The Governess's Convenient Marriage

Alex groaned. ‘He has my sympathies.’ Her aunt, her mother’s sister, and her husband had not been happy for years. Her uncle tended to be loud and overbearing to get his points across and her aunt silent and passive. It was not a happy example of marriage, which was yet another reason Alex grew frightened when her parents pressed so for her to marry soon. ‘I can’t wait to see Will again, but tell him he absolutely doesn’t have to come to the ball. It will be a dreadful crush, no fun at all.’

‘Fun doesn’t seem a concern to Will. Just work, work, work, that’s all he thinks about.’

Alex laughed and nudged him with her elbow. ‘Unlike his brother.’

Chris put on a stern expression, making her laugh even more. ‘Someone has to maintain the family presence in society, Alexandra.’

‘Yes, and you do that very well. Your name is always in the gossip pages.’ The crowd grew thicker as they came closer to the bandstand, people pressing in on every side. Alex’s hat was knocked loose from a pin and she clutched at it as she tried to hold on to Chris.

‘I see some places closer to the front!’ Emily called. Alex tried to follow her, to keep Em’s large, pink-feathered hat in view, but the knots of people gathered around her ever tighter and tighter. Her arm slipped out of Chris’s and she desperately reached out for him, but like Em he slipped away. She was alone, drowning in a sea of strangers.

She felt so cold, so stricken with a sudden giddy rush of panic that she wanted to scream. Her hat was almost knocked off her head and, as she grabbed at it, someone ran into her from behind, making her stumble. The people in front of her moved as she tumbled into them, but that left a patch of gravel clear for her to fall towards it.

Time seemed to slow down, to freeze with the fear, and her hands shot out to catch herself. She braced herself for the jolt of pain.

Before she could land, someone seized her around the waist and lifted her up—up and up, off the ground entirely. Everything around her spun like a stained-glass window, the green trees, the yellow flowers, the reds and blues and browns of the ladies’ hats, all blurred together. Alex couldn’t catch her breath.

When she finally landed on her feet again, clutching at her hat, she found herself facing the most astonishing man she had ever seen. For one giddy instant, she wondered if she had indeed hit her head and landed in a book of Norse sagas.

He was very tall, so tall he blotted out the sunlight, and was a silhouette haloed in its golden glow. His shoulders were so broad under the perfect cut of his fine hunter-green wool coat, and his hair, falling to an unfashionably long length from beneath his stiff-crowned silk hat, was a glorious red-gold colour. His nose was slightly crooked, as if it had once been broken and healed badly, but that didn’t diminish from his sharp-cut cheekbones, his square jaw. He stared down at her from eyes so icy and pale blue they glowed.

She tottered on her feet, disorientated, and he held on to her by her waist, most improper. Most—interesting. He frowned—in concern, or irritation?—as he looked down at her. ‘Are you injured, miss?’ he asked, his voice deep and rich, touched with a Scots burr that made him seem even more otherworldly.

He reminded her of something, but what? It was just there, just beyond the edges of her mind, but it kept slipping away. Maybe she had dreamed of him once or something, he seemed quite unreal.

‘I—I…’ she gasped, feeling foolish, as she seemed to have forgotten all words.

‘You can’t breathe, it’s no wonder, all these glaikit people everywhere,’ he said. ‘Eh!’ he shouted. ‘Everyone move and give a lady some space to breathe.’

The crowd immediately cleared around them, of course. Who wouldn’t, at the sound of such a voice? That brogue, so full of authority and menace, as if Hyde Park was a battlefield. Thor with a Scots accent. It almost made her want to giggle and she wondered if she was getting hysterical.

‘Let’s find you a place to sit down,’ he said, gently taking her arm. His hand, ungloved, felt warm and steady, something to depend on in a dizzy world.

‘My friends…’ she said, suddenly remembering Emily and Diana. Where had they vanished? She glanced over her shoulder, but couldn’t see them anywhere. The crowd had closed behind her again.

‘We’ll find them in just a wee,’ he said. Her gaze was drawn to his lips, strangely sensual and soft for such a hard man. He frowned as if he was concerned. ‘You look very pale.’

‘I do feel a bit—startled,’ Alex admitted. He led her gently to a bench under the shade of a tree, somewhat away from the crowded paths. The bench’s inhabitants moved after a stern glare from Thor and he helped Alex sit down. ‘I don’t think I was expecting quite so many people here today.’

‘Ach, a sunny day, a bit of free music, enough to turn things into a stampede ground in this aidle city. Let me fetch you something cool to drink.’

Before Alex could protest, he turned and strode quickly, long-legged, towards a stand selling ginger beer. She drew in a deep breath, trying to steady herself after the last few astonishing minutes. Surely she hadn’t felt quite so much excitement in—well, ever! She had been so sure her life would never change, that she would smother in her parents’ house, and now she had fallen and been nearly trampled, and then rescued by a Norse god who used the oddest words. No wonder she felt dizzy.

She craned her neck to study her rescuer as he waited in the refreshment line. He certainly was handsome. She was sure she had never seen him before, or anyone quite like him. He was so tall, so powerful-looking, so golden-amber, he looked nothing like the young men she danced with every evening, sat next to at dinner and listened to them talk about cricket. She was quite sure Thor never talked about cricket, or if he did she didn’t want to know about it and spoil the fantasy she was indulging in.

He did wear the finest, most fashionable clothes, his sack coat of dark green wool with velvet lapels perfectly tailored, a gold watch chain over a luxurious ivory brocade waistcoat, boots polished to a gleam, and he seemed perfectly comfortable in them. Yet something about him made the finery seem a bit incongruous, like it wasn’t his favourite attire. She could see him striding across the moor in shirtsleeves and tweed trousers, high boots, his hair shining in the sun.

Yes, he definitely didn’t seem like he belonged in the city. The—what was it he called it? Aidle city.

He came back with a glass of the ginger beer and Alex sipped at it gratefully. Its tart coolness, fizzy on her tongue, seemed to steady her.

‘Thank you,’ she said, hardly daring to look at him for fear she would be dazzled witless again. ‘You have been very kind. I feel so foolish.’

‘Not at all,’ he answered in his rough, warm voice. ‘Anyone would want to faint in such a crowd. I would never have walked this way today if I had known.’

‘So you aren’t here to listen to the music?’

‘I was on my way to work. I like to walk on fine days.’

Alex was dying of curiosity to know what he did for work, but she wasn’t sure it was entirely polite to ask. Aside from her uncle and cousin Will, both at the Foreign Office, she really had no relative who had work they went to. She decided he must be a poet, or maybe a spy. No, a royal Stuart, come to claim his throne! It was surely something terribly dashing and romantic.

She felt her hat slip again from its pins and pulled it entirely off, leaving soft curls of her hair to fall free against her neck and temples. She stared ruefully down at the bit of millinery, the scrap of blue velvet and net, now quite bedraggled. ‘I’m afraid it’s ruined.’

He studied the hat in her gloved hands with a small frown, his head tilted. He smelled heavenly as he leaned closer, like a green, summery forest. ‘That shape is out of fashion, anyway. You need something with a larger brim, maybe with a scoop here over the eye, with a cluster of feathers. The colour is good, though, especially with your eyes.’

Alex gave a startled laugh. ‘You know about ladies’ hats, then, sir?’

He sat back on the bench beside her, his arms crossed over his chest. ‘It’s my job.’

He worked in millinery? Alex could hardly have been more astonished if he said he was just about to jump to the moon. It seemed so—strange. He was surely the most masculine man she had ever encountered, so full of quiet confidence and strength.

‘What do you think of my walking suit, then?’ she asked, sitting up straighter and grinning at him, startled by her sudden boldness. It was very unlike her. Usually, she just tried to blend into the woodwork. ‘Am I terribly out of fashion?’

He studied her carefully, those ice-blue eyes intent on only her, and she was almost sorry she had asked. She felt so hot and flustered under his gaze, and was sure her cheeks had gone bright red. She quickly gulped down the last of her drink.

‘The colour is also good,’ he answered. ‘And the cut. Its fine cloth and the velvet and silk go well together. But the trim is all wrong. A fur collar would be just right, or some gilded embroidery, like Princess Alexandra wears now.’

‘Princess Alexandra?’ Alex said, thinking of her godmother, who was indeed always perfectly dressed.

‘Everyone follows what she wears.’

‘Yes, I know. She’s always very elegant. But I don’t look much like her. Would her style suit me?’

He studied her carefully, from her disarranged hair to the tips of her kid walking boots, and Alex had to look away. To will her heart to beat slower. ‘Your colouring is different from the Princess, of course, but you have the same delicacy. The same—distance.’

Alex didn’t feel ‘distant’ from him at all. She felt much, much too close. ‘Distance?’

His icy eyes narrowed. ‘Like you’re not of this world. My old nanna, my grandmother, would have said you were a fairy queen of winter.’

‘Of winter?’ Alex asked, intrigued.

‘Aye. All pale and delicate outside, full of icy storms, curses and danger inside.’

She laughed. ‘I think I’m the least dangerous person there is.’

He shook his head. ‘I shouldn’t contradict a female—but I think you’re wrong. You’re definitely of the winter fairy folk.’

She didn’t know how to admit that sitting here with him on this bench was by far the bravest thing she had ever done. She rather liked imagining being of the fairy folk, able to do as she liked when she liked. Just as she enjoyed thinking of him as a god of the Norse country. It all took her out of her dutiful life, the life where she was never quite right, never quite enough, for a moment. It took her out of the ordinary day, out of being Lady Alexandra.

‘I will have to buy a new hat immediately, then,’ she said. ‘A winter fairy can’t go around being dowdy. What would you suggest? Something like that? She looks in the stylish way.’ She gestured at a passing lady, who wore a gown of purple-and-cream-striped silk that was improbably close-fitting and an enormous cartwheel of a hat laden with fruit.

He didn’t even glance at her, just kept watching Alex, something seeming to sharpen in his eyes. He didn’t move closer, but it suddenly felt as if he had, as if his heat and strength surrounded her. ‘I could buy you the most fashionable hat you’ve ever seen, if you would have supper with me tonight at the Criterion.’

And the light-hearted moment shifted, like a grey cloud shifting in front of the sun. Alex sat up straighter, shivering. Even she knew about the Criterion. It was luxurious, all satin-wrapped and filled with French champagne, with private dining rooms where gentlemen took their actress and opera-dancer friends. She heard whispers about it all at balls and teas, quickly quieted when she came near. This gorgeous man thought she was an—an actress?

She felt outraged and wanted to laugh, all at the same time.

‘You—you think…’ she gasped.

She could see immediately that he realised his mistake. Once again, he did not seem to physically move, yet he was very far away from her. He took off his hat and ran his hand through his amber hair. ‘Forgive me. I should never have assumed…’

‘You assumed because I was alone for a moment, I am a woman of—loose morals?’ she whispered, still unsure what she was feeling. Embarrassment, yes, burning hot, but also filled with a strange, hysterical mirth. And disappointment, that her brief dream with this handsome man was gone so quickly. ‘I assure you I am not. I didn’t realise your kindness was based on such a notion.’ She quickly rose to her feet, glad she was steady now.

He stood up beside her and she instinctively stepped back. ‘Of course not,’ he said, his accent even heavier. ‘It is just that you’re so—so…’

‘So?’ So bold, so outrageous, so—not herself?

‘Beautiful,’ he blurted out.

Alex felt her face turn even hotter. He thought her beautiful? Just her, Alex, not the Duke’s daughter? ‘I must go!’

‘Let me help you find your friends.’

‘No!’ she cried. She was tempted to stay right there, standing with him, so she knew she had to run. She spun around and dashed away, not daring to look back. She lost herself in the crowd, hearing the brassy strains of music, of the laughter in the air. It all made her feel even more as if she was caught in a dream, where nothing in her real life existed any longer.

It was only when she heard Chris calling her name that she realised she had dropped her hat. She glanced back, hoping to see her rescuer, no matter how improper he was. And that was when it struck her, where she had seen him before. Not in her dreams. Oh, she was such a fool not have known him immediately!

He was Malcolm, her Malcolm. The sweet, handsome boy who had once taught her to fish. Yet there was no trace of that lad in him any more. Now he was the owner of Gordston’s Department Store, he had become arrogant, so sure everything belonged to him, just like the beautiful women he was with in the newspapers.

She thought she would drown in memories, the humiliation she felt when they parted. How had she ever considered him her friend? He never had been and he truly was not now. They were worlds apart.

But she still wanted to cry when she remembered the sweetness of what once was, even if it was all just a girlish dream.

* * *

‘Dobber!’ Malcolm Gordston muttered as he watched the winter fairy disappear into the crowd. He sat back heavily on the bench, wishing he could slap himself. He had indeed been a first-class fool. Anyone with eyes should have seen right away that she was a lady. Probably even one with a capital L. Her refinement, her voice, her clothes, so finely made and yet subtle, her gentleness—aye, it all said lady, loud and clear.

And yet the moment he had touched her, he had been overcome by a wave of longing like he had never known before. A need for her softness, her sweetness. It wasn’t like him at all, the tough offspring of a crofter on the Duke of Waverton’s Scottish shooting estate, longing for a delicate fairy. He had worked his way up from a ghillie’s muddy son to being one of the richest men in England and not by giving in to any longing for softness and refinement.

Nor had he done it by being ignorant of human nature. He’d learned how to read every nuance of people, to know what they desired before even they could see it and then provide it—for a price. Men and women, they were far more transparent in their wants, needs and deepest fears than they realised. It was his key to never going back to his miserable childhood, where one man was ruined at the mere whim of another.

It was his most invaluable tool in his professional life and in his limited personal time, as well. He liked women, liked the way their minds worked in such subtle, slippery, fascinating ways, so much more complex than most men, shrewder, sharper. Like him, they had to make their way up in a world not designed for them, through back doors. And in return, they seemed to like him, too. Female company was not hard to find.

But all his judgement seemed to have fled when he looked into a pair of heather-coloured eyes. Fairy eyes indeed, so large in her pale, pointed fey face, changeable blue-purple-green, set off by feathery, sooty lashes. He had never seen anyone quite like her. So small and delicate, pale curls escaping from that terrible hat, the silvery, unexpected sound of her sudden laughter. The way she felt under his touch, so light and frail, trembling as if she would sprout sparkling wings and fly away at any moment.

He was enchanted, in a fairy-story sense of the word, taken out of himself. And fairies were dangerous creatures. Always flying away as soon as you touched them. Always putting a curse on your home.

When he was a wee lad, after his mother died and his father went off drinking every night, his nanna would make him supper and tell him tales of the fairies, the winter and summer folk. When he held the lady’s hand in his, smelled her light, pale green lily-of-the-valley perfume, he whimsically wondered if he was seeing the pale winter queen set down in Hyde Park.

And he was never a man to be whimsical. He had learned that from his childhood. Never leave your heart open. Never be helpless.

It had made him take a foolish misstep, a rare misjudgement of a person. He had wanted her so much, he made himself believe she was available when she so clearly was not. He had a solid rule in romance—never dabble with an innocent. There was only pain and confusion in that for everyone involved. He stayed with women like himself, who knew the rules of engagement. He had built his life up by hard work to exactly where he wanted it. He wouldn’t let anything tear it down now. And he knew very well a woman like that was not for the likes of a Gordston.

But, just for a moment, as he sat beside her and watched her smile, he almost would have been willing to watch his kingdom burn down.

Surely it was a lucky thing she had run away. It just didn’t feel so lucky yet.

Malcolm laughed again and put his hat back on before he made his way through the crowd towards the park gates. As usual, because of his height and the long, quick stride he needed to get where he was going fast, the knots of people unravelled before him. He rarely noticed it any longer; his mind was always on the next task, the next new idea. Yet today, he scanned the bright crowd, looking for a pale woman in blue. She wasn’t there, of course, yet he couldn’t seem to stop himself.

At last he left the park and being on the clatter of the streets was like waking up to himself. There was work to be done. There was always work to be done.

* * *

Gordston’s Department Store was busy, as usual. Malcolm dashed up the marble front steps and through the gleam of the revolving doors into the lobby. Black-and-white stone floors were waiting, the gleam of glass counters, displaying every temptation from kid gloves to crystal perfume bottles to Belgian chocolates, beckoned. The salespeople greeted him with smiles, the customers with curious glances, but he saw none of it today.

He took his own lift straight to the offices on the top floor. It was a different world from the shimmer and perfume of the sales floors, still luxurious with dark-panelled walls and thick Persian carpets underfoot, but with the buzz of low voices and tap of typewriters rather than laughter and the murmur of fountains. The air smelled of paper and ink instead of rose scent and violet powder. The buzz of efficiency and commerce, his forte.

He went to his own office at the end of the corridor and had only a moment to drape his coat and hat on the rack before his secretary, Miss Mersey, appeared. Like everyone else on the top floor, she was efficiency itself in her white shirtwaist and black skirt, her greying hair pinned atop her head, her spectacles in place on her stern nose. She had been with him almost since he opened the store and he could not do without her.

‘Good morning, Mr Gordston,’ she said, snapping open her notebook. ‘Mr Jones has yesterday’s sales figures almost ready for you from the accounting office.’

‘Almost?’ Malcolm said as he sat down behind his desk. It was all in order, the stacks of reports where they were meant to be, his gold pen and blotter lined up.

‘It seems there was a small discrepancy with the glove counter, which is being sorted out. I have the travel arrangements finished for Paris, as well. The repairs to the yacht will be finished by Friday, so everything is quite on schedule. The latest reports from Monsieur Jerome’s architecture office are on your desk, as you see. The store will be finished on time and you will be able to depart for the grand opening as planned.’

‘You mean we will be able to depart.’

For once, a tiny gleam of interest pierced Miss Mersey’s admirably steely exterior. ‘We, Mr Gordston?’

‘Of course. I could never manage my business in Paris without you.’

‘But the store here…’

‘Mr Jones will be perfectly able to oversee things for a few weeks. If you can bear to tear yourself away for a time by the Seine. Maybe dine in a café or two, a new hat…’

Miss Mersey’s brow arched over her spectacles. ‘I think I could bear that, Mr Gordston, for the sake of my employment.’

‘Certainly. Now, Miss Mersey, about the new shipment of muslins from India…’

* * *

Once all the morning business was concluded, Miss Mersey closed her notebook and turned to leave, a stack of letters in her hand to be typewritten.

‘Miss Mersey,’ he called impulsively.

‘Mr Gordston?’

‘Do you happen to know of a customer who is a young lady, very petite, with pale blonde hair? Terrible taste in hats?’

Miss Mersey tapped her pencil thoughtfully on her notebook’s leather cover. She had a prodigious memory, almost as good as Malcolm’s own, and could remember every detail of every regular customer, their orders and perfumes and likes and dislikes. But that description was probably too vague even for her. ‘There is Miss Petersham. She is blonde and ordered that odd parrot hat last month. Or Lady Minnie Grant? Mrs Gibson?’

Malcolm shook his head. He knew all those ladies and none of them was his fairy. ‘If she’s been in, I doubt she’s a regular.’

Miss Mersey’s brows went even higher. ‘She, Mr Gordston?’

‘Just someone I met in the park. I was—curious.’

‘Curious, Mr Gordston?’

He tossed down his pen. ‘Yes. That’s all, Miss Mersey, thank you.’

‘Of course. Oh, I almost forgot. This came for you. An invitation to Lady Cannon’s garden party.’

Malcolm glanced down at the engraved card she handed him. ‘How boring.’

‘Just so. But it’s one of the most sought-after events of the Season and Lady Cannon is a very good customer. Perhaps just a tiny little short appearance?’

He knew she was right and gave a brusque nod. ‘Just a tiny one.’

Miss Mersey gave a delicate little cough. ‘About the lady—I could make enquiries among the staff? Maybe they have noticed her.’

‘No,’ he snapped irritably, because what he really wanted to do was shout Yes, of course, find her! And that would be a mistake. ‘Thank you, Miss Mersey.’

She sniffed and spun around to leave the office, the door clicking shut behind her. No matter how miffed she was, she would never slam. Malcolm reached for the architect’s drawings of the Paris store and tried to concentrate on the important business at hand, expanding Gordston’s on to the Continent.

Yet he couldn’t quite get a pair of wide, heather-coloured eyes out of his mind.

Chapter Three

‘Alexandra! Aren’t you ready yet? We will be terribly late,’ Alex’s mother called from the dressing room doorway.

Alex studied her mother’s reflection in the mirror as her maid put the finishing touches on her hair. The Duchess was tugging on her gloves, straightening her hat, as impeccably dressed as usual in a green-and-white-striped gown, pearls and amethysts in her ears, blonde hair barely touched with silver. Tall, statuesque, exactly what a duchess should be. Alex knew her own tiny, delicate looks had always been something of a puzzle to her mother.