Governesses Under The Mistletoe

Chapter Six

He’d taken Isabel around London after the marriage even though she’d refused to shop. He’d made sure she could later and let her know where he had accounts.

At his town house, he’d shown his bride to her room. She’d immediately spotted the trunk and while the door hadn’t slammed in his face, or even shut, it had been nudged his direction, but his boot had stopped it. He’d left her when she’d hugged a dress to her face and the sniffles had started. It wasn’t even a pretty dress. He’d had a good look at it when he’d said her name and she’d flung the clothing past him.

So, he’d moved to his room, took off his boots, stripped to his shirt and trousers and lay on the bed, giving her some time to orient herself before he returned.

Isabel was more in agreement with his plan for marriage than anyone else he could have chosen. She’d not even wanted to shop with him. And the little nudge of the door hadn’t been an accident. She would be the perfect wife once she stopped sniffling and throwing things at him. He didn’t blame her.

He would make it up to her. He would.

He promised he would get her a beautiful piece of jewellery soon. If there was one thing he had learned, the bigger the mistake; the bigger the gift. And sometimes it was best to wait before delivery so that it didn’t get thrown back.

He shook his head. He was a rake. What kind of rake was reluctant to visit his own wife’s bed on their wedding night? It was just that she’d felt so fragile in the carriage. And then the tears. She’d hugged some garment and cried. He didn’t wish to cause her more pain and so soon after the attack. She had to be bruised as she’d fallen to the floor. His own ribs still hurt.

The turns of the past few days passed through his mind and he realised he hadn’t slept the night before, and his eyelids weighted him down until a sound woke him.

Tap. Tap. Tap. He looked to the door. No servant would be...on this night.

Tap!

He opened the door, and a rigid, wan face glared. ‘It is my wedding night and I would prefer to get some sleep and I cannot because I feel like you are going to slip into my room any second.’ She paused. Her hair had been taken from the knot and cascaded about her shoulders. ‘Where have you been?’

Just enough light illuminated her to give her the gentleness of a lost waif.

‘I fell asleep.’

‘Well, that is a good plan.’ She whirled away.

He took a step, following her. He reached to clasp her arm. ‘Please.’ Gently, he led her back to the chamber.

‘My ribs,’ he said and patted over them. ‘I should have told you.’ In truth, he’d had many worse bruises, but a woman shouldn’t be alone on her wedding night. Neither should a man for that matter. ‘And I didn’t ask about the cut on your shoulder.’

‘It’s well enough.’

He led her beside the light and her hair showed glints of the copper. ‘Isabel.’ He touched the strands, letting them slide through his fingers, and he remembered a tale of a woman whose hair was so alive that she could let it down at her window and a prince could climb it to be at her side. He felt like the man trying to find the princess.

Burying his face against the silkiness, he slowly pulled her close, breathing in the soap-clean scent mixed with a reminder of spring flowers. Just right. She was not just right. She was perfection.

‘I told the truth about the sigh,’ he said. ‘I thought of my misfortune, should someone else have been at my side at that moment.’

‘Surely you—’

‘I could not imagine how lucky I was to have you there instead of anyone else.’

* * *

Isabel put her palms out and a fortress of male was at her fingertips. Instead of fear to have a male so close, his strength flowed into her.

‘Are you hurt badly?’ she whispered.

He rested his face against her hair. ‘It does not hurt at all, but...you’re certainly making it feel much better.’ His thin shirt was no barrier to the chest beneath. Warmth raced from her fingertips into her heart and she splayed her hands to feel more. She had not realised. He had not looked so formidable only inches away, nor so gentle.

Kisses sprinkled her whole body with sparks of warmth.

He stepped aside, pulled off his shirt and leaned into the light. Purpled skin, half the size of a boot.

She reached out, swirling her hand along just above the skin, not touching. ‘I am so sorry.’

‘I’m not.’

He clasped his hand over her wrist and moved her hand to the centre of his torso, just above his waistband. He pulled her hand close. Her fingers spread naturally, fitting against the taut skin. He trailed her fingers upwards, moving them over the ribs, the orbs, the lines and swirls of his chest.

Silken. Taut. Flexible and firm.

She’d never heard a song written about such an experience, never understood why people acted in manners not suitable to their station. In one brush of her hand against William’s chest she understood things no one could have explained if they’d spoken for a million years.

Like a creature burrowing against another for shelter, William put his face closer to hers. ‘Isabel... Is...I don’t think we’ve kissed before. I wanted to—I wanted to lean towards you and kiss you during the wedding. I ached to do it.’

He loosed his clasp and took his hand away, but her fingers stayed above his heart. He touched his lips to her nose, petal-light, brown velvety eyes watching blue.

‘Our first,’ he whispered. ‘But do not try to keep count, because if you can do so the night will be counted a miserable failure in my eyes.’

The world disappeared when he pulled her close and melded her into his arms. Her mind could not think past the feel of being held and she became light as thistledown, and wafted along on the warmth, held aloft by the rushing breaths. The soft brush of lips against lips joined them in a world of nothing but their heartbeats.

She didn’t know when the sash on her gown loosened and the garments fell away. But somehow, without her knowledge, William removed her clothing and his, and lifted her to the bed.

Their bodies twined close, skin heating skin, and for once, warmth on an August night soothed.

He paused, pushing himself up so that she looked into his eyes. The darkened room didn’t allow her to see the exactness of his features, but she could visualise him easily. His lips were parted and he studied her face, then moved to the side enough that he could reach to her cheek. She didn’t feel the touch, but his hand heated much like sunbeams travelling over the skin.

His fingertips dropped to her skin, moving to her jawline and down her neck to her shoulder. He trailed down her arm and took her hand, putting it against his cheek, moving to place a kiss against her palm. The bristles of his face mixed with the softness of his lips. She traced his jaw, taking in the transition to a world she’d not known existed. Tendrils of his hair brushed against her knuckles.

‘Isabel,’ he whispered, so softly she knew it was not a question, but a caress with words.

He moved forward to kiss her, but something inside her had changed so that the tilt forward seemed to take a thousand moments, but she savoured each one.

His lips, warm and moist, took her thoughts away so that she could only feel.

His hands brushed over her breasts, bringing the feel of a caress to her entire body. He outlined her hips, her stomach, and pulled her against him, his hardness between them.

Again the warmth of the night became a balm as the slickness of his heated body bonding to hers swathed them in a cocoon of togetherness.

When he entered her, the murmurings whispered into her ear made her feel more protected and loved than she’d ever imagined at any moment of her life.

In some knowledge she didn’t know how she’d gained, William did all he could to protect and cherish her with his body.

* * *

William stood at the side of the bed, looking down. His head kept lowering as he fell asleep on his feet and then he’d raise it and jolt himself awake. She lay so still and looked more fragile than any glass figurine with her resting lips, the lashes resting over closed eyes and the skin pale in the moonlight.

He leaned over her and brushed a kiss at her hair, hoping she would wake. She didn’t move. Then he brushed a knuckle against her cheek, and her eyelids flickered and she rolled over.

Stepping away he turned, controlling his breathing. She was well. She would remain well.

He should have met Isabel in her chamber. Even after she’d knocked on his door, he could have easily walked her back to her room and then left as she fell asleep.

He was not cad enough that he could ask her to leave his bed, and he didn’t think she had plans to go. If she had, she would have left earlier.

He could not become attached. He could not experience anything deeper than he might feel for any other person. To care enough that you didn’t want to hurt someone was how it should be. But he could not care enough that the person could damage him. If he had learned one thing in his life, that was it.

He didn’t don his trousers or shirt, but slowly began gathering his clothing. Devil take it. His face itched. He touched it again. This would be the second day without shaving and he simply could not stand another moment of it.

But he couldn’t ring for his valet and ask the man to simply ignore the woman in his bed—the wife in his bed.

This was what the vicar had meant about marriage, but William had been too absorbed to see. A wife did differ from a mistress. He’d not expected that since no love was involved.

The simple act of declaration of marriage in front of a few witnesses and it wasn’t just nonsensical words. But he had suspected that all along.

His thoughts had tried to warn him when he’d not been able to think the night before. He’d babbled on to the vicar as if he’d swallowed a crate of ale, but he’d not had any spirits until the one before the wedding, hoping it would steady him. The portent of knowledge, and the sleeplessness, had taken him out at the knees and gutted what was left of his thoughts.

This oddness, at seeing Isabel asleep in his bed, helpless in her slumber, was a reminder of all the conflagration he’d experienced during the past days. Surely, soon this would dissipate. Distance would help.

With his clothing bundled in one hand and his boots in the other, he made it out the door and pulled it closed behind him. In the hallway, he dressed, resting his back against the wall as he tugged on his boots.

Marriage had reduced him to—secreting himself out of a married woman’s bed in the night as if she might have a husband appear at any moment.

He would have to find another place to stay, at least temporarily until he had accepted the routine of someone living in his house. But he could not turn to his friends. He would be the laughingstock. So, Will, wife toss you out on the wedding night? What didn’t you know how to do?

He would go to his sister’s house. He wouldn’t have to explain there. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t stayed there many times before when he’d been playing cards with her husband, or talking with her, and the night had flitted away. The servants always let him in as if he owned the property.

* * *

Someone knocked at the door and Isabel’s eyes opened wide and she pulled the covers to her neck, feeling the strange slide of bed fabric against bare skin. She was in the middle of a monstrously large bed, she was naked and she was alone.

‘Yes?’ she asked, that being the only word she could think of. William. He didn’t wish to startle her.

‘Pardon.’ A male voice, rising high at the end, as if his foot had been trampled. Not William. ‘Later, sir.’

Oh, that was most likely William’s valet to wake him.

She looked around the room. He was not about, nor were his boots, nor any sign of the clothing, except hers.

Well.

She jumped out of bed, dressed as best as she could and darted to her room. How did one approach the servants and ask where one’s husband had wandered off to? She could not pen this in a note to the butler.

Back in her chamber, she sat on the mussed covers where she had tossed about the night before waiting to see if Mr Husband remembered he had got married. She reflected on what a small bed the room contained. Oh, it fitted her shape perfectly, but didn’t quite measure up to his chamber.

Little embers grew inside her, fanned by every deep breath she inhaled.

She stood, arms crossed, and examined the bed. The room was not nearly as nice as she’d thought it the night before. Oh, it was beautiful and pleasant, all the things a woman could wish for if she had not awoken alone in a much larger tester bed.

No lovely posts raising high in the room to declare the owner worthy of the best.

She tamped her hand over the covers. Lumps under. She was certain.

This was what he had meant about marriage. The tenderness of the night before was like the empty—smaller bed. It had...a rather nice cover, but underneath it was just workable. Nothing alive in it.

Oh, what a fool she was for neglecting to believe the truth told to her.

She whirled around, saw her face in the mirror and picked up her brush and pointed at the reflection. ‘He told you. He didn’t wish to be married. Vows and nonsense. Vows and nonsense.’ She combed her hair and reminded herself that it was not his fault. None of it. He had rescued her.

They had met in a brothel, lest she forget. He was not a saint. He was probably back at Wren’s hoping to...win something.

She put her brush on the table.

It wasn’t as if she cared for him overmuch. Her feelings for him only stemmed from the fact that he had saved her life. He could have turned and left her to Wren. None of the other men there had even noticed her—so she was indeed fortunate he had seen something other than his ale and the lightskirt trying to entice him.

This day would have started very differently if not for William. Very. She didn’t want to contemplate how. She would be in worse shape if she’d returned to her parents. Disgraced. And only disgraced might be an overly hopeful thought.

She looked around the room. He’d married her. Kept her from being a governess. She needed not be so harsh on him. Not that there was a thing wrong with being a governess. She just didn’t wish to be one. Or at the moment, a wife.

She refused to sigh and hissed instead.

Her stomach plagued her. The same way it had hurt the morning after her parents had left her at Madame Dubois’s School for Young Ladies. They had waved goodbye and said it would not be long before they would be back for her. And she’d really thought they would leave and realise how they could not continue on without their one and only child and return. Even the next morning she had expected them back at any moment and was reprimanded by Madame Dubois for running to the windows.

She had just known they would miss her so badly that they would return. Every day she had expected her mother to rush in, tears streaming down her face, arms outstretched, and pull Isabel close and say she could not bear another moment without her precious daughter.

Finally her parents had returned on the appointed day and the hug had been tight, the smile sincere, and then they had all got into the carriage and Isabel had talked and talked and talked and her mother had not once mentioned the absolute misery of having Isabel away from home. Not once.

Isabel had been the most wonderful daughter ever on holiday from the school, showing her parents all the things she had learned. She had assisted her mother without being asked and had even helped the maid-of-all-work, who had said Isabel was the best child she’d ever seen and that she had missed her terribly and it was so good to have her home again. The maid-of-all-work had hugged her three times when she’d first seen Isabel. Three.

And then when the holiday was over, her parents had taken her back to Madame Dubois’s School for Young Ladies Who Were Tossed from Their Homes and left her again. Isabel had not spoken on the trip and she didn’t think her parents had even noticed. Again they had waved goodbye and smiled at her.

Then Grace had rushed to Isabel and had hugged her and said she had missed her. Joanna and Rachel had mentioned how much they had missed all their dearest friends.

Still, Isabel had not felt as alone the first day of the school as she did on her first day of marriage. No noise of other students chattering and playing reached her ears. No instructions shouted about. Perhaps she would have liked being a governess more than she realised. Over time she would have sneaked into those children’s hearts and they would have missed her terribly on her half-day off.

Chapter Seven

‘William.’ His sister’s voice.

The door opened a peep. He raised his head from the pillow.

‘William.’

‘Stubble it, Soph. I’m trying to sleep.’

She was halfway into the room. ‘You look hideous.’

‘Thank you. Go away.’ He kept his eyes shut. Feigning sleep never worked, but one could hope.

‘The maid told me you were here,’ Sophia called out rather more cheerily and loudly than necessary.

He tamped the pillow with his hand, still not looking at her. ‘She was right.’

‘I was married a whole week before I showed up on your doorstep and you sent me right back home again.’

He felt the depression of the mattress as she sat.

‘So what did you do?’ she asked.

He didn’t answer.

Then she laughed. ‘Oh, I remember. At the wedding. Oh, that was endearing.’ She mocked a man’s gruffness. ‘I now pronounce you married.’ Then her voice rose and she emitted a very feminine, six-syllable sigh.

He half-opened one eye. ‘I meant nothing. I was pleased to be wed and thankful I had found Isabel. I sighed because it had taken me so long.’

‘Didn’t take her long to toss you out.’

‘She didn’t.’

The mattress shifted as she rose. ‘I’m sure she didn’t.’

‘Send some hot water this way.’

‘I think I shall visit Isabel.’

He opened his eyes and snapped out the words. ‘I forbid it.’

‘Mmm...’ she said at the doorway. ‘Remember what you said to me? That sometimes it was fine for me to pretend to be wrong even when I was right because sometimes men were just too thick-headed to see what a treasure was before them.’

‘I would have said that the sky was made of gooseberries if it would have convinced you to go home.’

‘The sky is made of gooseberries, but you may stay as long as you wish. I will send some water for you, though, because you have a forest growing on your face—’ The last of her words were lost in the closing of the door.

This would not do. He merely suffered from the shock of the wedding and the fact that the country miss had not known the proper rules of marriage. A wife didn’t visit her husband’s bed. And he had simply not been thinking when she appeared or he could have handled it so diplomatically and swept her up into his arms and whisked her down the hallway into her room.

He realised he had to go home. He’d had some rest now and he could see things much more clearly. Once he got the ragged mess of a beard taken care of he would go home. He would explain the way of the ton to her. Bedchambers were sacred by morning light. He could no more stay in her bed and risk the ladies’ maid walking in than she could stay in his bed and be awakened by the—

Oh.

* * *

Walking inside the doorway to his house, the familiar scent of lemon let William know his housekeeper had been working.

His steps lightened as he moved to his private chambers to drop off his coat and then he would find Isabel.

Inside the room, he stilled. He could see nothing different. Nothing. Yet, he felt he’d stepped into someone else’s room and not his own. Perhaps it was some lingering perfume or just the knowledge that she’d been there that disconcerted him.

But he supposed it was normal. Even his sisters rarely visited his town house and he’d invited no other woman inside, ever. The servants were mostly hidden in their duties. Sylvester sometimes visited, but was never invited. One allowed for Sylvester.

The room was no different. He was no different. And the woman in his home had no ties on him other than the fact that they had married. An arrangement that would suit them both for their futures. The vows were just words. But very loud ones, he admitted. Ones still ringing deep within.

William had escaped the need for courtship. He was as pleased with his wife as if he had chosen her from a fashion-plate magazine. The house was certainly big enough for the two of them, though he wasn’t certain how he would have felt if he’d walked into the bedchamber and she’d been inside.

Well, he smiled, shutting his eyes briefly. He wouldn’t have minded in one regard. His shoulders relaxed.

He examined the room. The bed. The walls. Everything was the same. Except the folded paper on the nightstand. He moved to it, picking up a note.

He stared at the words decorated with swirls and loops. She’d asked for his presence in her bedchamber.

Well, if one were to lose one’s privacy, then it could have a pleasant side.

A night of little sleep with all the events around him—well, two nights of little sleep had disconcerted him. He must not let his imagination take him down some path that only he saw.

If she asked him of his whereabouts in the night, he would tell her. He would reassure her that he would bring no disgrace on her.

He strode the hallway to her bedchamber just as a maid exited the door and his eyes flickered to the servant. She scurried away, but his hand went out, stopping the door before it closed.

Isabel hummed beyond the door, unaware of his presence. The sound flashed into him like a gunshot wrapped in velvet. He could not move. Her voice, even without words, controlled his heartbeats and whispered endearments.

His fingers tightened on the wood and he listened, his body swathed in the sense of song and Isabel.

Oh, he had not planned for this.

The humming stopped suddenly and he blinked, deserted.

He stepped inside. Isabel stood in front of the window. Light haloed her copper hair and emphasised the contours of her clothing.

One blink of the lashes over azure and his words fell to their knees. ‘Good morning.’ He could think of nothing else.

Her smile knotted around him and he had to shake himself internally to step back into his realm.

‘I have a plan.’ She moved as if a wind had lifted her an inch taller. ‘A plan you will like so much.’

Yes. He stopped the word from falling from his lips. He needed to hear her voice. He waited.