“Of course, Your Grace.” His butler bowed, sounding humble. “It is merely that I do believe the prospective governess’s name is Miss Jacinda Turnbow and not, in fact Miss Torncrow. As you wish.”
Torncrow, Tornbow, Turnbow. Who gave a bloody damn? The chit’s name mattered not. All that did was completing this wretched audience so someone could take his hoyden sisters in hand and leave him more time to go about the business of drowning himself in blue ruin and quim, the order of these twin indulgencespas nécessaire. Some days, he hungered for the comfort of his flesh pounding into another’s. Others, all he required was a bottle and his hand.
Today was a sousing and fucking sort of day. The nightmares had returned. He’d woken to earsplitting screams he realized were his own. Even now, he could feel the blood on his hands. Smell the foul reek of death. See Morgan’s disembodied hand.
He took another drink of whisky, wondering what in Hades was taking the woman so bloody long to appear. Patience had never been one of his admittedly limited catalog of virtues.
“Miss Turnbow, Your Grace,” intoned Nicholson then, splitting the silence.
His gaze flitted back to the threshold to find a short female form enshrouded in an unremarkable, altogether shapeless dress. He supposed he ought to stand, observe propriety and the polite nuisances society subjected upon its unwilling vassals, etcetera. And so, he rose, not with the grace he would have preferred, but with what he supposed was the proper amount of listing deference one ought to pay a prospective governess whilst in his cups.
Nicholson disappeared. The door closed, leaving Crispin in the mid-morning murk, the drapes still closed. The governess became hazy and indistinct. A vague shape, her form smothered in dour shades that seemed designed to disguise. Egad, was her dress brown? Even in the darkness, he clearly discerned the white cap atop her head.
Here was the sort of woman who fashioned herself into an inanimate object, something unworthy of notice. Unless one truly looked.
And he looked as she drew abreast of his desk. The darkness did not obscure her from him now in such proximity, for he had grown accustomed to the lack of light. He preferred it. Even so, there was something about this small woman that made him wish to illuminate the chamber. To draw back the window coverings and light a hundred tapers and oil lamps each, just the better to see her.
Ludicrous, that. But he was half sotted, and he had lost control of his baser impulses a long, bloody time ago. This woman woke his body in ways he had not experienced since… hell, sinceever. It wasn’t just his cock that stood at attention—which it most assuredly did—but his mind too was engaged. He was intrigued. All signs pointed to the conclusion this woman was lovely, with a ripe body, and yet she had hidden herself beneath a matron’s cap and a travesty of fabric.
But she was looking upon him in expectation, which reminded him he was the host. And he was meant to be interviewing this luscious bit of skirts to be his sisters’ governess. And if she was to become the governess, he must not consider the tempting notion of stripping her bare and kissing her everywhere until she was desperate for him.
He cleared his throat, banishing the wicked thought, delicious though it was.
“Miss…” he paused when he had once more forgotten her name.Devil take it.
The prospective governess took his forgetfulness in stride, however. Her lips—large, luscious, and with a delightfully delineated upper bow, tightened into a semi-frown. Hers was not the mouth of a governess, and it seemed a damn shame she ought to have found herself in such a plight. A woman with the allure of a courtesan ought to never be forced to conceal her charms and earn her bread schooling brats.
“Miss Turnbow,” she supplied, her tone polite.
Distant.
This was no ordinary female. He could sense as much as he observed her, watched the way that lone beam of light betwixt the curtains found its way to her brilliant red hair, glimmering in the hint of her bound locks visible beneath the dreadful cap. If the sight of her potential employer rumpled and tippling straight from the bottle before midday disturbed her, she gave no indication of it.
“Miss Turnbow,” he agreed, grateful when she did not seem to balk at his greeting, which meant he had recalled her surname correctly for the first time since hearing of her existence. Although she had just spoken it moments before, the whisky had begun to at last dull his senses so that he had fallen into a delicious state of inebriation, and he could not be entirely sure what he heard, recalled, or said.
He was here. Existing when he had no right to. Doing his damnedest to forget all the reasons why.
She dipped into a semblance of a curtsy then, grasping her skirts and lowering herself, keeping her eyes trained to the floor. He wished he could see her properly—could read her gaze. Were her eyes dark and soulful, or were they blue and bright? Perhaps even green and exotic. How he bloody well wished he could know and see all of her.
“Your Grace,” she returned.
“Please do seat yourself.” He stroked his jaw, watching, wondering what she would do next. Surely to her, this would seem odd, interviewing for her post in the darkness with an inebriated duke who had a bottle at his right hand? And yet, she seemed unmoved. It sure as hell left one wondering. He brought the bottle to his lips, taking a swig just to see if he could goad her.
Her brows rose, but she sat as prompted, primly arranging her voluminous skirts as she did so. “Thank you, Your Grace.”
He had never seen such a horribly outfitted female. The waist of the colorless sack was not even properly fitted, and the skirts billowed about her like an unfortunate sail on a boat. Her breasts looked like handfuls even beneath the loose lines of the monstrosity. But a massive lace fichu that would have been more at home on a turbaned dowager than on a young, comely lady obstructed him from a proper view.
Despite her atrocious gown and unfortunate inability to show her womanly figure to full distraction, her face was arresting. Even garbed in the ugliest dress he’d ever seen, half covered by lace, the sight of her hit him like a fist to the gut.
“Your Grace?” Her voice, tentative, interrupted the wicked vein of his thoughts.
“Hmm?” Rudely, he wiped the back of his hand across his wet mouth, removing all traces of liquor before he lowered the bottle to the table and focused upon the governess once more, only to realize he had once again forgotten her bloody name.Turncrow? Tornstow? Devil take it, he didn’t know.
But her eyes… Lord God, he could see them now at this proximity, and they were extraordinary. Warm, sherry-brown with golden flecks and framed by long, thick lashes. This woman looked more like a mistress than a governess.
She looked, in a word, beddable.
Would it be wrong to pin her to the desk, ravage her mouth until she was breathless, and then raise her skirts to her waist? Could he take the prospective governess? Was he that depraved? The longer he stared at her lush mouth—currently flattened into a peevish line that did nothing to distract from his desire to claim it—the more the idea of debauching her consumed him.
