Chapter 10
The following day, as soon as the children went outside to play, Jack invited Désirée to his private cellar for their now customary after-dinner glass of wine in the wingback chairs beside the fire.
At least, he continued to tell himself he was inviting her to a glass of wine. Certainly the cellarcontainedplenty of wine. If sometimes they forgot to drink it because their mouths were occupied with more pleasant activities, who could blame them?
The moment they took the final step into the cellar, he pulled her into his arms.
It was just kissing, he told himself as his mouth covered hers and his fingers sank deep into the silk of her hair. Kissing meant nothing more substantial than that they enjoyed each other’s lips. Kissing wasn’t promises. Kissing was passion. Simple and uncomplicated.
He loved the voluptuous feel of her soft body pressed against his. How perfectly they fit together. How every kiss demanded another. Knowing he would soon no longer have her should have sent him running away, but instead made him want to cuddle her even closer.
She should fear the same. The last thing she needed before returning to France was an entanglement with a father of two who couldn’t leave Cressmouth. And yet her hands were locked tight about his neck, her tongue just as demanding as his.
He couldn’t give her France and he couldn’t offer forever, but they hadright hereandfor nowandjust kisses.
So what if it wasn’t enough? He could ignore that his longtime hobby of designing an imaginary farm in his head had turned into mental Désirée-ville instead. Instead of planting grapes, he was imagining picnics and hoop trundling and flower gardens and knife throwing and lazy nights on the sofa in the wine cellar with nothing between their bodies but the occasional flicker of firelight.
Dangerousis what thoughts like that were. He had to put a stop to it at once.
He wrenched his mouth from hers and deposited her in a chair before falling heavily into the matching chair at her side.
“So.” He lifted his fist to his mouth and cleared his throat. “We were going to look through the latest solicitudes.”
She nodded and fumbled for the top stack of queries piled between their chairs. “They’re still here.”
Of course they were. The plan had been to toss the letters of any obviously unsuitable candidates directly into the fire. This had resulted in the ashes of approximately two queries. Never let it be said that the many experienced governesses of England were unqualified for their posts.
While Désirée sorted today’s pile of possibilities, Jack opened a Bordeaux merlot and poured her a glass.
“What are all these new stacks?”
“They are all good candidates,” she explained, “so I am sorting by greatness. Years of experience from left to right, depth of subject matter from top to bottom.”
“What about number of references?”
“Well, that’s thorny.” Her brow furrowed. “If a marvelous governess has been with a large group of siblings since birth, she conceivably only has the one reference. Whereas a middling governess who never keeps a post for more than few years at a time might have a dozen family names in her list.”
“Fair point.”
They slid from their chairs to the plush carpet to have better access to the growing array of governess profiles.
Désirée pointed. “That quadrant contains the least knowledge with the least experience. Keep in mind, that judgment is by comparison. They all seem like competent, upstanding ladies.”
Jack nodded. “Into the fire.”
He flung each folded paper into the flames as though he was skipping rocks by the bed of the stream.
She pointed again. “This quadrant contains highly experienced governess with a slightly lower breadth of knowledge.” She moved her finger. “And that quadrant contains some of the cleverest women in the entire country, although they have marginally less experience teaching that knowledge to children.”
“Burn them all,” he pronounced cheerfully, and tossed both groups into the fire. “What now?”
“Now…” She picked up the remaining stack and began dividing it into four piles. “We keep trimming using requirements of diminishing essentialness until only one winner remains. These women are all genius child-wrestlers, so I am dividing them by years in the same household along one axis, and sense of playfulness along the other.”
Jack was beginning to think that instead of having Désirée sort through the post, he should have asked her to overhaul his entire smuggling empire.
He slanted her an assessing look. “I believe the cleverest woman in England might be sitting right here on my carpet.”
“I won’t be in England for long,” she reminded him, and lifted a hand to hide her yawn. “These are the new divisions. Joyless butterflies in that quadrant—”
