The Last Dance (14 page)

‘Good. I should hate to be predictable.’

Stella forced herself to breathe evenly as Rafe felt to her as though he was filling the room with his presence and she was beginning to suffocate from the bright awareness of her attraction to him.

‘And I was simply trying to impress that Georgina was not just appallingly rude today but she has managed to make me feel like some sort of interloper accepting wages and board when I can’t perform my job. I get the impression that Mrs Ainsworth finds the debating interminably draining and I suspect it is easier to give in to Georgina’s demands than to fight her.’

‘Quite.’

‘Anyway, I suspect I shall feel like Lady Bracknell by the end of this contract, for all the lecturing I’m sure I shall be giving Georgina. It would be far easier if one of her parents could speak with her so that I can stop being the wicked witch in her life.’

‘You want me to have that discussion with Georgina,’ he said, his tone flat.

‘Well, clearly your wife will not.’

‘I doubt I am the right person.’

‘You’re the perfect person.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you’re her father!’

It struck Stella that her words shredded his controlled façade and for an instant she was able to look behind the suave demeanour to where the real man hid. In that heartbeat she glimpsed anger and loneliness.

‘I’m not —’ he began.

But whatever he was about to growl back at her was swallowed as the door opened and Beatrice re-entered, talking over her shoulder.

‘. . . remove hers, Mrs Boyd.’ She looked back into the room. ‘Georgina isn’t coming down. She’s going to eat in her room. Heavens, it feels maudlin in here. What have you two been up to?’

Stella noticed that Rafe had collected his raw emotions together; his expression had rearranged itself to its former affable and open calm that looked eager to please. His glasses were even being carefully returned, as was his slight stammer – all achieved within the few sentences his wife had muttered.

‘Er, I was telling Mr Ainsworth that I was suffering a pang of homesickness today.’

‘Really? That’s rather bleak, given you’ve barely arrived,’ his wife said, coming to stand by the fire. She linked her arm in his as if to say she’d forgiven him his clumsiness and Stella had to admit they made a gloriously handsome couple.

‘Darling, I’m so sorry about earlier, are you feeling much better?’ he soothed, tapping her hand.

‘I am feeling dry, Dougie. Are you going to fix me that drink?’

‘Yes, of course,’ he said, ‘But I’d advise you all to stand clear of this,’ he joked, reaching for the syphon.

The chameleon that she now knew him to be was back in its polite husband skin and yet she’d seen him ‘naked’ just moments earlier, and the passion in his enraged look at her words was unmistakable but also irresistible. She could feel that passion still; it was like an invisible finger reaching in to place itself on her heart as if choosing her.

‘I don’t think we need to keep referring to the suicides in Stella’s past,’ Beatrice said so casually that Stella shuddered and yet she sensed Beatrice’s intrigue; there had been no need to mention her parents.

‘It wasn’t Mr Ainsworth’s fault,’ Stella said. ‘I brought up the homesickness because I was explaining that I think I have a bit of headache tonight.’

‘Dear me, that’s no good,’ Beatrice said as if she’d just told Mrs Boyd to throw an extra log on the fire.

‘Yes, and I was asking him if you’d all excuse me tonight. The pain has become more determined.’

‘Oh, pity,’ Beatrice said in a tone devoid of all empathy. ‘Another evening, perhaps?’

‘Thank you for understanding,’ Stella said, standing. She refused him eye contact but could feel a wave of his disappointment and regret lapping at the edge of her senses. ‘Thank you for inviting me, Mrs Ainsworth.’

‘Goodnight, Stella,’ Beatrice said, turning to take the glass that her husband had brought to her. ‘Doug, darling, you’d better tell Mrs Boyd that it’s another two places to be removed as I suspect Grace will now lose all interest in dinner with us. You seem to be the new object of desire in our daughter’s life, Stella.’

Stella had no idea how to respond to such a statement. ‘I’ll see Grace after her riding lesson and after Georgina’s lesson. I hope that’s suitable?’

‘I shall see that Georgina attends all of her lessons from now on or she’ll answer to me,’ Rafe said, his normally mild tone suddenly mousey.

Even Beatrice chuckled. ‘You, darling?’

Stella was so fascinated by the way she could now see Rafe shifting between personalities that her gaze lingered on him.

Beatrice cleared her throat. ‘Stella?’

‘Er, sorry, I was just thinking I could probably work out a proper timetable tonight.’

‘But you have a headache,’ Rafe said.

She recovered quickly as his glare urged. ‘Yes, I’m hoping it won’t hang around for too long.’

‘I could have Hilly bring up some aspirin,’ Beatrice offered.

‘I have some with me, Mrs Ainsworth. I shall be fine. Thank you again.’

‘As you wish,’ Beatrice said, clearly bored with the topic. She sat down and reached for her husband’s hand. ‘Looks like it’s a romantic dinner for two.’

Rafe cut his wife a half-hearted smile. ‘I’ll go and let Mrs Boyd know. Here, let me walk you out, Stella.’

Outside the door he sighed. ‘You won’t be able to avoid all of us all of the time,’ he murmured.

‘Not all. Just you. Good night, Mr Ainsworth.’

Stella arrived with an armful of books onto the landing and followed the explicit directions that had been delivered with her breakfast tray. She found the room called the nursery on the floor beneath hers at twenty minutes to nine precisely and Mrs Boyd was waiting for her.

‘Ah, Miss Myles, good morning. Thank you for your punct-uality.’

‘I appreciate your meeting me.’

Mrs Boyd was holding a ring of keys. She began to select one. ‘How was breakfast?’

‘Thank you for sending up a tray. It was perfect, although I did say that I’m happy to take my breakfast with the staff.’

‘Not necessary. You have duties here in the main part of the house with changeable schedules and we wouldn’t want to disrupt your flexibility,’ she said in a meaningless excuse that made it clear Stella was not so welcome below stairs.

Stella was surprised how much it hurt but remembered her manners and moved to small talk. ‘It’s certainly quiet here.’

‘Indeed, here is near silent,’ Mrs Boyd said, holding up a key triumphantly. ‘This one hasn’t been used in a while. Yes, only Miss Grace is on this side.’ She nodded towards a door at the end of the corridor where they stood. ‘She’s gone for a riding lesson this morning. Miss Georgina and her parents have their rooms on this level in the east wing.’ Stella’s heart sank a little deeper for her youngest charge, who appeared to be both physically and emotionally cut off from her family. ‘You’ll have no need to go to the east wing.’

Was that a warning?

Mrs Boyd finally jiggled the lock into submission and they heard it shift.

‘Here we are, the nursery,’ she said in triumph, pushing open the door, like stage curtains.

Stella was expecting something prissy, with frills and bows – certainly white with soft pastel touches. She was surprised to be led into a room that was painted a rich sage green with all the woodwork picked out in a soft parchment colour. High shelves were lined with what appeared to be an eclectic collection of memorabilia, from leather footballs to hockey sticks to jars of marbles. Books that couldn’t find a place in the huge bookcase that claimed one entire wall gathered dust in colourful towers nearby. Sketches and watercolours of varying adeptness and of everything from birds and lizards to landscapes hung on the remaining walls in a motley of unmatched frames. Huge, colourful moths or iridescent beetles were framed beneath glass and there were bell jars of preserved creatures she wasn’t even sure about . . . they all appeared vaguely reptilian. School ties, caps and scarves twisted around odd hooks as though they’d been flung from the door and had found a comfortable home by chance, to remain for decades. A marvellous series of colourful kites hung on the walls as well as grainy school photographs and smiling family groups and of clearly much-beloved dogs who claimed their own silver frame. It was too much to take in at once. Brightness flooded in from the tall, oblong windows that had soft white voile curtains to diffuse the sharpness of morning to a deliciously mellow light that added to the tender ambience of the room. She spun around, realising that she was the one giving gentle gasps of delight.

‘Forgive me. It’s a lovely space,’ she murmured, turning back to the housekeeper. ‘I didn’t expect it to be so charming when you called it the nursery.’

‘It’s Mr Ainsworth’s name for it. I’ve never known it referred to as anything else.’

Stella was moving towards the windows.

The housekeeper straightened a heavy shell acting as a paperweight on the large banker’s desk in the middle of the room. ‘We put this desk in here so that you and Miss Georgina could study facing each other rather than side by side. There’s paper, ink, pencils, rubbers, blotting paper, sharpeners . . .’ She stopped opening drawers and reeling off the obvious. ‘Yes, I think all the Ainsworth children down the years spent their infancy in this room. Mr Ainsworth has forbidden us to move any of the memorabilia – dusting it all is fraught because he’s so precious about the items here – and yet he insisted this was the room to be used by you for study. I can’t imagine why, with all this clutter.’

Stella frowned, wondering if yet another invisible, silent message was being communicated.

‘So Mr Ainsworth spent his early childhood days in here too.’

‘Oh, yes, indeed,’ Mrs Boyd sniffed. ‘I might just open a window.’ She struggled with a window as she had with the door’s lock. It was as though the room didn’t wish to permit the present into its chamber of secrets and memories. Mrs Boyd, however, gave a hefty shove with her shoulder, and with a firm grunt the window finally surrendered, sighing open as though expelling the breath in the room it had held tightly for decades.

‘There we are. That’s much better. Now you and Miss Georgina can’t fall asleep.’

‘No threat of that, I’m afraid, on French verbs.’

‘Well, I shall leave you to it. Apparently we’re to send up some hot cocoa for Miss Georgina. Would you like a small pot too?’

‘Oh, I don’t think that’s necessary, Mrs Boyd. Georgina will have only recently finished breakfast, surely? I think she can forgo her cocoa for an hour or two so we remain undisturbed.’

‘Um, she has specifically ordered it. And —’

‘Well, I’m her tutor and her senior, so forgive me but I’d rather you didn’t send up anything as I suspect it will only be disruptive to Georgina’s concentration. She is more than welcome to have cocoa served directly afterwards at eleven sharp when the tutorial ends.’ Stella smiled firmly as Mrs Boyd blinked in consternation. She put her books onto the desk and began sorting through them in the hope it gave just the right polite air of dismissal. ‘Thank you again. This is a perfectly conducive space for Georgina to knuckle down to the study her parents expect.’ She lifted her gaze and fixed Mrs Boyd, surely an accomplice of the two Ainsworth women, to show she was not to be undermined.

‘As you wish, Miss Myles.’

‘Thank you.’ She followed the housekeeper to the door, smiling indulgently as she closed it on the woman.
Is every day going to be a battle of wills?
she wondered.

Her mind flipped to Georgina and the trial ahead of her today with this hostile teenager. She thought about how her father had reacted yesterday to the suggestion that he speak with his daughter about her lack of respect. Stella hadn’t understood his unfinished response that was nevertheless delivered with repressed anger.

‘She’s not —’ he’d begun.

Not what? Stella had wondered. Not worth it? Not happy? Not going to listen to me? Stella shuddered inwardly, imagining how uncomfortable her household would have been if she had ever dared to mock or bait her father in that manner.

She glanced at her watch. Six minutes to go. Georgina had better not be late . . .

Stella began a slow tour of the room, gazing at the old photos, charmed by the obvious snapshots of Rafe as a boy, which all depicted him either in what looked to be a desert or running seemingly wild on the wilderness of what was presumably the Weald. The pictures of him surrounded by sand dunes were intriguing, especially those with his face half covered by linens in the Bedouin style. There was another lad of similar age, she guessed, but smaller in stature, who was also in a lot of the Arabian-looking photos. Apart from sharing dark hair, they didn’t look at all alike but clearly they were close. Cousins, maybe? She squinted, he looked European; eastern Mediterranean, perhaps?

Meanwhile Rafe looked tanned and relaxed in the images on foreign soil; his crinkled eyes suggested he was always smiling, completely at ease in his surrounds, whether he was perched on a camel or peeping out from a makeshift tent that was more of an awning to Stella’s mind. She wished she could see the colours of the desert . . . Stella imagined the deep gold of the sands and the richness of the camel rugs and carpets within the tent she could just see. What was he doing in the desert as a child? Where was this?

She spied a family photo in what looked to be a large white villa, except they were in some sort of enclosed courtyard. Date palms bent from pots, a fountain nearby spouted water with crystalline droplets sparkling as they caught the sunlight, and in the background, a man in all white wearing a fez blurred behind the family as he crossed the lens, unaware that he’d entered the photograph. Rafe in shorts and crisp white shirt was presumably leaning against his mother, a dark beauty, his elbow crooked on her shoulder while her arm draped affectionately across his bare legs. Her other hand was moving towards her mouth as though trying to cover her own amusement. Stella’s gaze shifted to the little girl who was likely his sister, sitting on her father’s lap; she was caught in a moment of explosive laughter and looking at Rafe as though he’d just said something witty. The father wore a genial expression, indulging his happy family. Stella smiled helplessly. It was a moment of pure joy and she felt a burst of envy; she understood that feeling but didn’t have it captured on film as Rafe had. She would have to rely on her memory.

Stella’s attention was caught by another photo; the same two boys, another couple of male adults, neither of whom she recognised from other photos. They were seated at a table outside some sort of street-side café and in the grainy photo she could make out men smoking in the dim background on bubble pipes. There was another man standing nearby, his hand placed on the young Rafe’s shoulder. This man possessed a luxurious greying moustache that curled dramatically into whorled points and had on a lead – rather outrageously, Stella thought – a peacock. The bird did not have its tail fanned but it too comically appeared to be looking directly into the camera. Embroidered on its owner’s shirt she could just make out an extravagantly sewn letter ‘M’.

The boys were grinning, holding up glasses of what looked like lemonade, and the vignettes of Rafe’s seemingly happy childhood made her feel somehow sad for him that his life now felt controlled by his circumstances. She tried to imagine where this photo was taken, searching for clues in the image.

The door swung open, startling Stella, and Georgina blew in. She brought her usually sulky air into the calm of the Green Room as Stella had absently begun referring to it.

Georgina affected a melodramatic cough. ‘Heavens! Why here? This ghastly old room hasn’t been opened in centuries and yet I’m forced to breathe its dust and filth.’

‘Morning,’ Stella said brightly, determined not to taint a new beginning. ‘You look lovely today,’ she added, noting the long-line narrow skirt in a tiny dogtooth weave. Large buttons did up on the side and there was no pull on any of them – Georgie certainly cut a neat figure but Stella noticed her lack of height meant the skirt made her appear shorter still. Nevertheless, Stella would kill to wear it and couldn’t help but admire the way Georgina had teamed it with a soft frilled white blouse and a tiny red belt. ‘Did you sleep well?’

Georgina looked at her from murky blue eyes. ‘Would you care if I hadn’t?’

So this is how it was going to be, Stella thought with a pang of disappointment. ‘Not really, no.’

Georgina smirked. ‘You may be poor but at least you’re honest.’

‘Poor?’ she asked mildly, opening one of her books and gesturing at the seat opposite.

Her student flounced into the chair. ‘If you had money, why would you want to be a servant?’

‘I have a terrific job actually, Georgina. But I’m taking a sabbatical. Shall we have this conversation in French?’

Georgina ignored the question. ‘That’s right, your parents killed themselves, didn’t they? How perfectly horrid of them. Did you find them or maybe your younger sister did? Was there blood or did they do it neatly with pills and liquor? But then their tongues would have been swollen and blue, I’m sure. How ghastly. Your brother and sister must have been traumatised . . . how can they ever get to sleep at night in the same house where their parents committed suicide?’

Not a word of French had been offered in the teenager’s cruel and sour rant. How Stella kept from leaning across the banker’s desk and slapping her student she did not know. She forced her rage down, and made a promise to herself in that moment that nothing Georgina Ainsworth ever said would affect her again. ‘Georgina, I am not going to discuss my personal life with a child, least of all a student of mine.’ She moved into simple, conservative French. ‘Shall we proceed?’

‘I hate this room,’ Georgie sneered in French.

Stella responded in French as though it was simply a conversation. ‘You seem to hate everything.’

‘I know I hate you most of all, with my father a close second,’ Georgina said in English. ‘I wish he’d just go away on one of his jaunts and never return. Then we could fire you and I could be rid of both of you.’

Stella helplessly moved back into English despite her best intentions. It was obvious the horrid youngster would not understand the nuances of this unsettling discussion if she continued in French. ‘Georgina, that sounds so vicious. Should I be speaking to your mother about your wishes?’

‘What? That I wish my father were dead?’

Stella gasped. ‘You don’t mean that.’

‘What would you know? You know nothing, Servant Stella. Actually, that’s not quite true, is it? You do know about something I’d love to know about because your father’s dead. You must feel so free.’

Trills of anger raced through Stella’s body, flushing at her neck where she felt the heat of fury gathering in spite of her attempt to mask her response. Her voice did not betray her, though. ‘I asked you not to discuss my private life.’

‘I don’t see why I can’t. You get to poke around in my private life.’

‘I have done no such thing,’ she snapped, knowing she was being drawn into the girl’s deliberate trap and yet helplessly against her better judgement she was participating.

‘Of course you have. Just because your life is so dull and poor, you are making sure mine is the same.’

‘Georgina, your parents hired me,’ Stella appealed. ‘I didn’t ask to come here.’

The teenager shrugged. ‘Exactly. So I wish he would just disappear and then my mother would have to agree to let you go and I would celebrate and get on with my life.’