The Gilded Web (51 page)

But such sadly pathetic thoughts did nothing to calm her agitation.

She might have spent the past eleven years in a convent, she thought ruefully, for all she knew about how to step into the world of men and feel at ease there.

B
Y THE TIME THEY WERE
halfway to Barclay Court by Peter's estimation, he had spoken six words and Miss Osbourne had spoken one.

“What a lovely day it is!” he had said as a conversational overture at the outset, smiling genially down at her—or at the brim of her bonnet anyway, which was about on a level with his shoulder.

“Yes.”

She walked very straight-backed. She held her hands firmly clasped behind her back, an unmistakable signal that she did not want him to offer his arm. He wondered if she simply had no conversation or if she was still bristling with indignation because he had compared her to a summer's day—though he was in good company there, was he not? Had not Shakespeare once done the same thing? He rather suspected that it was indignation that held her mute since she had been speaking in more than monosyllables with Mrs. Raycroft less than half an hour ago—though he would swear her eyes had never once strayed his way. He would have known if they had since his eyes had scarcely strayed anywhere else
but
at her.

He had been puzzling—he still was—over that strange thought he had had when his eyes first alit on her.

There she is.

There
who
was, for the love of God?

It was a novel experience to be in company with a lady who clearly did not want to be in company with him. Of course, he did not usually find himself in company with lady schoolteachers from Bath. They were, perhaps, a different breed from the women with whom he usually consorted. They were quite possibly made of sterner stuff.

“You were quite right,” he said at last, merely to see how she would respond. “This summer day was not
really
made warmer and brighter by your presence in it. It was a foolish conceit.”

She darted him a look, and in the moment before her bonnet brim hid her face from view again he was dazzled anew by the combination of bright auburn hair and sea green eyes—and by the healthy flush the fresh air had lent her creamy, flawless complexion.

“Yes,” she agreed, doubling her contribution to their conversation since leaving Hareford House.

So she was not going to contradict him, was she? He could not resist continuing.

“It was my heart,” he said, patting it with his right hand, “that was warmed and brightened.”

This time she did not turn her face, but he amused himself with the fancy that the poke of her bonnet stiffened slightly.

“The heart,” she said, “is merely an organ in the bosom.”

Ah, a literalist. He smiled.

“With the function of a pump,” he agreed. “But how unromantic a view of it. You would put generations of poets out of business with such a pronouncement, Miss Osbourne. Not to mention lovers.”

“I am not a romantic,” she said.

“Indeed?” he said. “How sad! There are no such things, then, you believe, as tender sensibilities? There is no part of one's anatomy or soul that can be warmed or brightened by the sight of beauty?”

He thought she was not going to answer. They came to the fork in the lane where they had met a couple of hours ago and followed Raycroft and Lady Edgecombe onto the branch that led to Barclay Court.

“You make a mockery of tender sensibilities,” Miss Osbourne said so softly that he bent his head toward her in case she had more to say.

She did not.

“Ah,” he said, “you think me incapable of feeling the gentler emotions. Is that what you are saying?”

“I would not so presume,” she said.

“But you would. You already have so presumed,” he said. He was rather enjoying himself, he discovered, with this curiously serious, prim creature who looked so like an angel. “You told me I made a mockery of tender sensibilities.”

“I beg your pardon,” she said. “I ought not to have said such a thing.”

“No, you ought not,” he agreed. “You wounded me to the heart—to that chest organ, that mundane pump. How differently we view the world, Miss Osbourne. You listened to me pay you a lavish and foolish compliment and concluded that I know nothing about the finer human emotions. I on the other hand looked at you, serious and disapproving, and felt—ah, as if I had stepped into a moment that was simply magic.”

“And now,” she said, “you make a mockery of
me
.”

She had a low, sweet voice even when she sounded indignant. She was small in stature and very slender, though she was curved in all the right places, by Jove. He wondered how well she controlled a class of girls, most of whom undoubtedly wished themselves anywhere else on earth but at school. Did they give her a rough time? Or was there steel in her character, as there appeared to be in her spine?

He would wager there was steel—and not a great deal of tenderness. Poor girls!

“I fear,” he said, “that with a few foolish words I have forever condemned myself in your eyes, Miss Osbourne. Shall we change the subject? What have you been doing with your school holiday up until now?”

“It was not really a holiday,” she said. “Almost half of the girls at the school are charity pupils. They remain there all year long and some of us stay too to care for them and to entertain them.”

“Us?” he asked.

“There are three resident teachers,” she told him. “There used to be four until Frances married the earl two years ago. Now there are Miss Martin, Miss Jewell, and I.”

“And you all give up your holidays for the sake of
charity
girls?” he asked.

She turned to look at him again—a level, unsmiling look in which there might have been some reproof.

“I was one of them,” she said, “from the age of twelve until Miss Martin made me a junior teacher when I was eighteen.”

Ah.

Well.

Extraordinary.

He was walking and talking with an ex-charity schoolgirl turned teacher. It was no wonder they were having a difficult time of it communicating with each other. Two alien worlds had drifted onto the same country lane at the same moment, none too happily for either. Though that was not quite true—he was still enjoying himself.

“There is no question of
giving up
our holidays,” she continued. “The school is our home and the girls our family. We welcome a break now and then, of course. Anne—Miss Jewell—has just returned from a month in Wales with her son, and now I am here for two weeks. Occasionally Claudia Martin will spend a few days away from the school too. But in the main I am happy—we are all happy—to be busy. A life of idleness would not suit me.”

She was a prim miss right enough. She had nothing whatsoever to say about the weather, and had only brief reproaches to offer when he would have spoken of hearts and sensibilities. But she could wax eloquent about her school and the notion of teachers and charity pupils being a family.

Lord help him.

But she was more gloriously lovely than almost any other woman he had set eyes upon—and the word
almost
might even be withdrawn from that thought without any great exaggeration resulting. He had often thought fate was something of a joker, and now he was convinced of it. But the apparently huge contrast between her looks and her character and circumstances had him more fascinated than he could remember being with any other woman for a long time—perhaps ever.

“The implication being that idleness suits
me
very well indeed?” He laughed. “Miss Osbourne, you speak softly but with a barbed tongue. I daresay your pupils fear it.”

She was not entirely wrong, though, was she? His life
was
idle—or had been for all of five years anyway. It was true that he intended to reform his ways and put idleness behind him in the very near future, but he had not really done so yet, had he? Thinking and planning were one thing; doing was another.

Yes, as he was now, today, Miss Osbourne was quite right about him. He had no defense to offer.

He wondered what it must be like to
have
to work for a living.

“I spoke of myself, sir—my lord,” she said, “in answer to your question. I made no implication about you.”

She had small, dainty feet, he could see—which was just as well considering her small stature. He had noticed during tea that her hands were small and delicate.

Miss Susanna Osbourne disapproved of him—probably disliked him too. In her world people worked. What had it been like, he wondered, to be a charity girl at the school where she now taught?

“Do you
like
teaching?” he asked.

“Very much,” she said. “It is what I would choose to do with my life even if I had myriad choices.”

“Indeed?” He wondered if she spoke the truth or only said what she had convinced herself was the truth. “You would choose teaching even above marriage and motherhood?”

There was a rather lengthy silence before she replied, and he regretted the question. It was unmannerly and might have touched her on the raw. But there was no recalling it.

“I suppose that even if I could imagine myriad choices,” she said, “they would still have to be within the realm of the realistic.”

Good lord!

“And marriage would not fit within such a realm?” he asked, surprised.

He did not realize until he found himself gazing at the tender flesh at the arch of her neck that she had dipped her head so far downward that she must have been able to see nothing more than her own feet. He
had
embarrassed her, dash it all. He was not usually so insensitive.

“No,” she said. “It would not.”

And of course he might have known it if he had stopped to consider. How often did one hear of a governess marrying? Yet a schoolteacher must have even fewer opportunities to meet eligible men. He wondered suddenly how the countess had met Edgecombe. He had not even known before today that she had been a schoolteacher at the time. There must be an interesting story behind that courtship.

In his world women had nothing to hope for or think about
but
marriage. His sisters had not considered their lives complete until they had all followed one another to the altar with eligible mates in order from the eldest to the youngest, at gratifyingly young ages—gratifying to them and even more so to his mother.

“Well,” he said, “one never knows what the future holds, does one? But you must tell me some time what it is about teaching that you enjoy so much. Not today, though—I see we are approaching Barclay Court. We will talk more when we meet again during the next two weeks.”

She stole a quick glance at him again and he laughed.

“I can see the wheels of your mind turning upon the hope that such a fate can be avoided,” he said. “I assure you it can not. Neighbors in the country invariably live in one another's pockets. How else are they to avoid expiring of boredom? And I am to be at Hareford House for the next two weeks just as you are to be at Barclay Court. I am glad now that I decided not to return to my own home tomorrow as I had originally planned.”

He spoke the truth and was surprised by it. Why on earth would he wish to extend an acquaintance with a woman from an alien world who disliked and disapproved of him? Just because she was dazzlingly beautiful? Or because he could not resist the unusual challenge of coaxing a smile and a kind word from her? Or because with her there might be a chance of actually conversing sensibly—about her life as a teacher? His conversation—and his life—had been far too trivial for far too long.

“I daresay,” she said, “you will be busy with Miss Raycroft and the Misses Calvert.”

“But of course.” He chuckled. “They are delightful young ladies, and who can resist cultivating delight?”

“I do not believe,” she said, “you expect me to answer that.”

“Indeed not,” he agreed. “It was a rhetorical question. But I will not be busy with them
all
the time, Miss Osbourne. Someone might misconstrue my interest in them if I were. Besides, with them I have felt no moment of magic.”

He smiled down at her bonnet.

“I would ask you,” she said as their feet crunched over the gravel of the terrace before the house, her voice as cold as the Arctic ice, “not to speak to me with such levity, my lord. I do not know how to respond. And moreover I do not
wish
to respond. I do not wish to have you single me out on any future occasion. I wish you would not.”

Dash it all. Had he offended her more than he realized?

“Am I to look your way whenever we are in company together during the coming weeks, then, and pretend that I see only empty air?” he asked her. “I fear Edgecombe and his lady would consider me unpardonably ill-mannered. I shall bow to you each time instead and remark upon the fineness or inclemency of the weather—without drawing any comparisons with your person. Shall I? Will you tolerate that much attention from me?”