Elizabeth Beacon - Rebellious Rake, Innocent Governess

‘Her ladyship will soon have the story out of him,’ she insisted in the face of two sceptical males.

‘All the more reason for Miranda to be away from here and safe at Wychwood,’ Ben Shaw said grimly and for once Charlotte agreed with him wholeheartedly.

Indeed she could think of no better scheme than them all returning to Derbyshire post haste and staying there for the foreseeable future. Then the unpalatable truth of such a hasty withdrawal occurred to her.

‘The gossips will say Kate has committed some grand misdemeanour and had to be taken home,’ she warned.

‘Which is why she will have to stay here, with a suitably responsible female to bear her company, of course,’ Mr Shaw said with a significant look that Charlotte distrusted intensely.

‘I’m a governess, not a chaperon, Mr Shaw,’ she informed him sternly.

‘What’s the difference?’ he asked with an interested expression that had her clenching her gloved hands at her sides.

‘I should think that quite plain,’ she said repressively.

‘Then pray consider me just a stupid male and explain it to me,’ he replied with spurious meekness.

She shot him a furious look, but in front of Coppice she couldn’t give way to a strong urge to inform him what she truly thought of him.

‘A governess is an educator of young ladies, and sometimes of even younger gentlemen, Mr Shaw. A chaperon is a lady who has the entrée into the ton that will help secure her charge a marriage suitable to one of her lofty station in life,’ she said blandly, hoping it was very clear to both of them that she was the former and not the latter.

‘Are you telling me that you weren’t born a lady, Miss Wells?’ the wretch replied with a mock deference that made her long to slap him.

‘Let us say I possess no turn for matchmaking,’ she informed him with what she hoped was a superior smile.

All the same, she felt profoundly uncomfortable discussing such a role under the interested gaze of Coppice, who seemed secretly amused by their discussion for some reason. Ben Shaw was either unaware of the butler’s feelings or indifferent to them, for he continued to look at her as if she was some odd curiosity he currently found fascinating.

‘Surely that makes you uniquely qualified for the position?’ he said and, when she haughtily raised her brows in question of that statement, added, ‘Being a cynic of the worst sort, you would see through the fortune hunters and shady characters and find your charge a paragon among men.’

‘I’m far too stern a critic to manage that, I’m afraid,’ she explained shortly and treated both men to one of her best icy looks before turning to make a fighting retreat. ‘If I might suggest someone writes to the Countess’s godmama and offers Lady Rhys the role? From all I have seen of her, she would be highly entertained by the notion of chaperoning Kate in polite society, and might prove a shrewder matchmaker than any doting mama. I know she offered to take up the task weeks ago, but her ladyship was so eager to present her sister to the ton that I suspect she overestimated her own strength under the present circumstances.’

In front of Coppice she couldn’t refer directly to Miranda’s pregnancy and Charlotte felt distinctly impatient with the ridiculous conventions of a society that refused to refer to the very natural process of pregnancy and birth openly in mixed company.

‘Yes, it took Kit weeks to persuade her ladyship she wouldn’t blight her sisters’ prospects with unfounded gossip about her own past if she did bring them out, but I dare say he’s wishing he hadn’t made such a good job of it now. Nevertheless, that’s an excellent notion of yours and I’ll suggest it to him in the morning,’ Mr Shaw informed her rather pompously and she spared a little impatience from her general supply of it.

‘How do you know that he’ll consult you about any of this?’ she weakened enough to ask, as she stood with one hand suggestively on the doorknob, but couldn’t quite turn it and escape his infuriating presence.

‘And how could you think he wouldn’t, ma’am, especially as he doesn’t share your low opinion of my abilities, or lack thereof?’

‘I really couldn’t say,’ she replied snippily and opened the door and went through it with a frigid goodnight, before she said something she might truly regret.

‘Kindly pay attention, Miss Wells,’ Miss Isabella Alstone ordered her governess the following morning.

‘I should probably make you stand in the corner for that piece of impudence,’ Charlotte returned placidly.

‘Well, you might as well actually be in the Americas for all the attention you’re paying to your lesson about them,’ Isabella replied with the warm smile that would have the young gentlemen of the ton lining up in fervent hope of winning another in a few years’ time.

‘I certainly seem to have failed dismally in my task of turning you and your sister into well-behaved young ladies, so perhaps I might just as well go there,’ Charlotte admitted ruefully.

‘Who wants to be a milk-and-water miss? I certainly don’t and I doubt Miranda and Kit would thank you if I suddenly became one. There are far too many of them about already, at least if the girls at Kate’s waltzing parties are any indication of things.’

‘I agree that they can seem a little giddy, but I dare say it’s all the excitement,’ Charlotte managed to defend those silly young ladies half-heartedly in the face of her own doubts about their common sense.

‘In a watering place full of senile octogenarians they would still contrive to be the most foolish creatures imaginable, but when are you going to tell me what happened last night, dear Miss Wells?’

‘Since you avow contempt of the fashionable throng, I really can’t imagine why you’re interested in their sayings and doings,’ Charlotte observed slyly, ‘and in any case there are the Americas to consider.’

‘Yes, and you obviously need to do so, as you can’t seem to concentrate on either their geography or history this morning.’

‘I have the excuse of having been from home and out of my bed until the early hours of the morning and you do not, miss.’

‘Then why not tell me everything that went on at the Wintergreen ball instead and get it over with? After that I would have no excuse not to take a proper interest in geography, now would I?’

‘I’m quite sure there’s something wrong with the grammar of that sentence as well as its intent, Isabella.’

‘I dare say, now cut line and tell all, Miss Wells, before one of us falls asleep.’

‘You really are a shocking minx, Isabella Alstone,’ Mr Shaw’s distinctive deep voice informed her from the doorway.

‘Ben!’ Isabella screamed in a manner that had Charlotte shuddering to the depths of her govern-essly soul.

‘Hoyden,’ he greeted her, laughing as his youngest adopted sister jumped into his mighty arms and he swung her round as easily and unselfconsciously as if she had been five instead of fifteen.

Charlotte was forced to admit that, while there were any number of gentlemen she wouldn’t trust with a young girl’s open adoration, Ben Shaw was not one of them. When it came to her charges, or any other female he considered himself bound to by ties far stronger than blood, there was an absolute integrity about him. She’d seen enough of the relationship between Lord Carnwood and his oldest friend to know they were more like brothers than most men born in the same bed. What was more, that kinship extended to his lordship’s true sisters, who were as easy with Mr Shaw as their brother was. It was those outside that magic circle who needed to be wary of him, and Charlotte was conscious she was excluded and should be very cautious of letting her thoughts linger on his very large person and subtle mind.

Now where on earth had that odd idea come from? And why did her exclusion suddenly seem so chilling? She must be more tired than she realised, she decided with an impatient sigh, and did her best to dismiss such ridiculous thoughts. She hadn’t the least desire for Ben Shaw to act like a brother towards her and refused to countenance the shocking fantasy of any attentions he might pay her instead. Since last night a stupid fantasy of being gowned and groomed as finely as the beauties of the ton, and dancing the night away in the arms of a man ideally suited to enchant a very tall lady, had troubled her as never before. Charlotte wondered if tiredness and terror of being recognised had relaxed her usual iron grip on her traitorous emotions and reminded herself who and what she was. A governess, she informed herself flatly, a woman unfortunate enough to be forced to make her own way in the world and relying on an unblemished reputation to secure every post that came her way.

‘Miss Wells won’t tell me what happened at the ball last night and Kate was still asleep last time I looked, so what was it like, Ben? Did she dance every dance and slay a legion of suitors with just one blink of her beautiful blue eyes?’

‘Something like that, minx, and isn’t it bloodthirsty to wish so many youthful hearts trampled on?’

‘Not in the least, they’ll recover soon enough,’ Isabella replied cynically and Charlotte felt herself frown even as she ordered the crease from between her brows and did her best to banish all expression from her face as she became conscious of Mr Shaw’s acute gaze.

Did he think she was responsible for such cynical observations from one so young? She sincerely hoped not. While anything other than a distant acquaintance was clearly impossible between them, somehow she didn’t want him to think she’d foist her own views of the world Isabella must move in sooner or later on her pupil. She suspected he would need to look closer to home for that, to Celia Braxton and her stony-hearted mama, who seemed to have had too free a hand in the education, or lack of it, provided to the younger Miss Alstones before their grandfather finally realised it and sent them both to school. When Charlotte first met them there, she had been shocked by both girls’ ignorance of so much that seemed essential to a well-adjusted young lady, especially considering the acute minds concealed by their often careless behaviour. Four years on she was fairly confident they’d realised more of their potential, and would make fine wives and mothers as their destiny surely dictated. She sincerely hoped, however, that they would wait to feel something more than the bare tolerance that seemed to Charlotte to constitute most society marriages.

She wondered what Mr Shaw would expect from marriage and felt herself blush, as the combination of his speculative gaze and her improper fantasies blossomed into something downright outrageous. Still, a cat could look at a queen, or a king. Some instinct told her he would be a magnificent lover and she tried to meet his gaze with an indignant question in her own, even as her mind skittered over the mental picture she suddenly had of Ben Shaw naked and superb and very masculine indeed. Building a picture of what he might look like under that finely cut coat and all that pristine linen ought to be far harder for a respectable spinster lady than it actually was. She could imagine hard muscle rippling under a sweat slicked, satin supple skin, and really those breeches and his very highly polished boots left far too little to her fertile imagination!

Shaking her head sadly at her own folly, she looked up again and encountered laughter and what looked suspiciously like a reflection of her own state of unwilling arousal in his eyes, which she did her level best to return with her best governess look. Perverse creature that he was, her formidable frown seemed to encourage rather than reproach him and his firm mouth actually had the cheek to tip into an open grin as she fought off her ludicrous state of confusion, made even worse by that inviting, too-understanding smile.