Susanna twisted her head to the side, catching the flabbergasted look on Mr. Sedley’s face as he leaned forward, his blue eyes squinting.
“Yes.” Charlotte picked up the ornament again, examining it in mock fashion.
Mr. Sedley bit his lower lip, his surprise giving way to anger.
Susanna sighed. She had been so close.
Chapter Five
“Where’d you get that?”Ajax finally managed to choke out, surprised to find himself overcome at the thought of his long-dead older brother.
“The attic,” Charlotte said, giving the watch fob one more considered, drawn-out gaze before looking up to meet her father’s eyes. “There are an awful lot of trunks up there.”
He recalled something an overwrought Bess had said to him the previous week, about Charlotte rifling through ancient correspondence in the attic, covered in dust. So the girl had been digging through family secrets, harvesting choice items from their cast-off or, in Titus’s case, left-behind possessions.
Ajax groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. This little…interloper, upending his life, tilling the soil of long-buried memories and emotions that did nothing to serve and everything to unnerve. And just as Miss Abbotts had managed to wring a halfway decent sentence out of her, too. He had never felt so helpless; not for nearly twenty years, anyway. Yorkshire had never seemed so far away.
“Miss Sedley.” The calm, steady voice of Miss Abbotts cut through his misery, and rather than sulk, he opted instead to appreciate just how attractive the governess looked in the moment. For as she spoke to her new charge, it was as if she’d placed her blinders on and taken to the race, paying no mind to anything that might distract her from her purpose. There was no timidity, no meekness about her. Just a stern, deft command of herself andcurse itbut Ajax wanted her. He had to put this out of his mind. Somehow.
“I wonder why you were exploring the attic?” Miss Abbotts’s dark lashes blinked, as if to punctuate her question.
Charlotte raised her chin the slightest amount and ceased her fiddling with the watch fob, by all appearances considering the governess’s question. In his mind’s eye, Ajax saw the miserable Titus smirking, briefly holding back from directing snide comments and pointed insults at his much younger brother to slip that very same watch out of his pocket and check the time.
“I wonder why no one told me my uncle died in a duel.”
“Because he didn’t,” Ajax interjected, his ears hot. “He died days later from the effects of injuries sustained in a duel. Don’t romanticize the man; he was done in by septicemia, not his valor.” Ajax snorted, and immediately hated himself for his reaction. It’d been years since he’d allowed something to get to him to this degree.
Unfazed, Charlotte parried. “I wonder why he was challenged in the first place.”
“Because he was a vain wretch who thought he could do whatever he pleased, consequences be damned.”
Charlotte stared at him, and he knew, as if she telegraphed her thoughts directly to his mind, exactly what she would say if she cared enough to wind him up further:Just like you.
Instead, she turned to Miss Abbotts. “I am pleased to meet you. I believe we shall get on fine.” And with that she stood, offering no further explanation or farewell, and drifted away.
It was so unexpected, and Ajax was so blooming cross, that it wasn’t until he heard the conservatory door shut that he realized they’d been dismissed by a fifteen-year-old girl, as if she were goddamned bloody Queen Victoria herself. The entire meeting had lasted less than ten minutes, and Charlotte was likely already halfway to some secret warren or hidden wall panel that no one else had ever noticed. He wanted to shout, to upend the flimsy rattan chair she’d been sitting on.
“Well,” Miss Abbotts began, choosing her words delicately, “I confess I didn’t expect that to be so…”
“Infuriating?”
“No—”
“Bizarre?”
“No, Mr. Sedley. Brief.”
She had turned halfway toward him now, and he both appreciated their shared seat and cursed himself for it. He didn’t have to sit next to her, and yet he’d felt compelled to, desiring her nearness. But why? Swallowing as he reminded himself not to look down at her ample bosom, he couldn’t help but think that whatever the reason, it was likely inane.
“Miss Sedley is a bright girl. Her mind is unoccupied, and she is bored. For an intelligent child, that leads to mischief. I’m sure she’ll take to education.”
“She misses her mother.” He spoke without thinking, but it was too late to retract it.
Miss Abbotts pursed her lips, and Ajax tried not to imagine what she might have to say about the circumstance of Charlotte’s birth.
The governess had such delicate features and gorgeous skin; he couldn’t help but imagine his lips on hers, biting and teasingbefore dragging slow, heady kisses along her neck. During their first two meetings she’d donned a bonnet, but today she appeared leagues more attractive without the ghastly old thing. Tight, tiny dark curls escaped at the nape of her neck despite the herculean effort of whatever number of hairpins she used. How he wanted to reach for them and twist them around his fingers, depraved bastard that he was.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice soft as visions of her tumbling in his bed assailed him. “But recall, you must give several months’ notice, per our agreement.”
