Page 61 of His Wicked Little Christmas
Ada coughed from somewhere behind her, the scent of spearmint clinging to the air.
Catching her companion’s response, Remington eyed Franny with curious intent. “Why are you so delighted?”
Franny dragged her sodden slipper across the frayed carpet, working to erase her smile. “Christmastide is just around the corner.” Although there wasn’t one hint of cheer about the place.
He snorted, a dimple flaring in his cheek. How maddeningly handsome he was. It was unjust.
“This fascinating position as governess?”
He shifted her portmanteau to his other hand and flexed his fingers like he was working out a cramp. “Try again.”
“My un-English nature?” she said with a laugh. A foxed baronet had told her it was the most sensual of sounds after he’d cornered her behind a settee at the countess’s dinner party last week. She’d eventually had to bring her heel down on his instep to get him to move away from her person, but she’d been flattered, nonetheless.
Remington tried his best but, in the end, laughed with her. His fist going to his mouth to cover it. “That must be it.” Then, he shook himself from his reverie and jogged up the staircase, her gaze left with nothing to do but record his trim bottom shifting in meticulously fitted buckskins. He must have forgotten the adage, ladies first.
But then again, she was no lady.
Ada hooked her arm through Franny’s and tugged her up the stairs. “Stop it. I can see those scalding glances a mile away,” she whispered,thankfully so low only Franny heard. “Flirting and your feeble inability to tame your base attractions is what landed us on this horrid side of the ocean. If I have to drink another cup of tea…”
“I’m not flirting. I’m talking to my employer. And what woman doesn’t have base attractions? Isn’t it normal to appreciate art? A fine form? Men are surely allowed this weakness.”
Ada sighed wearily. “Heaven help me, should your father find out about this scheme. Daughter of one of the wealthiest men in Pennsylvania acting as a servant. The girl who went through a governess a week herself. When he does, it’s off to live with my brother and his wife in Dyberry. You’d do that to me when I changed your nappies? Wiped your nose and darned your stockings? Covered for you that time you snuck in the window after dark with blackberry brambles in your hair? Dyberry is my pension, is that it? Why, it’s in the country, and you know I have allergies!”
Franny drew Ada close. She was the only mother Franny had ever known. The only parent she’dneeded. Her father certainly hadn’t been up for the job. “You’re going to change my children’s nappies someday. Where I go, you go. How could I live without you?”
Ada sniffed. “Are you sure, Franny darling? After all that happened last spring?”
Her breath tight, Franny paused at the top of the staircase, noting that the shabbiness continued on this floor. Not even half of the lamps were lit. Dour paintings covered the walls, their frames coated in dust. Tattered carpets in worse shape than those on the main floor. The sconce’s glow struck the viscount’s broad back as he continued down the hallway, in and out of shadow, unaware they weren’t following.
She didn’t want to think about that night ever again.
Sliding her arm from Ada’s, she sucked regret back through her teeth. “It’s very simple. I won’t let Gerald ruin me.”
Any more than he already had.
Her reputation was one thing, her happiness quite another. She would die before letting him take more from her.
Ada twisted her gloved fingers in the folds of her skirt. “The English aren’t forgiving. I could tell this right off. The way they gossip at these parties we’ve been forced to attend, it’s more of a lashing than highsociety back home ever thought to give. Should the scandal reach this side of the ocean, your father’s money won’t be enough to buy a cobbler, much less that baron he has lined up. Women aren’t allowed the mistakes men are, not in this world, not in any world. I wish you’d get that through your lovely but thick head.”
Franny watched the viscount halt before a door at the end of the corridor, his long body hidden in shadow. When he turned to her, his eyes glimmering in a flicker of candlelight, she made a promise.
Two weeks. To play this harmless game in a hidden locale where she might be able to take a full breath for the first time in years.
She didn’t deserve more. She didn’t deservelove.
She’d written the ending of her book during one fateful encounter.
After this impulsive respite, she would marry the baron who wanted her money—and follow society’s rules.
Every last one of them.
Chapter Three
Where a Forlorn Heiress Finds a Friend
Franny guessed it might be easier to connect with a lonely child when you’dbeena lonely child.
In some ways was still one. Or rather, a lonely woman.