. The pittance she received for selling her father’s watch had been gone before a month was out.

“That explains it,” said Nellie cryptically.

Velvet picked up her corset to put it back on and realized the strings hadn’t just been loosened. They’d been cut. She couldn’t dress without it, or she’d look like the floozy she was reported to be. “Explains what?”

Nellie brushed off her hands and moved to the door, leaving the coal bucket and the water pitcher on the floor. “No one who has a choice comes to work here, not since the mistress died anyway.”

Velvet closed her eyes.

“Can’t keep help. You have to fetch your own coal and water. You’re allowed one bucket o’coal a day.” Nellie left the room and closed the door.

Velvet was left alone with her destroyed corset strings and the patter of rain on the windows.

Velvet was late for dinner. Using her shoelaces to string her corset had eaten up precious time. She didn’t know which room was the dining room. Her heart fluttering, she scurried along the ground floor and peeked behind closed doors. If there were footmen about, they made no move to direct her.

The house was empty and dark. The wind howled, and every now and then a draft scuttled down the corridors. Each unfamiliar creak of the floor made her heart flutter. She wasn’t a timid woman, but the house left her feeling small and defenseless.

She opened another door. In the dimness she made out a round table and a large sideboard, but the room was dark. The breakfast room perhaps. She had to be close to the dining room.

The next room had a double door. Velvet rolled her eyes. She knew enough about the layout of country houses that she should have looked for double doors. She paused, trying to collect her emotions and failing. She hated being late, especially if anyone was waiting on her.

She opened the door and slipped inside. Mr. Pendar stood in front of the fire at the far end, his back to the entrance. She saw only him. He was not burly, by any means, but his sloped shoulders veed down to narrow hips, leaving no doubt about his masculinity. Just his presence filled the elongated room.

His gaze seemed fixed on the flames licking the blackened bricks of the fireplace. She clicked the door shut.

He swiveled, giving the impression of a wild animal startled out of solitary contemplation. Tightly controlled energy radiated from him.

She hesitated. The apology she’d rehearsed in her head evaporated before the words could pass her lips. Why this man turned her into a quivering ninny, she didn’t know. She stepped forward, encountering the long expanse of a dining table. Two places were set at the far end, near the fire.

Velvet resisted the urge to back away. Her father’s admonition to meet his eyes echoed in her head. Looking down or away was tantamount to admitting guilt, according to him. In fact, she always met a man’s gaze squarely, rarely did she feel like turning away. But Mr. Pendar’s gaze cut through her as if he could see all the way to her damned-to-hell soul.

He drew out the chair on his right hand side. “Miss Campbell.”

His voice vibrated through her. She wanted to turn and leave. She forced her feet forward. Her steps felt wobbly, as her boots were missing laces. She’d done her best to secure them with the remnants of her corset strings.

He watched her as she moved past chair after rosewood chair. The table would easily seat twenty on each side. Her heart pounded and she was breathless by the time she reached the chair he held for her. She lowered herself to sit, all too aware of his proximity, his dark eyes on her, and the very maleness of his essence. He eased her seat in underneath her.

She thanked him and was dismayed to hear her voice all breathy and high. She despised weak females and feared she had become one.

Her employer gave a yank on the bellpull and seated himself at the head of the table. The slashing scar was away from her view.

“I trust you are feeling better,” he said.

Velvet paused in the middle of pulling her mended napkin onto her lap. “Yes, thank you.” She tried not to breathe too hard, for fear she would snap the worn shoelaces in her corset. Even though it wasn’t laced tight, her shoestrings had seen better days.

Mrs. Bigsby entered carrying a large tureen. She clunked it down on the table and ladled soup into their bowls. Her movements were brusque. Soup splashed on the rim of the bowl and onto Velvet’s last clean dress. Discreetly dabbing at the spill with her napkin, she waited until her employer picked up his spoon.

Too nervous to risk a silent prayer when he didn’t offer one, Velvet mimicked him. The rich chowder settled in her stomach like lead.

“Have you taught a girl before?” asked Mr. Pendar.

Her stomach too unsettled, Velvet put down her spoon. “A long time ago.”

He watched her as he continued to raise his soup spoon to his lips. His mouth fascinated her. His lips were angular, not quite thin, but a long way from sensual, poised on the edge of cruel.

She clasped her hands in her lap. “I assisted my father in the parish school. We taught girls as well as boys.”

“I am told you can teach Iris to play the pianoforte and feminine skills.”

His agent in London had asked her these questions. “I can teach her rudimentary pianoforte, watercolors, and needlework skills. But my true strengths are in the classroom.”

He gave a slight snort. “You’ll have a hard time getting her in the schoolroom. She’s like her mother.”

“Her mother didn’t value education?” asked Velvet.

His mouth twisted in a slightly cruel way. “Not for women.”

All Velvet’s positions had been with families with boys. Boys she’d taught Latin and mathematics, readying them for Oxford and Cambridge. “Do you share that view?”

He met her gaze, and a shiver raced down her spine. “Iris should know how to read and write and enough math to manage pin money.”

Mrs. Bigsby entered and slapped a platter of fish and potatoes on the table. Velvet jumped. Mr. Bigsby followed with rolls, wine, and a bowl of peas. The housekeeper scowled as she removed Velvet’s barely touched bowl of soup.

Mr. Bigsby splashed red wine in her glass.

“Will you be needing anything else?” asked Mrs. Bigsby.

“Thank you, that will be all,” said Mr. Pendar. He served himself from the nearest dishes.

The Bigsbys left the room.

“Anything beyond rudimentary skills isn’t necessary. If you can get Iris ready for marriage in a half-dozen years, I’ll count myself lucky.”

Velvet’s heart plummeted. Her love of academics would be wasted in this household. But then she was grateful to have a job at all. In six or seven years perhaps her reputation would be forgotten or she would be too old to be considered a threat. She’d have thought most would have considered her well past her prime now.

“I’ll do my best,” she said, then took a sip of the rich wine.

“Iris will be in your care from nine in the morning until she goes to bed at eight.” He placed a portion of the flaky white fish on her plate. “I’ll leave it to your discretion whether she takes dinner with us or not. I suppose she is getting too old to exclude.”

Velvet breathed a sigh of relief. Surely having her charge dine with them would be better than dining so intimately with her employer. Or perhaps he had insisted they dine together to discuss her duties. “Very well, sir.”

“You may have Saturday afternoon and Sunday to yourself.”

She nodded. An afternoon and an entire day off was generous.

“As you know, keeping a governess for Iris has been difficult.” His eyebrows tightened as he dished peas on his plate and passed them to her. “You will not receive your wages for twelve months.”

To be paid twice a year was not unusual, but without access to any of her wages for a year was a long time. She would be virtually trapped here. “What if I need to make some incidental purchases?”

“Give a list to Mrs. Bigsby, and I will review and authorize each purchase on your behalf.”

So much for the shilling sixpence she’d need to get to Plymouth. Besides she needed new strings for her corset. Even though he was responsible for cutting the strings, she wasn’t sure she wanted him reviewing her need for them.

“I see,” she said dryly. She bit back her objections. She couldn’t go back to London or she would become the fallen woman they said she was. What was left except trolling the streets, or submitting to an employer’s advances?

“If I have to dismiss you for cause in the interim, you will be paid only half wages. Is that clear, Miss Campbell?”

“Clear as a bell,” she answered, refusing to be cowed. “I will not give you cause.”

He nodded. “Fair enough.”

She studied Mr. Pendar’s profile. His face was angular, with long flat cheeks, an aristocratic forehead, and a sharp nose perhaps too thin to be classically handsome, but there was something compelling about his looks. As if aware of her scrutiny, he turned his dark eyes in her direction.

Velvet reached for a roll and buttered it with shaking hands. If her father hadn’t taken ill, she might have been married a dozen years ago. She had expected, fervently desired, to be a wife and mother by now, but her penance must not be complete. A governess’s lot was to be isolated on the nursery floor or occupied with minding her charges the few times she was out of the house in church or family trips. Meeting a suitable man was impossible.

She tried not to think of such things often, but Mr. Pendar was probably only her senior by two or three years. He’d been married and had a nine-year-old child. An unbidden curiosity about what he did to satisfy his manly needs popped into her head.

“Occasionally after Iris is abed, you’ll have extra duties.” He took a bite of his fish.

As a handsome young widower, he surely didn’t need to harass a live-in governess for
those
needs. Her fork clattered to her plate. She waited for the revulsion and outrage. Her stomach fluttered wildly. That he would broach the subject so boldly instead of just cornering her in a corridor or groping her in her room when the household was asleep shocked her.

Her thoughts scrambled through her limited options. Could she find work or would it just be better to stop trying to preserve her virtue?

He was not too old or too young. But the rumors about him . . . the scars on the cheek he kept averted from her could have come from a woman’s nails as she tried to keep from being tossed off a cliff.

That thought scared her bad enough that her stomach roiled. She pressed the back of her hand against her lips, hoping she was not about to disgrace herself as beads of moisture appeared on her upper lip. “I’m sorry. Please excuse me.”

She pushed her chair back and fled to the door.

T
he dark corridor closed in on Velvet. Running from the dinner table was childish. She was ashamed of her actions, ashamed of her thoughts. His broaching the idea of her becoming his mistress at the dinner table was laughable. She had added two and two and come up with fourteen. Usually her math skills were better. Heaving in deep breaths, she leaned against a side table.

Her rebellious stomach settled.

Mr. Pendar gripped her elbow.

She started.

“Miss Campbell, you are still ill.”

The sound of rain had covered his silent approach. He slid his arm around her waist and guided her back toward the open doors of the dining room. “Sit down. I will have Mrs. Bigsby or Nellie help you to your room.”

She desperately needed to eat, not go to her room without supper. “I’m fine.”

“Clearly you are not,” said Mr. Pendar. His grip under her elbow was supportive, not suggestive, but his touch burned through her as he guided her back into the dining room.

Perhaps she would be safe if he thought her sick. Perhaps she would be safe if she were locked in her room. Perhaps she would be safe if she didn’t want to collapse into his arms.

Oh, God, what was wrong with her?

“Let me ring for Mrs. Bigsby.” He pulled out the nearest chair, and she sat.

She grabbed his arm. “Please don’t.”

He froze.

Her fingers had closed around his brick hard forearm. She snatched her hand back aware that she had overstepped her bounds. Governesses didn’t grab the master of the house. She
never
wanted to give the impression that she condoned physical contact. “I’m sorry. Please don’t summon the Bigsbys.”

“They’re just at their supper.” He touched his arm where she’d laid her hand. “They are not far.”

Velvet searched for an explanation. “No servant likes a governess requiring special treatment. I should hate to get off on the wrong foot with them.”

He paced away from her, and she feared he would call for the housekeeper anyway. He pivoted and stalked back. “Miss Campbell, you are ill.”

“I’m not. I just need to eat.” Fascinated by the caged energy in his smooth stride, Velvet stared too long. She ducked her head, mentally berating herself.

He crouched in front of her and looked at her with a furrowed brow.

“I am keeping you from your dinner,” she protested.

His head tilted. “Did the sturgeon put you off? I’m sure Mrs. Bigsby could coddle an egg for you.”

“No, the fish is fine.” She pushed the chair back and stood. His eyes burned holes in her as she walked the interminable length of the dining room. She slid back into her seat, returned her napkin to her lap and deliberately ate a bite of the cold fish.

The doors clicked shut.

He took his time returning to his chair at the head of the table. His expression was contemplative as his dark eyes raked over her.

Her heart pounded. The fish turned to chalk in her mouth. She swallowed hard.

“You think eating will improve your health?”

“I’m certain of it,” she answered.

He folded his arms and leaned back in his chair. Velvet tried to ignore his scrutiny as she cut her fish. Risking only a nibble, she waited for him to resume eating. Her chewing seemed overly loud.

Her heart thumped unsteadily. His study of her made gooseflesh rise on her arms. Trying to sound nonchalant, she asked. “What additional nightly duties would you expect me to perform?”

The question seemed fraught with innuendos, and she hadn’t meant it to be. Staring at her plate, she dreaded the answer.

He uncrossed his arms, leaned one elbow on the armrest and planted his opposite hand on the other. His position lessened the distance between them. The air crackled with a charged energy.

Fisting her napkin in her lap, she turned toward him waiting for his answer.

He’d turned toward her, exposing the pink scars. His eyes narrowed slightly, he said, “I need a hostess when I entertain.”

Velvet nearly sagged with relief.

“Mostly my guests are business associates. I am expecting to conclude a major deal soon and will have several guests. I’ll need you to guide the service.” He reached for his wineglass and scowled at the ruby liquid. “Your last position was in the undersecretary of state’s household. Surely you could help the staff to serve the correct wine with a meal.” He raised his gaze to her face.

Her relief dissolved at the mention of her last situation. “Certainly, I could manage that, but that would usually be the butler’s purview, wouldn’t it?”

“Bigsby is loyal, but choosing wine is above his calling.” He twisted as if uncomfortable. “Good help is hard to get here.”

She could easily take his words as an insult. Not that she could afford to be affronted. She needed this job.

“Present company excepted.”

He drank his wine and set the empty glass on the table. His eyes never left her face, and she was unable to break away from his scrutiny.

Only she was a governess most people wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. Not after the maelstrom of humiliation in which she’d been embroiled. She tensed waiting for his question about why her name had been dragged through the scandal sheets and finally through the mainstream papers. Cartoons depicting her in a diaphanous nightgown beckoning to a line of paunchy MPs and spotty boys sold like meat pies at a fair.

“Do eat, Miss Campbell.” He picked up his silverware and cut his fish. “Are you feeling better?”

She nodded. “Most assuredly.” It wasn’t exactly true, but she suspected with regular meals recovery would only take her a few days. She took a bite of her potatoes. Her stomach rebelled at the cold congealed food, but she forced it down anyway.

They ate in silence for a few minutes. “Do you have anything you’d like to tell me about your . . . condition?”

Trying to read his narrow-eyed expression, she blinked. “N-No.”

He wiped his mouth and set his napkin beside his plate with deliberation. “Perhaps I should send for the doctor.”

“There’s no need.” She didn’t need a physician to tell her she was malnourished.

He stood and stalked to the sideboard. With his back to her, she heard the clink of glass, then pouring. He turned with a snifter of an amber liquid. He swirled the brandy, releasing the fumes.

“Perhaps an examination would relieve my mind that you are not carrying contagion into my house.” Leaning against the sideboard, he took a slow drink. “You have fainted and grown nauseous in the space of a few hours.”

She looked down. Must she humiliate herself by exposing how near she was to starvation? “I assure you, what ails me is not infectious.”

He leaned forward as if to see into her face. “How do you know you are not contagious, Miss Campbell?”

“I know.” She chose to ignore his request for specifics. “It is time for me to fetch Miss Pendar, is it not?”

“She’s probably already waiting in the drawing room.” He swirled his glass again. “Do finish eating.”

Velvet shook her head and pushed back from the table. “I’m anxious to meet my student.”

“She’s already met you. She helped me remove your wet dress.” He swallowed the last of his brandy.

Velvet shuddered with the reminder that he had half undressed her and cut the laces of her corset.

He set the glass down on the table with a discordant clang. The chime reverberated through her like a bell ringing a death knell. The hint of restrained violence alarmed her. Was he irritated with her already?

*  *  *

Lucian led the new governess to the drawing room. He hoped Iris was on good behavior. Like her mother, she could be charming when she wanted to be, but also like her mother, she could be petulant and sulky. Although his wife had plenty of reasons to be wretched, he made sure Iris didn’t.

He opened the door and reached back for Miss Campbell. She skirted his outstretched hand. He hadn’t quite puzzled her out. The seductress she was rumored to be wasn’t obvious, although she was striking with her copper hair and mossy green eyes rimmed in gold. Past the first blush of youth, her features had matured to a sharpness just short of severe. She was too pale, but he could certainly appreciate how she could bewitch men . . . and boys.

Or perhaps it was that she held his gaze just a fraction too long. Long enough that his blood began to sing and he wanted to dive in and drown in her eyes.

Iris sat kicking her heels against the sofa. Lucian sighed.

Just inside the room, he drew up rather than walk into Miss Campbell executing a curtsy.

“How do you do, Miss Pendar? I have so been looking forward to meeting you.” Her tone was dulcet without being the patently false voice adults often used with children.

Iris looked to him for guidance. He didn’t think she’d ever had a governess curtsy to her or address her as Miss Pendar. Ducking his head to hide his amusement, he moved around Miss Campbell. The fire needed to be fed.

Iris continued to sit on the sofa.

Miss Campbell didn’t miss a beat. “It would be proper to return the curtsy to a social equal. Or if you were the queen, you could just nod your head. But then, if you were the queen, I would have curtsied like so.”

She sunk down into a deep genuflection with her arms out and her skirts circling her on the floor. Dipping her head low, she held out the moment as if Iris deserved reverence.

Miss Campbell lifted her head and smiled.

A frisson of awareness of her as a woman slid down his spine. Her smile made her come alive, and it wasn’t even directed at him.

“Do you know how to pay your respects to the queen?” She rose to full height and quickly settled into a chair without a word of censure to Iris, who had behaved like the greatest hayseed.

“Iris, mind your manners,” he said.

Iris ducked her head and mumbled a greeting.

He dumped the quarter log on the fire and sparks flew. For good measure he rammed the poker into the coals.

Miss Campbell turned toward him and then looked back at Iris. Twin furrows appeared between her finely arched eyebrows.

“She resembles her mother.” Lucian answered her unspoken question. Iris was as fair as he was dark. With her golden curls and blue eyes, she was a perfect miniature of Lilith.

He put the screen back in place with a thud.

“Is that so?” said Miss Campbell in her gentle voice. “Then your mother must have been beautiful.”

“She was,” said Lucian before Iris could begin to wax eloquent about her mother.

Miss Campbell’s eyes darted to his and then back to Iris. “Of course if this were a formal occasion, then your father would have introduced us properly, but I understand you met me before.”

“You ruined my mama’s chair,” Iris said.

Pain flickered across Miss Campbell’s face. “The chaise longue was your mother’s?”

Iris bounced on the sofa. “Yes.”

Lucian had had enough. “Iris, behave, or you will go to bed.”

Miss Campbell’s hand flicked up as if to stop him. She lowered it as if his glare made her think twice.

Iris was looking at him with hurt blue eyes. He’d seen that expression one too many times on her mother’s face to be swayed by it. He wished for another snifter of brandy.

“I’m very sorry about the dirt on the chaise. I never would have put my shoes on it if I were in my senses.” Her forehead furrowed. “Do you normally sit there?”

“No, it’s my mama’s chair,” said Iris petulantly. “You shouldn’t have either.”

Lucian rolled his eyes. He pointed to the door and said, “Go.”

Miss Campbell stood.

“Not you, Miss Campbell. You stay. Iris, go to bed. If you cannot keep a civil tongue, you will not be allowed in the drawing room.”

Her blue eyes filling with moisture, Iris dragged her feet to the door. She was in fine form tonight.

“Good night, Miss Pendar. I hope you will show me around tomorrow.”

Iris didn’t respond other than to attempt to slam the door. Miss Campbell caught it and gently clicked it closed.

“Will Mrs. Bigsby see her to bed?” she asked.

“Iris is nine. She sees herself to bed.” He doubted Iris would see her bed anytime soon. The child had run wild for too long. “I apologize for her behavior.”

Miss Campbell looked to the door. “Perhaps I should see her settled, then. Mrs. Bigsby informs me that is part of my duties.”

“No, it is not part of your duties,” Lucian bit out. Other than his valet, the Bigsbys were the only members of his house staff who had stayed on after Lilith’s death.

Miss Campbell continued looking at the door and did not retake her seat.

“Do not allow Iris to manipulate you.”

“Change has to be hard for her. She is used to having her papa to herself in the evening.”

Lucian turned back to the fire. “Please sit down, Miss Campbell. Mrs. Bigsby will be in with the tea tray soon.”

“If you would not mind, I would like to offer your daughter the opportunity to make an apology and allow her to return for tea. Then I would like to retire.”

“Very well, Miss Campbell.” Obviously she was not comfortable spending time alone with him, but then not many people were. Knowing with the fire backlighting him his scars were not easily seen, he slowly turned to face her. “But it must not be a half-baked apology, but a genuine one.”

She smiled ever so slightly. “I shall strive for correct and mannerly. Sincerity might be asking for more than I can deliver.”

He realized he’d been looking forward to adult conversation, but she wasn’t here to entertain him. She was here to educate Iris. Besides, he had no interest in a woman who had the morals of a cat. He’d learned his lesson.

*  *  *

Velvet didn’t find Iris among the myriad dolls in her bedroom or in the schoolroom. She checked the other rooms, but found them dank and disused. If the girl was hiding behind a piece of furniture, she might not respond. Velvet closed her eyes, not wanting to fail at the first task she’d set for herself.

She paused, trying to regain her breath before descending the narrow stairs. Calling softly for Iris, Velvet checked the water closet.