She turned after lighting the final lamp, looking surprised to find him frozen in the doorway. “Come in,” she said, gesturing to the seating. “Sit down. I will be just a moment.”
“Oh, don’t leave,” he said weakly as she walked past him again, leaving behind a trailing scent of night jasmine.
He considered the room and chose one of the two velvet-lined chairs that were tilted toward one another at the rear, just by the windows. She returned, holding a carafe of water and a pair of glasses, which she set on the small table next to the chair he’d chosen, thereby falling directly into his trap to sit in the one that would bring her knee in line with his own.
Yes, everything was going to plan.
He watched her smooth the satin skirt of her dress over her backside before she sat on it, and felt all moisture leave his mouth.
That must be why she had provided the water.
He gathered the carafe up and filled both glasses, eager to return function to his voice before he was required to use it.
“Thank you,” she said, watching the process. “I shall begin. I suppose first you ought to know that Teddy was not always a man of business and our family was not always one of means. We grew up quite poor, in fact. I would not call us destitute, but once we were orphaned, that word actually probably did apply.”
He paused, blinking twice, and set the carafe down with a thunk, looking back up at her. “You are orphans?”
She nodded. “It is all right. It happened a very long time ago.”
“That doesn’t make it all right,” he answered, frowning at the way she rolled her eyes and flipped her fingers at him.
“Not the point,” she said. “It is just context for my story. When Teddy became my primary guardian, he secured a scholarship for me to attend a girls’ school in Bath-Spa so that I could be educated and have some manner of future. I do not know if there were scholarship boys at Eton or Harrow or whatever mannerof posh palace education you received, but the girls who relied on charity funding to be schooled and boarded were sequestered from those whose families could pay tuition in full once we arrived at school, so it was not a secret that I was there as a good deed and not because I had wealthy people who loved me paying my way.”
He winced. “King’s scholars,” he said. “We had them too. They had to wear a different uniform.”
She paused, raising her brows at his honesty with what looked like appreciation. “Charming. Anyhow, I met Caroline in my first year, and she was the kindest to me of the traditional students. We were fast friends, and I think she saw me as something of a pet project. I was too young at the time to be anything but grateful, and as we were of an age, she was likely too young to know she was supposed to treat me like a leper.”
“Children can be horrible from a surprisingly young age,” he countered, tilting his head. “A governess should know that.”
She paused, giving him a ghost of a smile. “Touché. In any event, I thought we were like sisters, for a time. When I was thirteen, she invited me to spend Christmas with her family in Canterbury, spinning tales for me of her esteemed papa and his role in the duke’s household. It all seemed to me at the time like a fairy story, and I was beside myself with excitement to go with her and experience it firsthand.”
“And you went?” he pressed, leaning toward her.
“And I went,” she confirmed, watching him. “At first, it was exactly as grand as I imagined, and she was in her element introducing me to every new wonder as the holiday unfolded.The problem happened when we met the chaplain and his little protégé.”
“You mean that dry cough in a waistcoat we met this evening?” he asked, smirking at her.
“Jonathan Redwynne. Your father’s future chaplain. That dry cough was my first kiss, Ambrose,” she answered, flashing him a smug little grin at the way his smirk immediately melted away to be replaced with shock. “Oh, yes.”
He pressed his lips together. “You should have told me that back at the palace.”
“Should I have?” she asked, leaning forward, her fingers brushing against his knee. “Why? What would you have done?”
He reached forward, pinning her fingers to his breeches with his eyes locked on hers. “I suppose you’ll never know now,” he said. “Will you?”
She drew her lip between her teeth, holding his gaze for a moment, the warmth of her hand melting through her glove and the skintight fabric over his knee, setting him half ablaze, but she did not wrest herself free.
“I suppose not,” she allowed. “My loss.”
He released her slowly, without breaking his gaze, and let her draw herself back, pleased to see the flush of color on her throat and the slight increase in the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. He did not move otherwise, not trusting himself to.
“He was kind to me,” she said softly, after a moment. “And he had all his hair then. I’d never gotten attention from a boy before, and he seemed like another element of the fantasy I’d fallen into during that visit. I’d catch him watching me, he’d askme questions quietly after dinner, and then one afternoon, he kissed me. Unfortunately, Caroline walked in just as the event occurred.”
“And the force of her fury blew all the hair out of his crown,” Ambrose guessed, quirking his lips to the side.
She giggled, shaking her head. “I truly didn’t know that she had designs on him, but I suppose their families had always intended for them to court when they reached adulthood, and she was more than happy with that arrangement. She wasfurious. She flew into a screaming, stomping rage. She tore my dress, she called me an urchin and a whore and an upstart, accused me of seducing him, scratched at her own face, broke a lamp. It was all rather a lot. And he just stood there staring like he was innocent in all of it, even though he would have been more than happy to lead us both down the garden path all Christmas if he could’ve gotten away with it.”
“Were no adults present?” Ambrose asked, gaping at the image as it unfolded in his mind. “Mr. Sedgwick seems such a sensible man.”
