Strathmere's Bride. Jacqueline Navin
of those irritating droplets was meandering down her prettily flushed cheek. He reached for his handkerchief and handed it to her. She stared at it. “Oh, for pity’s sake,” he muttered, and snatched the thing back and pressed it to the moisture. “Your hair is leaking.”
She touched her head self-consciously. “Oh, bother.”
It was such an inane thing to say, he did smile then. He almost wanted to laugh, as if the contention between them were suddenly all mere silliness. “You’ll be fortunate if you don’t come down with the deadly ague.”
“It is only rain,” she said diffidently.
“Come by the fire, or you’ll chill.”
She appeared surprised at his solicitousness. Frankly, so was he. “Thank you, your grace.”
He led the way to the brick hearth with its iron doors and large, open flame. Pulling up a seat, he fetched a square of linen and held it out to her.
Chloe sat down and began to dab the towel about her face and head. Jareth stood behind her, watching her movements, which were like the exacting motions of a dance. How did she always manage to make even the most ordinary actions seem beautiful? What Helena did with her voice, Miss Pesserat did with her body—
He shook his head as if to rid himself of the wayward thought. It seemed somehow disloyal to liken Lady Helena’s great gift with a girl’s artless grace. And how ungentlemanly to be reflecting at all on his nieces’ governess’s body.
His voice sounded harsh when next he spoke. “Do not take the children out of doors again without my permission,” he said, and was about to turn away when he heard her say, “No.”
He stopped, cocking his head. “Can I have heard you correctly?”
She remained with her back to him, ramrod straight and staring into the fire. “It is not right to keep the little ones confined. I do not agree to it.”
“Perhaps you misunderstand. I meant that they will go on outings with my permission only.”
“Why not under your supervision?” She turned so her face was in profile. She had the most extraordinary scooped nose, he noticed. The backlighting from the fire made her pose a perfect cameo. “It would be lovely if you were to spend time with the children. They need their family with them.”
“Do you find fault with my stewardship of the children?”
“Only in that you favor an approach reminiscent of one of the posh princes of the East—full control and no responsibility.”
His temper was rising again, and quickly. “Why, Miss Pesserat, you are most insulting.”
She stood and whirled on him, her face flushed— though from the proximity of the fire or her rage, he did not know—and her eyes were positively brilliant. “I hate when you call me that My name is Chloe. Could you not manage that bit of informality, or will it choke you to speak it?”
He felt as if the wind had been knocked out of him. Just as swiftly as it rose, his irritation receded. “Miss Chloe. See, there. I did not burst into a ball of fire.”
She paused, not trusting him it seemed, before she smiled, one of her wide, true smiles. He watched the slow way it crept across her face, taking that generous mouth into an upward curl and showing even, white teeth. “And you are jesting. However, this time it is not at my expense. You surprise me, your grace.”
“How rewarding. I endeavor to never be boring.”
Why did everything he said to this woman end up sounding…unpleasant?
Surprisingly, however, she wasn’t deflated. “You can never be that, your grace. Oh…” She let the word die and again that smile appeared. “For all your faults, never, never that.”
Absurd, the flash that skittered through him. What difference did it make what this country maid thought of him? Still, the compliment warmed him.
It was a compliment—wasn’t it?
“At least,” he said to cover his disconcerted thoughts, “promise me you will not take any more strolls through violent spring storms.”
“Oh, la!” she sang, flipping her hand in the air in a fluid gesture. “The children had fun. Did you never do such things when you were a boy? Walk in the rain? Catch raindrops on your tongue?”
The words fell over him like a pall, pressing on his chest, his shoulders. Unwittingly, she had brought to mind the two things that left him weak with grief—the past and his lost freedom.
Why had he tarried so long with the silly girl, anyhow? “The matter, Miss Chloe, is settled. No more outings ın the rain. If you do not abide by this, I will be forced to take broader action to ensure my wishes are being observed.”
The smile disappeared, and she bowed her head. Her drenched hair hung stiffly in pointed strands. “You have made yourself very clear, your grace.”
He trusted her not to lie to him outright, but he knew she would not flinch from a lie of omission. “Tell me you will obey.”
After a mutinous pause, she said, “I will obey.” She raised her head, her face blank and plain. When she had smiled, it had been transformed, almost pretty. Yes, actually, quite lovely, in a way that was so very different from Lady Helena’s pristine beauty. Chloe Pesserat was meant to laugh, to run, to do everything in extreme. Wholly opposite to Helena, whose attraction was her—
The thought struck him and it was accurate, but he still couldn’t resist an inward cringe. The word he had found to describe Helena was moderation.
The same sense of disquiet followed him out of the kitchens as it had the last time he had conversed with Chloe, in the nursery. He wondered if such a reaction were unavoidable with the capricious imp that held his nieces’ sanity in her slender, sensuously expressive hands.
Chloe prowled in her chamber that night, her thoughts tumbling one another in an agitated rush.
How could she have thought there was wisdom and pain in the duke’s cold eyes? He was completely intolerable—scolding her like a wayward child herself, questioning her competence! The blundering, self-important, conceited…bore! She had thought there was a trace of humanity behind his supreme dukeness, but she had been mistaken, clearly.
As the anger drained out of her, exhaustion descended. Cook, having heard of her disquiet, sent up a steaming teapot and a generous supply of shortbread, which was one of Chloe’s favorites. She curled up with a novel pilfered from the dowager duchess’s stash in the library, but soon dozed with it open on her lap.
Rebeccah’s fitful cries woke her sometime after the hour of three. Chloe came to her feet before the last vestiges of her dream had cleared her head and moved with swiftness to the child’s bedside.
In a firm, soft voice, she said, “Hush, Rebeccah, it is Miss Chloe here now with you. Everything is fine, ma petite. Hush, now.”
She wrapped her arms about the wailing child and pulled her in tight against her breast. Rebeccah always resisted this at first. She grabbed fistfuls of Chloe’s nightrail in her little hands, pulling and punching, but the efforts soon grew weak. Her muffled cries subsided until at last she was at rest.
Gently, Chloe laid her back in her bed. She looked at the small face—the pert nose, the thick fan of lashes against the rose-kissed cheeks, the pouty mouth hanging agape with the unselfconscious ease of childhood slumber. She was not the easiest child with which to contend, but Chloe loved her with a fierceness that made her soul ache. Needing to touch, she smoothed a hand over the limbs that were just now losing their babyish roundness as Rebeccah passed from infancy to childhood.
Chloe