Gift-Wrapped Governess (8 page)

‘I am not like your wife.' There, the words were out, bent into frankness and candour. Her parents' marriage, after all, had been one where the truth was sacrificed to as much duplicity as could be managed and Seraphina had no will to follow such a path. If the duke was going to abandon her, then he had to know exactly what it was he forsook.

Unexpectedly he smiled, the soft humour touching his eyes. ‘Aye, Seraphina, that you are not and I am glad for it.'

His fingers trailed quietly against her cheek and she could feel the redness bloom down her throat beneath his fingers, but at the door someone hammered, loud against the quiet, unreal in the context of the room, an unwanted intrusion.

‘It looks like we have company,' the Duke of Blackhaven said as he moved to the chair on the opposite side of his desk before calling an entrance. His man came in quickly, announcing the arrival of guests, and Lord and Lady Westleigh walked forwards.

 

Lady Margaret and Lord Gordon Westleigh were nothing at all like the couple Seraphina might have imagined. Instead of being tall, dark and beautiful like her brother, Margaret Blackhaven was short and rather stout, her mop of red hair pulled back into an ill-fashioned bun. Her husband looked like a copy of his wife, though his pate was balding, the few straggling hairs left carefully combed. Both smiled profusely
and looked more than pleased to be at the end of their long and cold journey.

‘It cannot possibly have been a year already since we were last here, Trey—' she began, cutting the sentence short as she became aware of Seraphina's presence in the room. The shout of children also distracted her as the three boys flew in, their arms around their aunt before she had the time to draw breath. The harassed-looking nurse followed them in.

‘Aunty Margaret. Uncle Gordon. We were watching out for you.' Gareth's voice was filled with excitement.

‘David said that you would not be here till the morrow.' Terence added his piece and Margaret Westleigh's eyes widened, the look she gave her brother one of astonishment and delight.

‘You can speak now, my love,' she asked, leaning down to give Trey's middle son a special cuddle.

‘Miss Moorland made him,' Gareth rushed in. ‘She brought Melusine to see us and the dog did a wee on the rug and Terence laughed and laughed and after that he could talk.'

‘Miss Moorland?'

‘Our governess. She looks after us and she finds Christmas trees. Papa kissed her under the mistletoe in the front room yesterday and he said that you and Uncle Gordon were not too old to learn to kiss either.'

‘You said that, Trey?'

‘I think Gareth has taken some liberty with the words I did utter.'

‘But you admit that you kissed the governess in front of the children?' Trey's sister's hands went to her mouth as though her brother might indeed have taken leave of his senses, though when her eyes met Seraphina's they contracted with surprise and shock, astonishment running in an equal measure with intrigue.

Seeing his sister's consternation, Trey called forth the nurse and asked her to shepherd his children back to their
rooms, promising his sons that once they were ready for bed their aunt would come up to read them a story. Within a moment the room was quiet again, an awkwardness standing in the place where high spirits had just lingered.

‘You are the lost Lady Seraphina Moreton, are you not?' Margaret's voice was tight as she looked between them.

‘Indeed she is,' the duke answered, ‘and from your expression I can see you have also heard of Cresswell's ridiculous accusations.'

‘Ridiculous?' Trey's sister's voice was almost shrill.

‘They are ridiculous in the sense that no woman of any wisdom is going to lie there whilst Ralph Bonnington tries to rape her.'

‘Cresswell is saying her father gave them the blessing they had both long sought. If one could believe Bonnington's point of view, then the imminent betrothal was more than mutual.'

‘No, this is not true, Lady Westleigh. I had not met the earl before Papa brought him home to Moreton and left me with him unchaperoned.'

‘You were left alone with a stranger by your own father?' The older woman's face went white.

‘His gambling debts were piling up and he saw my hand in marriage as a way of remedying any debt.'

‘Lord. So you have taken it upon yourself to shelter her from the law here at Blackhaven, Trey?'

‘I am protecting her until we can repair to London and fight the claim.'

We!

The warmth of belonging suffused through Seraphina. She knew the duke hated London and seldom went there, yet he was prepared to do exactly this for her—to go to the city fully exposed to the vagaries of hearsay and scandal to try to help her?

Seraphina expected Margaret to counter such a claim, but instead she, too, did something most surprising. She started
to laugh, quietly at first and then with a great measure of mirth. When she had finally collected herself she began again to speak. ‘I can garner support as well, brother. Ralph Bonnington has many more enemies than he has friends.'

‘Bonnington is a bully and a tyrant.' Gordon had joined the fray now, his small eyes bulging with emotion. ‘He challenged me in the club a few months ago for bumping against him when he had a drink in hand. With such behaviour it's a wonder he hasn't been taken to task well before now.'

‘You ought to have hit him harder in London, Lady Seraphina,' Margaret added. ‘Then we should not need to be worrying about him at all.'

Blackhaven smiled. ‘If my family is anything to go by, we will be able to deal with Cresswell most satisfactorily, Seraphina. If the law does not hold him accountable then Margaret and Gordon shall.'

‘But what of the promise my father made? He signed the banns to force the marriage.'

‘A signature no judge of any repute would recognise. God knows who allowed such a travesty to happen in the first place.'

Hope began to fill the dread inside Seraphina. With the lofty names of the high-born families at court behind her, things might well turn out to her advantage and the life she had imagined for herself might come to pass. But just what did she imagine now? Things had changed considerably and the social calendar of London palled against the beauty of Blackhaven and its master. She belonged here. She loved Trey Stanford and his children and the fact that she was becoming a valued part of castle life. She did not wish to leave Essex, not even for a day.

The loneliness that had always surrounded her was replaced with a joyful belonging.

If only he might love me back!

Catching Margaret Westleigh watching her closely, Seraph
ina hoped the woman had not seen what she was sure was written all over her face. A sibling insisting on her brother ‘doing right' by her was the very last thing that she needed and she tried to school her expression into a polite indifference.

She also prayed that Lady Frobisher would not make good on her final threat to call in the local magistrate.

‘Just let me have Christmas, Lord,' she whispered beneath her breath. ‘Please just let me have something lovely to remember when all of this is gone.'

S
eraphina spent the next hour with the children, leaving the Blackhaven guests to be entertained by the duke, and so she was surprised when just before supper Margaret Westleigh came to the nursery to find her.

‘Might I come in and have a few words?' she asked softly as the boys were gathered up by the night nurse to be readied for their meal.

‘Of course, my lady.'

Once seated on a small
chaise-longue
to one side of the windows Margaret looked a little ill at ease.

Trying to relax the tension, Seraphina began to speak. ‘I realise that the situation of my being here like this is most distressing for you, Lady Westleigh, but I would like to say in my defence that I would never wish for any harm to come to your brother or to his sons…'

She petered out as Margaret held up one hand.

‘
Distressing
is not the word I would use, Lady Seraphina. I might, however, chance the expression “happier than I have ever seen Trey look before in his life”.'

Such an admission kept Seraphina speechless.

‘My brother was married young to a woman who was both
spiteful and selfish and any outer beauty she might have been blessed with was soon lost on all who came into contact with her. For the sake of the children he stayed married, for his wife always threatened to take his sons from him if he left. Such was Catherine's venom. When she died I breathed a sigh of relief and thanked God for the mercy. I am a religious woman, you understand, so such a prayer would not come lightly. My brother would never admit it, but I am sure he did the same.'

Rolling her fingers against each other, Margaret sat forwards. ‘I tell you these things solely because you watch him like a woman with feelings much deeper than friendship, though if I am in any way overstepping the boundaries of propriety by mentioning such a thing, please stop me.'

When Seraphina did not she smiled, the brightness lighting up her whole face. ‘In the past years I have observed Trey become a man who is cautious of life in a way he never was before, his self-imposed exile to Blackhaven taking him largely from the communion of others. Until now, when by his account he has told the Frobisher party that you are his fiancée and I am your supposed chaperone.'

‘It was only said to save my reputation, I think, Lady Westleigh, and a way to stem the gossip because she had recognised me.'

‘No, I disagree. My brother rarely does anything on a whim, Lady Seraphina, and I can assure you that after the debacle of his first marriage he would hardly be bandying such a troth around lightly unless there was much more than a grain of truth in it.'

An errant late-afternoon sunbeam slanted into the room, like a small harbinger, covering everything with gold. Sera watched the shadow of it on her hand and she smiled.

‘So I have come to say that as a chaperone I would look the other way should you want to take the chance of knowing my brother…further. Christmas is the time for miracles, after all, and what greater miracle can there be but that of love?
I should welcome you into our family with open arms, my dear, if you cherish him with even a fraction of the feelings that are on your face when you look at him.'

‘You think he might return my feelings? He might love me as I love him?'

‘Indeed I do, but unless you take him by surprise he might feel honour bound to never mention it.'

‘By surprise?'

‘Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, the day of hopefulness and promise. What better time than that to let him know exactly how it is you feel about him?'

 

Seraphina pleaded her absence from the evening meal and spent the best part of an hour soaking in a bath. Margaret Westleigh's talk about the loneliness of her brother had cemented something inside that had only been vague and undefined before.

If she did not act upon her feelings for the Duke of Blackhaven, she would lose the one man who needed her as much as she needed him. In love they would save each other. It was that simple.

Rising from the bath and drying herself, Seraphina released her hair from the tie that held it so that it fell long down her back, almost to the line of her hips, small wisps curled into ringlets. Men had commented on the colour of her tresses ever since she had first come out, and tonight she would use the pale flaxen-gold to its full effect.

With care she left the curl on show, fastening the openings as she donned her dark blue velvet gown. A burst of thunder outside had her turning to the threatening storm and smiling. Catherine Blackhaven's doing, no doubt, her last and futile attempt at keeping her husband under the spell of sorrow. Well, she would allow it no longer.

A few moments later she began to walk down the corridor towards his room.

 

Trey removed his boots and his cravat, untangled from the simple knot he had fashioned it into, before divesting himself of his waistcoat and his shirt. It had seemed a long night without Seraphina at his table, though his sister had said she was tired and had pleaded an early repose when he had asked after her absence.

Wiping back the length of his hair, he thought that he should cut it before it got too much longer, when a knock at the door took him from such musings. He had dismissed his butler for the evening and hoped that it was not Gordon come for one of his late night-time chats. All he wanted was to get into bed and go to sleep, his slumber of the past few nights severely lacking as his mind had mulled over all the things his body would like to do with the beautiful Lady Seraphina.

‘Damn,' he murmured beneath his breath as he reached out for his shirt again. But the caller did not wait for permission to enter; as the door opened the one he was thinking about materialised, her old gown largely hidden by a fall of golden curls.

He could neither move nor speak. Lord, was he so tired he was now having visions? His swollen manhood pushed out against the fabric in his trousers and with no shirt on he knew that such a reaction would be well on show to all who looked.

And Seraphina Moreton was looking!

He made himself stand still, for the worry in her eyes was very real.

‘I know, of course, that my presence in your chamber is most…most…'

As she floundered for the word he supplied it. ‘Diverting?'

A rush of words followed, her voice brittle. ‘Your sister spoke with me this evening about the wisdom of chasing one's dreams and her conversation was very convincing, though, of
course, I should not wish to embarrass you by coming here and speaking of such things and—'

‘Your hair is longer than I thought it might be.' His statement stopped the deluge of her words completely.

‘It is?' He saw she swallowed, saw too that the knuckles on each hand were stretched into whiteness.

‘I should have put it up, of course, but I needed to ask you something before bravery failed me altogether.'

‘Then perhaps a brandy might help?'

His suggestion brought a quick nod and he crossed to the decanter on the table near the window and brought forth two glasses. His fingers shook and he swore beneath his breath, taking one deep swallow to steady himself before he handed the drink to her.

When she reached out for the fluted crystal glass the fall of her tresses inadvertently touched his hand and she did not look away. Rather, she smiled shyly, inciting a tug of lust to wash across him; like a schoolboy, he thought, neither composed nor calm. Her feet were bare. He saw this, too, as the fabric hiked up across one ankle.

Lord, the force of his want for her took the very breath from his body; catching at her arm, he held her lightly, allowing an escape.

‘Be careful of what you offer, my love, for there are limits on any man's patience, especially dressed the way you are tonight.'

Seraphina could hear the anger beneath his observation and feel the tension in the way his fingers clamped around her wrist. Yet he did not frighten her at all with his naked chest and unbound hair, lying in all shades of black across his shoulders.

There were other scars there, too, over his ribs and his upper arm. Deep scars denoting much hurt and agony. She reached out to touch his cheek, running her first finger softly across the mark, and he flinched.

‘Who did this to you?'

‘War,' he replied, barely above a whisper. ‘I was hit on the heights above Corunna at about the same hour General Moore took his ball to the shoulder. They buried him there, in Spain, and I made it home to a wife who lay dying of a malady of the lungs after conducting an affair in the rain. After she passed away I swore that I should never again consort with beautiful women, yet here I am with the most beautiful one in all of the world.'

Such honesty almost made her weep. ‘Your sister said that you were not a man to do things on a whim and the troth you gave to Lady Frobisher about our engagement would not have been given lightly. She also said that if I wanted to get to know you better she would, as a chaperone, feel predisposed to look the other way.'

As she finished the room spun quiet all about her, dust motes swirling in the light of candle around and around, waiting.

‘What exactly is it that you are offering?'

‘I am offering you my heart.' Her nipples stood proud in the cold air this far from the fire, as an unfamiliar ache formed. Deceit and artifice had ruined the Moreton family and she meant to find in honesty what Elizabeth and Seth had never been able to manage in dissimulation.

Love.
It sang in the Christmas air like an aria, the old tunes of festivity and hope full-blown in the possibility between them.

No limits set. Only choice.

‘I have loved you for ever, you see.' She whispered it, like a promise, and could see in his throat the deep and steady beat as she brought up his hand and laid it over her breast. Seraphina closed her eyes momentarily when his fingers moved, seeking and knowing.

He was hers. The truth blazed like a flag of truce above resistance.

‘Ahhh, Seraphina, my love. Margaret was right in all that she said…' His voice broke, the sound of one whose patience was all used up and he was aware of the hard ridge of his manhood between them.

Whole. It was her first thought as they stood, fitting into each other, the contours and shapes of muscle and bone perfectly in tune. She no longer felt alone as the orange glow from a late-banked fire touched them gently and the ache of it made her lift her glance to his.

He watched her, amber eyes predatory, the gold on the edge of sable alight with passion, drawing her in and telling her without words all that he was and would be for her. She felt his fingers move across the shape of her bottom, then up, taking a good knot of her hair in his grasp before his lips came down. Hard. Like a challenge, the soft ease in the room changing into fierceness. She liked the difference because it was what was welling up inside her, this raw and undisciplined need to have him take her, now in his chamber, hours of darkness before the breaking dawn.

She kissed him back, measure for measure, hungry for him, shaking with the want until she knew his taste. No longer careful or circumspect, but avid and voracious, her grip keeping his mouth in place as the breath she took was shared with his. Inseparable.

And when he lifted her into his arms, striding towards the bed, Seraphina simply turned her face into his shoulder to taste the salt on his skin.

 

God! He wanted her now, without even a modicum of foreplay, the long slender lines of her body doing things to his mind that he barely recognised. He tried to hold on to the sense of honour that should keep her virginity safe or at least gentled, but he couldn't control anything save the surge of craving that took him.

Seraphina was nothing like Catherine had been. She held
no use for measured limits or sullen allowances. Nay, her honesty lay in response and in yielding, her breasts flattened against his and her fingernails scraping the skin on his neck, bringing him closer, her legs opening of their own accord.

Urgency was like a madness, he thought, each part of his body answering in the dark, for union and for touch, for the entwined length of her against him, spent into the bliss of a fragile joy.

It had been so long since he had last felt free, so many damn years lived without the liberation of choice and pleasure that he was dizzy with the delight of it.

‘You have given me back life,' he whispered, barely believing he had said the words drawn in blood across his heart, but such a debt needed to be both confessed and acknowledged.

Her smile was like the sun coming out from behind a thick band of winter cloud, warming him and absolving everything. Just now and just them, harmony tuned perfectly.

‘Love me, Trey.'

‘Ahh, sweetheart, that I do.'

 

Afterwards she lay in his arms, the moonlight slanting across the bed, silvered beams of pale, the old blue-velvet gown a puddle on the floor. She knew now what it was like to be loved well and long, the pain of the first time settling into only pleasure. The throb of memory made her move again as his finger came into wetness.

‘I would not wish to hurt you?'

‘You won't,' she replied, her hand pressing down even as she opened her legs for more.

 

Much later he took her again as she roused from sleep, the scent of Seraphina undeniable. This time she barely wakened as he turned her, a natural union of flesh that bore them both to the place of pleasure in the beaching waves of release.

No regrets or hesitation. No reluctance. He might have
stayed there within her had not the light of a new day crept up the glass of the window, signalling Christmas Eve.

Yet even then they again found the essence of each other, riding high on the peaks of ecstasy one more time before reality split them into two people and he lifted her into his arms in a blanket and returned her to the bedchamber that was only hers.

 

Seraphina woke alone, the ache of it winding her with its intensity as the import of all they had done brought the blood to her face. A fire had been banked and the room was warm—Trey's doing when he had carried her back at dawn.