A Governess Should Never… Wager a Duke (The Governess Chronicles #4.5)

Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

“We must copy nature in her simplicity and in her majesty, in her smile and in her tears, in her tranquillity and in her phrenzies...”

Private Education: A Practical Plan for the Studies of Young Ladies.

Elizabeth Appleton. 1815.

A crisp wind gusted through the cobbled streets of Ambleside, sweeping it clean of the smattering of snowflakes.

Having concluded the appointment with his man of affairs, Marcus briskly stomped past the clattering hosiery mill, which had been rebuilt fifteen years previous with modern machinery. The noise of industry, although profitable, was damn deafening.

His pace held, cane swinging, despite a tip of hat for a lady and a nod for an acquaintance, but his boots did pause by the ancient slate-roofed Bridge House. Once an apple store, the minuscule dwelling was built upon an ageless bridge spanning the Stock Ghyll beck, the waters that were the lifeblood of Ambleside. He recalled how he and Charlotte used to dash through its tiny doors to the far bank.

Now a family lived there.

With a grimace, he hastened on up the gently sloping street. As a rule, his man of affairs would come to the manor, but today Marcus had felt a need to depart the house – to escape the scent of heliotrope, to avoid the holly that twined the bloody banisters and to flee the seasonal piano music that drifted from the schoolroom that he’d yet to relocate to the third floor.

The town bustled like a well-paid housekeeper, the mills and market employing a goodly number of workers, and although he attended St Anne’s Church each Sunday, he rarely walked the Ambleside streets anymore or attended the fairs. He’d even missed the Rush Bearing Ceremony in July, when they gathered sedges from the lakeside to replace the old with the new upon the church floor. In fact, it had been at least…hell, six years?

The chill wind fluttered his greatcoat capes while the sky threatened with lucent white cloud. Would it snow further, he wondered? Would he be snowed in and unable to leave for Carlisle?

And if that happened, would he be able to resist kissing Charlotte again?

Damnation, he should never have touched her.

All it had done was stoke the fire within that he’d thought extinguished. Now his imagination was not required to know how she’d feel in his arms, so vibrant and alive, twisting like flame.

But they could not go back.

He was a different man.

Although one who must apologise, for though he’d purged all sentimental emotions long ago, he was still a gentleman. The uncomfortable deed of an apology to Charlotte, however, would be akin to birching the bare soles of his feet.

The Salutation Inn lay ahead, a stagecoach impatiently waiting in the yard for the passengers to embark, but Marcus passed the main door with the somewhat frail lintel proclaiming the establishment’s birth of 1656 and made to collect his horse from the stables.

If he didn’t dally, there’d be time for the quarry ledgers as they were merely clawing a twenty per cent profit and further value could be added by…

A shaft of sunlight dared to penetrate the cloud and he twisted, leaning on his cane to stare back down the street.

Struck by further shafts of sunlight were the distant hills beyond – browns and greens flecked with snow, the hues blending as though an artist had taken a brush to them.

How he used to adore striding the countryside. To feel the air in his lungs.

Memories stirred and bubbled, Charlotte asking whether he walked the fells anymore, and he wondered… He wondered if an hour away from his ledgers might not…be missed.

So, before cold logic could argue, he swivelled and hastened for the narrow lane that ran along the side of the inn, where one encountered the Stock Ghyll beck once more as it headed down into town. On the far side, bobbin mills roared their might, harnessing the now faster-flowing water, but as he continued up the lane, little by little the way became…quieter.

Nude winter branches stretched overhead to kiss like greeting lovers, the bank rising steeply to his right, and now one could at last hear the rush of water over stone. A few beech trees shone amongst the bareness, their copper leaves refusing to submit to winter’s gelid hand, and a robin, finding refuge amongst them, sung with all his might.

The sounds of nature.

Nothing was more…valuable.

Clearing his throat at such whimsical waffle, he hastened on, losing the beck for some time as the lane ascended until an earth-tamped path veered left.

Smiling, he continued through woods scented with autumns past – damp leaves and lichen-clad stone. Ancient roots ripped the earth asunder but moss smoothed the wounds, slippery and magnificent in its intricacy.

And ahead, he could hear it.

The first waterfall.

Rains had been abundant this year and a glorious wide cascade gushed over a twenty-foot drop, white streams of beauty tumbling into the stone bed of the beck. He watched for a while, this endless feed of life-giving water, but then turned to head on up the steep path.

For the best was yet to come.

Further up the wooded ravine, the beck divided into three channels and a crash of water attested to the next set of cascades. The pathway was of beaten earth and sodden leaf, nature at its rawest, and he would have it all to himself. No need to be the duke or the businessman.

The water became louder and–

His boots halted.

“But sometimes it must be exciting to be a governess? Do you meet famous people?”

Dinah.

“Well, no, but I once saw Lord Byron as he came to a house party at my employer’s estate.”

Charlotte.

“Ooooh, did he speak to you? Did he fall in love with you?”

A man’s laughter.

Not a clue.

Marcus narrowed his eyes and crept closer.

“I’m afraid not,” replied Charlotte. “In fact, he failed to even glance my way.”

“Oh, dear.” A thespian sigh. “What a shame, Miss Webster. My readership might be disappointed at that, but one should never let facts get in the way of a good story. I can embellish.”

Utilising his cane for balance, Marcus leaned forward to peer around a tree…

A hatless Charlotte and a wrapped-up Dinah were watching the cascade while a gentleman to their side perched on a small stool, easel in front of him.

Marcus hummed and hawed. Should he make himself apparent or just slope off and–

A snap and all three of them turned to gawp.

“Cousin Marcus,” cried his ward. “Is that you behind that tree?”

His cane had shattered beneath his acute lean. Purchased in London, the shoddy stick was clearly not up to the rugged Lakes countryside, so he swiftly discarded it, sauntered out and tipped his hat as though dukes fell from trees every day.

“What are you doing here?” his ward asked with a frown.

“I was just…passing.”

Dinah peered this way and that. Charlotte’s eyes crossed in disbelief. And the gentleman rose from his stool.

“Your Grace. A pleasure. We met at the Association of Ambleside Business.”

“Ah, yes, Mr William Green, is it not?”

“Indeed.” And they cordially shook hands.

The gentleman was in his fifth decade or thereabouts and Marcus knew he had quite the talent for art, selling his paintings in a gallery within town.

“Look at this, Cousin Marcus. Isn’t his work a marvel?”

He perused the drawing. In just a few strokes of charcoal, the gentleman had caught the might of the waterfall and the bareness of winter. “It is beyond doubt a marvel.”

A ruddy hue gathered in Mr Green’s cheeks. “I am compiling a Tourist’s New Guide to the English Lake District and this might be included. There are so many special wonders here on our doorstep, are there not?”

Marcus’ eyes had drifted to Charlotte who’d ambled towards the waterfall, her gaze fixed on its three channels of seventy-foot meanders down the ravine.

Parting, crashing, meeting and separating.

“Yes, indeed,” he murmured.

“I wish I could draw.” Another thespian sigh. “Then perhaps I could be a famous artist as well as an author.”

Mr Green chortled. “Here, have some fresh paper and my charcoal and I’ll show you some basic lines.”

“Most kind,” said Marcus.

With a wink, Mr Green led Dinah by the hand back to his stool and easel.

Ignoring that cold logic which again nagged him to return home, Marcus nonchalantly strolled to Charlotte and stared to the falls also.

“I haven’t been here for years,” she said softly, “and so thought we might make it before the snows come.”

“I had the same notion,” he answered. “Charlotte, I must apolo–”

“No.” She twisted, gaze lowered. “I could have protested. And it was just a…just a kiss. Don’t fret.”

Just?

It had given him a restless night of turbulent dreams. So much so, he’d been forced to rise and re-tally some variant sums in his ledgers.

Thoroughly vexed, he leaned close. “Did it not…” Both his breath and the breeze gusted the tendrils that had escaped her chignon. “Disturb you in the least? Did you not lie awake…”

Her lashes raised, eyes as green as the bedewed moss.

“Yes,” she whispered. “But that was because I was trying to think of a second Christmastide event for you to attend and came up with naught.”

Minx.

Though perhaps some small mercy as he could travel to Carlisle before any more of his wits were stolen by Charlotte. Before she roused further passions. Before he told her of London.

“But thankfully,” she continued, “Mr Green reminded me about Fred and Kitty.”

“Who?”

“The baker’s son Fred. And Kitty who works in the town dressmakers.”

Oh hell, please no, not–

“It’s their wedding tomorrow. What better event to celebrate Christmas than–”

“Mawkish sentiment and an excuse for them to demand costly gifts?”

She waggled her finger. “I expect you to be on your best behaviour. They are a fine young couple and destined to be together.”

Marcus briefly closed his eyes in sufferance.

Christmas and a wedding.

What could be worse…