The Trouble with the Daring Governess
Autor
Annie Burrows
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23
Chapter One
‘But I lo-uh-lo-uh-love him!’
Oh, dear, thought Rosalind, pausing with her hand raised to knock on the study door, from behind which came Lady Susannah’s anguished protest. A protest which had now turned into a wild mixture of sobs and screams.
No wonder Lady Birchwood, Susannah’s widowed aunt, had looked so distressed when she’d come, in person, to order Rosalind to get down to His Lordship’s study and ‘deal with the gel’.
Since that was Rosalind’s primary function in this household, she’d risen from her chair and come downstairs straight away. It was only now that she could hear how badly Lady Susannah was behaving that she hesitated, pondering how best to deal with her over-indulged and therefore rather pettish charge.
It sounded, from the few intelligible words she’d been able to make out before Susannah had become incoherent, as though Lord Caldicot was trying to put his foot down over the attentions of one of Susannah’s suitors. Probably Mr Cecil Baxter, if Rosalind had to guess. It had been Cecil says this and Cecil did that for weeks now.
Actually, there was probably no point in knocking on the door, she reflected, lowering her hand. Neither of the people in that room was likely to hear it over the high-pitched wailing that Susannah was making now.
So she just squared her shoulders and went in.
The scene inside Lord Caldicot’s study was pretty much what Rosalind had expected. Susannah was lying on the floor, thrashing about as she gave vent to her outrage, putting Rosalind in mind of a toddler who’d dropped her cream cake in the pond and seen the ducks devour it before anyone could get it back for her.
Yet she’d had the presence of mind, Rosalind noted wryly, to give vent to those feelings on the hearthrug, which was a soft, thick sheepskin, rather than on any other portion of the study floor, which had no carpet at all.
Lord Caldicot himself was standing behind his desk, ramrod straight as befitted a man who’d spent so much of his life in the military. He’d also selected the one sure defensive bulwark in the room, behind which he could duck, should Susannah take it into her head to start throwing things. He was no fool.
He did, however, look like a man who had almost reached the limit of his patience. Though his exasperated expression changed the moment he noticed her come in, to one of heartfelt relief.
‘Take this silly chit back to her room,’ he said irritably, ‘and keep her out of my sight until you’ve talked some sense into her.’
Rosalind had been so pleased by the way he’d welcomed her arrival with such evident pleasure. But this tactless remark effectively doused her brief moment of joy.
Didn’t he know his ward at all? Talking sense was never going to get through to Susannah when she was in one of these moods.
But then, of course, he didn’t know her, did he? He’d been abroad, fighting for his country, when his cousin, the Fifth Marquess of Caldicot, had died and he’d become not only the Sixth Marquess, but also legal guardian of his predecessor’s only surviving child, Susannah. From what Rosalind had gathered, since she’d taken on the role of something more than a governess, but not quite a companion to Susannah, everyone had thought that a bachelor, and a soldier to boot, would have no idea how to rear a girl child. So a succession of female relatives had taken turns to move into Caldicot Dane with her, to supervise her care. And all of them, without exception, had petted and cosseted the wealthy little orphan until she’d become almost unmanageable.
It was at moments like this, Rosalind reflected, regarding Susannah’s flushed cheeks and thrashing limbs, that she was sometimes sorely tempted to take a glass of water and fling it into the girl’s face. The trouble was that, if she were ever to succumb to such a temptation, she’d lose her job. Nobody, but nobody, had ever raised a hand to the girl. And for her to do so would result in instant dismissal.
Anyway, although Susannah was what some people described as ‘a bit of a handful’, this was by no means the worst position Rosalind had ever held. She wanted to keep this job. So she contented herself with merely imagining for a moment or two how Susannah would look, with cold water dripping down her face, before applying the only method that she’d ever found worked on her charge.
She went over and knelt down on the rug beside Susannah.
‘I know, I know,’ she crooned in apparent sympathy. ‘He is a nasty brute. He won’t pay any heed to your tears, you know. Come upstairs with me,’ she said, holding out her hand.
‘He has no right to say I may not marry Cecil,’ said Susannah, abruptly, sitting up. ‘No right!’
Ah. So that was what had brought on this latest storm.
‘I have every right,’ said Lord Caldicot, rather unwisely in Rosalind’s opinion. Susannah had just stopped crying, sat up and begun talking. How she wished she had the right to advise him that the thing to do now would be to distract her, not reopen the argument that had started her off. But of course she didn’t have that right. And it would never occur to him to ask her for advice. ‘I am,’ he persisted, ‘your legal guardian.’
‘You aren’t!’
‘I am.’
‘No, you’re not! I have trustees who...who...well, my aunts have always consulted with them, whenever I need something, and—’ she gulped ‘—they let me have whatever I want!’
‘The trustees,’ said Lord Caldicot, firmly, ‘acted on my behalf, while I was away fighting, and was not able to make those decisions in a timely manner. And let me tell you, young lady...’
Oh, no. Please don’t, thought Rosalind.
‘That had I been consulted,’ he continued, impervious to Rosalind’s silent plea, ‘you would not have been indulged to the extent that nobody can now do anything with you!’
Well, on that score, she thought Lord Caldicot might have made a good point. Had somebody made any attempt to discipline Susannah, rather than passing her off to the next set of relatives when they’d started to find her temper tantrums tiresome, then she might not have turned out like this.
Had anyone stood by her, instead of walking away whenever she’d gone through one of her ‘difficult’ phases, Rosalind was certain she would have abandoned this sort of childish behaviour long ago. But nobody had. Instead, people blamed the girl for being unable to control her temper rather than wondering whether it might not be the end product of being alternately spoiled, then abandoned, by people who claimed to have her best interests at heart.
However, saying what he had did nothing to help matters. On the contrary, it provoked Susannah into sucking in a huge, indignant breath, then holding it for a split second, as though deliberating whether to use it to scream, or tell him exactly what she thought of his opinion and what he could do with it.
Rosalind took advantage of that pause to lean in and murmur into Susannah’s ear, ‘I shouldn’t bother if I were you. Whatever you say now will only make him dig his heels in harder. We need to regroup and plan our next move. In private.’
Susannah’s head swivelled in Rosalind’s direction. She appeared to be considering Rosalind’s advice.
It was touch and go. Rosalind could never tell which way Susannah’s mood would swing, during one of these tantrums. But this time, to her relief, Susannah gave a decisive nod, got up, stuck her nose in the air and swept out of the room, without deigning to give her poor beleaguered guardian as much as a glance.
Rosalind didn’t give her employer a glance, either, as she left the room and headed up the stairs in Susannah’s wake, but not, she was sure, for the same reason as Susannah. Rosalind simply didn’t dare. Oh, not that she was afraid of him, for all his martial demeanour—no, it wasn’t that. It was worse. Far worse, to her mind. She was just scared that if she ever looked him in the eye, at a moment when he happened to be looking in her direction, then he might somehow perceive that she had a...well, that she thought he was...
No. No, she mustn’t even think about the way she’d started to feel whenever she was in the same room with him of late. That would be to...to feed it. And she mustn’t. No, she must starve that feeling. Or...or strangle it, or something. Because if he were to guess, or if anyone was to guess, that he made her heart flutter, and her pulses race, and her silly imagination run riot...well, they’d all think she was a complete ninny. Which was the exact opposite of the image which had landed her this position.
Lord Caldicot had hired her, on one of his infrequent trips to England, because, he’d told her, he thought she looked sensible. And stern. Attributes which, he’d said, Susannah’s governess would need if ever she was going to make the girl fit to make her debut by the time she reached seventeen. He’d hired her because he believed she’d be able to make Susannah behave herself.
‘You look as if you have backbone,’ he’d said. ‘Which is precisely what is needed, in my opinion.’
If he knew that the sensible governess he’d hired was prone to silly, romantic, impossible daydreams...
Although she’d never had any before they’d all moved here, at the start of the Season, had she? On the contrary, she’d actually been a bit nervous about what it might be like to have a man permanently in residence, after having enjoyed living in a mostly female household for the previous five years. So nobody could justifiably accuse her of being prone to silly daydreams...
‘I hate him!’
Susannah’s bitter exclamation snapped Rosalind out of her reverie.
‘And I hate Aunt Birchwood, too! She...she actually stuck up for Lord Caldicot,’ said Susannah, shaking her head in disbelief. ‘Said that even though Cecil was from a very old family, he is only a younger son, with no prospects, and that I ought to be aiming for a much more brilliant match.’
Having uttered her opinion of Lord Caldicot and her aunt’s treachery in agreeing with him about Mr Baxter’s unsuitability, Susannah flung herself face down on the bed and burst into another bout of noisy sobbing.
Rosalind, who had grown used to scenes of this sort since she’d come to work for the family, bit back the urge to sigh and went to sit on the most comfortable chair in the room while she waited for Susannah to calm down. It was right by the window and gave a really good view over the square, and the people wandering around down there.
She did not make the mistake of glancing outside, however. She’d done that once and Susannah had caught her doing it when she ought, to the girl’s indignation, have been paying her attention.
It was safer to sit and look down into her lap, so that when Susannah eventually grew tired of weeping and sat up to find out why Rosalind wasn’t fluttering about her, the way her aunts did, the way she thought everyone should when she was causing a scene, she wouldn’t find her looking out of the window. There were several breakable objects stationed within Susannah’s reach, and she had a remarkably good aim, even when she appeared to have lost control of all her other senses.
Then, all of a sudden, as was Susannah’s habit, she sat up and turned to look at Rosalind.
‘Stop scowling at me!’
‘Was I scowling? I beg your pardon,’ said Rosalind, mildly. ‘I didn’t mean to. I was just thinking, very hard and my thinking face must look so serious that you mistook it for a scowl.’ It was probably why Lord Caldicot had hired her, she mused. She’d been determined, at that interview, not to take another job where there was any risk of some male member of the household thinking he had the right to take advantage of her.
She’d decided that since she was eighteen years of age, it was about time she started to make decisions about her future for herself, instead of relying on others to make provisions for her, so she’d signed on with an agency. And when they’d sent her for the interview for the post as Susannah’s governess, she had asked Lord Caldicot at least as many questions about what she might expect if she went to live at Caldicot Dane, as he’d asked her.
He’d leaned back in his chair, at one point, and chuckled, remarking that he was beginning to wonder exactly which of them was conducting the interview. When she’d retorted that a girl had to be careful, he’d nodded and said he liked the fact that she hadn’t backed down when he’d challenged her. That his ward needed someone who wouldn’t stand any nonsense. That she seemed like just the kind of person who could bring some much-needed discipline into Susannah’s life.
She supposed she did appear stern, when really that was not her nature at all. She’d noted it on looking in the mirror recently. It was because of her thick eyebrows. Perched as they were above a beak of a nose, they couldn’t help making her look decidedly formidable.
But then nobody would describe Lord Caldicot as classically handsome either, would they? His nose was not a beak, like hers, but neither did it look as though it had been chiselled out of marble. His hair was not wavy, flopping across his brow in a romantic fashion, or at least, he kept it cut so short that no waviness or floppiness dared to make an appearance. No, it was his eyes that had first made her think him...compelling, to her as a female. The clear intelligence in them. The way they narrowed, ever so slightly, when anyone said anything particularly fatuous. And then there was the way he behaved. With such integrity.
She didn’t care what anyone else said. Rosalind could not fault him for only selling out, apparently with great reluctance, so many years after he’d inherited his title from his cousin. England was at war. He’d stayed at his post until it was time for him to supervise Susannah’s come-out, in person, displaying, to her mind, the perfect balance between duty to his country and his family.
Then there was the upright way he carried himself and the air of...well, she couldn’t describe it as anything but cleanliness. He didn’t give off that sort of greasy, repellent atmosphere that had hung about the wealthy, titled men she’d encountered in her previous post. The men who’d regarded females, especially females in menial roles, as fair game.
‘Thinking?’ Susannah’s face turned hopeful. ‘About a way to bring Lord Caldicot round? So that he will let me marry Cecil?’
‘Er...’ Far from it! But the prospect that she might be was enough to make Susannah look in a better frame of mind. And she had persuaded her charge to come upstairs on the pretext of planning their next move, hadn’t she? So it was only natural that Susannah would expect her to come up with a plan, wasn’t it?
‘I suppose,’ ventured Susannah, ‘that with all those books you read, you must have read about all sorts of ways of rescuing persecuted heiresses from the clutches of evil guardians.’
There were so many things wrong with that statement that Rosalind wasn’t sure which misconception to deal with first. Susannah didn’t need rescuing, for one thing—she needed to learn to listen to advice, even when she didn’t like it. And her guardian wasn’t evil, nor was he persecuting her. He just wasn’t treating her with the sugary, flattering, doting manner that she’d grown to expect was her due, that was all. Trying to lay down a few rules, which was something none of her other relatives, so far as Rosalind, had observed, had made much attempt to do.
‘In all the fairy stories I can remember,’ Susannah continued, while Rosalind was still debating the wisdom of saying what she really wanted to say, ‘when the king forbids a suitor from marrying the princess because of some stupid thing such as he is merely a swineherd or something, the princess persuades the king to let him prove his worth by going on a quest.’
‘A quest,’ Rosalind repeated, trying not to laugh. If Susannah thought that anyone could persuade Lord Caldicot to send her Cecil on a quest to prove his worth...or to persuade him to do anything he didn’t want, come to that! Didn’t Susannah realise what kind of man he was? He was a military man, used to giving orders and having them obeyed instantly.
‘Well, not a quest, exactly,’ Susannah said, pensively. ‘There aren’t any dragons for him to slay, or, or magic lamps for him to find, not in London, these days...’
‘Er...no,’ agreed Rosalind, faintly, wondering what on earth must go on in Susannah’s head for her to come out with such comments.
‘But he could show... I don’t know...loyalty, or bravery somehow, couldn’t he? And persuade Lord Caldicot that he is not merely dangling after me because of my fortune.’
Ah...so that was what had caused Susannah to throw such a dramatic tantrum just now. Not so much Lord Caldicot’s refusal to grant permission for Cecil to marry Susannah as the implication that he only wanted her for her fortune.
‘He loves me,’ Susannah protested. ‘And I love him!’
Susannah reached for a handkerchief to dry her eyes and blow her nose, and began to look much more cheerful.
Rosalind didn’t take much comfort from that, because Susannah now had that look on her face that she always wore when she was plotting something.
‘You will just,’ Susannah decreed, ‘have to help us elope!’
She might have known it.
‘But I thought,’ Rosalind pointed out, ‘you wanted to persuade Lord Caldicot that Cecil could be loyal and true...’
‘Oh, yes, well of course Cecil could do all that,’ said Susannah dismissively. ‘But I don’t see why I should have to wait while Cecil is changing Lord Caldicot’s mind. And don’t you think it would be romantic? Eloping?’
‘What, climbing out of a window,’ Rosalind pointed out, rather ruthlessly reminding Susannah of her fear of heights, ‘at the dead of night?’
Susannah turned white. So badly did she fear heights that, the moment they’d arrived in London and she’d seen that her bedroom had a balcony overlooking the rear garden, she’d ordered Rosalind to swap with her. Even though it meant taking a much smaller room.
‘It wouldn’t have to be out of a window!’ said Susannah. ‘Or not one that was very high up...’
‘Well, I suppose you could just meet somewhere as though by chance, during the day,’ Rosalind mused, as though turning over the scheme with a view to making it happen. ‘Oh, but then,’ she said, regretfully, ‘you wouldn’t be able to take any luggage. Someone would be bound to ask why you were carrying trunks and hatboxes about in broad daylight...’
‘I wouldn’t need luggage,’ Susannah scoffed.
‘No? Oh, well, I suppose it wouldn’t matter that you didn’t have a clean change of clothes on the journey. I suppose the romance of it all would carry you through the unpleasantness of wearing the same clothes for a week...’
‘A week! Why should I be expected to wear the same clothes for a week?’
‘Well, I am not entirely sure how long it would take you to reach the border, but I do know that Gretna Green is in Scotland, which is a very long way away. And you would have to go there, you know, to get married, because you are still not of an age to marry without your guardian’s consent in England.’
‘How do you know that? Oh, from all those books you read, I suppose. But that is infamous!’
‘What is infamous?’
‘Having to travel to Scotland to marry without your guardian’s consent,’ she said petulantly.
‘And only think,’ Rosalind continued, warming to her theme, ‘of how ill you get travelling in coaches. We had to stop three times for you to get out and walk up and down, just on the journey from Hertford when we first come up to London. And that,’ she reminded Susannah ruthlessly, ‘was in a very well-sprung coach. I don’t suppose your...um... Mr Baxter would be able to afford such a luxurious one.
‘And even if he could,’ Rosalind put in hastily when she caught a militant look spring to Susannah’s eye at the reminder that Cecil was not well-to-do, ‘what with all that getting out and stopping, Lord Caldicot would be bound to catch you up before even one day was out.’ She would guarantee it. There was no way he would permit Mr Baxter to spend a night with Susannah, thereby ruining her.
At that point, there came a firm rap on the door and Lady Birchwood’s maid, Throgmorton, stepped in.
‘Begging your pardon, Miss Hinchcliffe,’ she said, sounding not the least bit apologetic, ‘but Her Ladyship sent me to remind you that it was time to be getting ready.’
‘Getting ready?’ Susannah drew herself up indignantly. ‘Aunt Birchwood cannot possibly expect me to go out tonight as though nothing has happened. How can she, or anyone, expect me to...to carry on as normal, to dance the night away, when my heart,’ she cried, flinging herself backwards on to the bed, ‘is broken?’
Throgmorton took a deep breath. ‘Her Ladyship said to remind you that this is not just any ball. It is Almack’s.’
‘I don’t care!’ Susannah cried.
No. But Lady Birchwood did. And so would Lord Caldicot. A girl who cared about her reputation didn’t shun Almack’s without good reason, not after all the effort Lady Birchwood and several of Susannah’s other female relatives had taken to obtain vouchers.
Throgmorton turned to leave the room, her lips pursed in disapproval.
Rosalind hurried over to the door, opened it and stepped outside.
‘Tell Her Ladyship,’ she said quietly so that Susannah wouldn’t be able to hear, ‘that I will do my best to make sure Susannah is dressed and ready within the hour. But don’t, I beg of you, send her maid to attend her until I ring for her.’ It would end in certain disaster if Pauline bustled in before Susannah herself had decided she was ready to change into her ball gown.
Throgmorton inclined her head very slightly before going away to relay the message to her mistress, in a manner calculated to remind Rosalind of her superior position in the household hierarchy. Throgmorton was, after all, the personal maid to a lady who was the daughter of the Fourth Marquess of Caldicot, the sister of the Fifth Marquess and cousin to the current holder of the title, even if her late husband had been merely the Earl of Birchwood.
When she’d gone, Rosalind mentally rolled up her sleeves. At the end of her interview with Lord Caldicot, he’d suggested that she take the job for a trial period and offered her a generous rise in wages if she managed to last a full quarter without Susannah driving her away with her tantrums. And, perhaps more significantly, without Susannah demanding her dismissal, the way she’d done with so many other hapless governesses over the years. Then, when he’d returned to England in readiness for the Season, he’d also promised her a staggering amount of money if she could steer Susannah successfully through her Season without her creating a scandal in one form or another.
He’d drawn her aside, not one week after he’d moved into Kilburn House with them. And, in the very same study in which Susannah had just been displaying the worst of her temperament, had said, ‘Lady Birchwood may indeed have better connections than her sisters and no doubt she does have the entrée to the kind of places that matter to a girl of Susannah’s rank, but...’ He’d paused, lowering his head and toying with the paperknife on his desk. ‘Well, she doesn’t seem to be able to exert much influence over the girl. Or at least, so far I have never seen her do so. Or attempt to do it. So...’
So Rosalind was going to get Susannah dressed and ready to go to Almack’s, no matter what it took. And it wasn’t just because of the bonuses, or at least, not entirely. It was because Rosalind could understand exactly why Susannah behaved so badly.
Almost from the moment she’d met Susannah, Rosalind had felt a sense of kinship with her. For Rosalind, too, had been treated poorly by her own family. They had made her feel unwanted and inconvenient, too. And she had often lashed out in frustration, as well. But, most importantly, it was because Susannah had asked her to stay with her through her Season. And Susannah needed someone who would stand by her, not flounce off muttering that she was impossible, just when she most needed someone to...to...steady her.
She closed the door and leaned on it, regarding Susannah thoughtfully.
‘I was just wondering...’ she said.
‘Wondering what?’ came Susannah’s muffled response, since she’d rolled over to bury her face in her pillow.
‘Well, if you intend to stay at home, how on earth you are going to contact Mr Baxter?’
Susannah went very still.
‘I mean,’ Rosalind continued, gazing up at the ceiling, ‘you are going to have to tell him that although your guardian has forbidden the match, you are not so spineless that you are going to take it lying down, aren’t you?’
Susannah sat up. ‘Absolutely not! We will find a way!’
‘Precisely so. Only...’ she shook her head and sighed ‘...I cannot see how you are going to come up with a successful plan if you stay at home. I mean, I shouldn’t think Lord Caldicot will permit Mr Baxter to call on you...’
‘No. He wouldn’t. He has forbidden me to even speak to him again! As though I could cut him, if I should meet him on a public street!’
‘Ah. Well, don’t you think that, should you stay here, weeping all evening, he might think that he has won? That he has defeated you?’
‘Oh! Yes, that is precisely what he would think! But he shan’t,’ cried Susannah, leaping off the bed. ‘Ring for hot water, Miss Hinchcliffe! I shall go to Almack’s.’
Where, with any luck, Susannah’s coterie of admirers would provide some distraction from her distress.
‘You...you will,’ said Rosalind, ‘be careful, won’t you?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, if you make it too obvious that you are only going to Almack’s to meet Mr Baxter and plan your next move, Lady Birchwood might report back to Lord Caldicot, and...well, then they might both do something...drastic, to prevent you contacting Mr Baxter at all.’
‘Like sending me back to the country, I suppose. Yes, I wouldn’t put it past them. But I am not going to give them any excuse for cutting my Season short.’ She gave a peal of rather manic laughter. ‘I will be the model of good behaviour, I assure you.’
Which was all that Rosalind could hope for. For tonight. And as for tomorrow...
Well, never mind tomorrow. She’d think of some way to survive whatever tomorrow threw at her, when tomorrow came.
And in the meantime, with Susannah out at Almack’s, Rosalind would have the evening to herself. Peace and quiet, in which to read the latest novel she’d borrowed from the library.
Bliss.
