Page 13 of The Governess and the Rogue (Somerset Stories #6)

Chapter Eleven

B ea wished she could eat. But though her stomach was hollow as an empty gourd, she found herself unable to manage the smallest morsel.

Never in her life had she felt so much under a microscope. Every eye in the dining saloon seemed to be trained upon them. Some diners were sneaking fascinated looks. Others stared openly. A few were even whispering behind their hands, by heaven.

Not that Jack appeared to notice. He sat beside Bea at the linen-draped table, inhaling his enormous breakfast like a man breaking a ten-day fast. The rasher of bacon he’d heaped on his plate was gone. So too the eggs, fruit, and bread rolls.

She toyed with her own meal with her fork as she observed him from the beneath her lashes. One might think he hadn’t a care in the world. And perhaps he hadn’t, now that she had been enlisted to protect him from the scores of ladies who wished to trap him into marriage.

Bea wasn’t entirely unsympathetic to their aims.

What woman among them could set eyes on Jack and not be lured into daydreams about having him for her own? The temptation was palpable, even for Bea. Even now, sitting beside him, subjected to only his unrelenting silence and his strongly chiseled profile.

As she looked at him, the bewildering emotions Bea had felt when he’d kissed her hand came back to torment her.

She refused to let them.

This wasn’t a romance. This was only another job. She’d had enough of them over the years. Through it all she’d done whatever was required of her. This would surely be no different.

Except that she wasn’t acting as a servant any longer. She was acting as a lady. Jack’s chosen lady, to be precise.

Bea’s stomach roiled in protest at the flagrant deception. She set down her fork, giving up on her breakfast altogether.

Across the dining saloon, the unmistakable shriek of a Dimsdale child rose above the din. “I’m not finishing that! ” one of the twins cried. “And you can’t make me!”

Bea flinched at the sound. She hadn’t seen Pearl and the children when she’d entered the dining room. It had been too crowded. But Pearl had undoubtedly seen Bea.

Good lord, what must she have thought?

Bea discreetly craned her neck, scanning the other side of the room until she found Pearl seated at a low table with Lilith, Albermarle Jr., and the twins. Pearl’s expression was harried as she attempted to keep the intractable brood in order.

“Can’t you see we’re done already?” Lilith demanded of Pearl in tones dripping with condescension. “Stupid girl!”

Bea gritted her teeth. She had wanted to be free of the Dimsdales. But not at the expense of her friend. Her only friend.

Coming to a swift decision, she stood from her chair.

Jack immediately moved to rise.

“Don’t trouble yourself,” Bea said. “I shall be back directly.” She didn’t wait for Jack’s objection, or his reminder that she wasn’t meant to leave his side. Some things were more important than promises to pretend fiancés.

She marched across the dining saloon with single-minded intent. This time, she didn’t care if every eye was upon her. She was too angry to regard it. All that mattered was Pearl.

Lilith had already risen from the table, along with Albermarle Jr. Pearl was attempting to wrangle the twins. Brent had just taken her hand when Bea approached, while Damian remained seated, smacking the flat of his spoon into his scrambled eggs, so that they splattered all about him.

“Good morning,” Bea said to Pearl. “If I may intervene?”

Pearl stared at her, her black hair frizzled about her face and her dark eyes vaguely accusing.

Bea didn’t wait for her friend’s permission. “Put that spoon down, Damian,” she commanded the twin. “ Now . And do as Pearl tells you.”

Damian stilled, visibly confused by the unfamiliar edge in Bea’s voice. She’d never been permitted to address to them so forcefully when she’d been their governess. To do so would have been to risk dismissal.

“You can’t tell him what to do,” Lilith retorted sharply. “You’re not our?—”

“And you,” Bea said, turning on the imperious little girl. “Your voice can be heard all the way across the dining saloon, and on the upper deck too, I don’t wonder. What do you suppose your Mama and Miss Farraday will think to hear you screaming like the veriest fishwife?”

Albermarle snickered. “A fishwife! Ha!”

Lilith’s face mottled with fury. “I did not sound like a?—”

“Up from your seat, Damian,” Bea said. “No more dawdling, or I shall have one of the stewards carry you out like a sack of laundry.”

The little boy bolted up, dropping his spoon to his plate with a clatter.

“You can’t speak to us like that!” Lilith declared shrilly. “You can’t?—”

“Be quiet,” Bea said. “Or the steward will have two children to carry out.” She addressed Pearl before the little girl could reply. “After you return them to their mother, I hoped you and I might speak in our quarters.”

Pearl’s lips compressed as she took Damian’s sticky hand. “Very well.”

Bea nodded. And turning on her heel, she walked back to the table where Jack was waiting for her. He watched her come, frowning.

As she returned to her chair, he rose again with the aid of his cane, ever the gentleman, only resuming his seat once Bea was seated herself.

“What was that about?” he asked.

Bea picked up her fork. “Friendship.”

* * *

A short time later, alone with Pearl in their tiny cabin, Bea offered her friend a disjointed (and, admittedly, not entirely truthful) explanation of events. “So, you see,” she concluded at length, “it wasn’t my idea to commandeer you as my lady’s maid. I would never have suggested?—”

“Then the ladies were speaking truly?” Pearl asked. “You are to marry Colonel Beresford?”

She hadn’t seemed to have heard any of Bea’s excuses. She’d stopped listening from the moment Bea had told her that she and Jack were engaged. Anything beyond that astounding fact had instantly become superfluous to the conversation.

Bea didn’t blame her friend. In truth, Bea was still rather stunned by this morning’s turn of events herself. One moment she’d been alone, staring down Mrs. Dimsdale, and what promised to be a very bleak future. The next she’d had Jack at her side.

He’d be at her side still if she hadn’t begged for a moment alone to speak to Pearl.

Jack had agreed to it on the condition that Bea first accompany him to his cabin.

Yet another reminder of the real reason for her elevation from lowly servant to much-envied fiancée.

She wasn’t his sweetheart, nor even his friend.

She was a living, breathing barrier between Jack and those who would attempt to encroach upon him.

“But where did you— how did you—” Pearl faced Bea, her brows beetled as she attempted to piece the unlikely romance together. “It wasn’t on those moonlight rambles of yours above deck?”

Bea sank down on the edge of her berth. She hated lying to her friend, but saw no way around it. “It was,” she said. “We’ve met most every night since leaving port.”

Pearl’s eyes widened in astonishment. “You never said!”

“I could hardly do so,” Bea replied.

“But I thought—” Pearl shook her head. “It’s been less than a week. How could you?—?”

“I didn’t intend to.”

“Everyone intends to, where Colonel Beresford is concerned. They can’t help themselves.”

Bea didn’t like what Pearl was implying. “I hope you don’t class me with the Farradays and their like.”

Pearl snorted. “You’re a woman, aren’t you?”

“I didn’t pursue him. And I didn’t—I would never —become so exalted in my opinion of myself that I’d ask a friend to be my servant.”

“Why not? It’s preferable to minding those evil children. And we’re to have a stateroom?” Pearl brightened. “The rest of the voyage will fly by.”

Some of the tension in Bea’s shoulders eased. She’d been so anxious over Pearl’s reaction. “Then . . . you don’t mind it?”

“I shall relish it,” Pearl declared. “Even if I must return to Mrs. Rawson when we arrive in France.” She sank down beside Bea on the berth. Her expression was determined. “You’ll still require a lady’s maid once you disembark at Southampton.”

Bea dropped her gaze. What could she say? That she’d no more require a maid once she was in England than she would require a wedding dress or a trousseau?

“I don’t mean myself,” Pearl said. “I’ve been with Mrs. Rawson too long to abandon her for another position. But you can’t meet Colonel Beresford’s family, or put up at one of their houses, without someone to attend you. What do you mean to do?—”

“I shall cross that bridge when I come to it,” Bea interrupted. “Until then, I must take each day as it comes.”

And pray that she and Jack could get through them all without anyone discovering their deception, she added silently.