18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

F or a man quite used to his own solitude, it was both surprising and disturbing for Gregory to realise that he was becoming quite used to having Miss Heart in his home. He found himself making excuses to speak to her, little snatches of conversation that he replayed over and over in his mind for no discernible reason. Speaking was not even wholly necessary: he simply enjoyed being in her presence. There was a kind of magnetism to her, and he could not help but orient himself to be nearer her when the opportunity arose.

So, when she sashayed into the library unbidden, Gregory's first impulse was to smile at her. He quickly checked himself, however, and instead arranged his features into a mask of nothingness. Miss Heart did not seem to notice this, boldly looking him in the eye and addressing him directly in a way that any other servant, or any young woman for that matter, would not.

"It will be Miss Florence's birthday soon," she announced.

Gregory, who had been leaning over correspondence, leaned back in his chair. "Yes, I do believe that is so; on the twenty-sixth, if I am not mistaken."

"Exactly so," Miss Heart agreed. "She will be fifteen years of age," she added, then paused, folding her arms over herself and staring at Gregory.

"I'm aware of that fact," he answered, feeling like he might be missing something.

"Are you?" Miss Heart asked, raising one eyebrow. "She will be fifteen ."

Gregory sighed and tossed the letter he had been composing carelessly aside. "I imagine that you are attempting to make a point of some sort."

"Well," Miss Heart hedged, "have you given consideration to what you might be gifting her?"

Gregory frowned. "Not particularly, no," he admitted. "I imagine I would simply visit the toy maker in York, as I usually do."

"The toy maker ?" Miss Heart said, her eyes going wide and her arms unfolding. "You cannot be serious."

"Why not? He has never steered me wrong before," Gregory protested. "Why, his wife makes clothes for the dolls that I understand to be—"

"A doll ?" Miss Heart asked, her voice and face incredulous. "Oh, Sir, no," she said, shaking her head ruefully. "If you give Florence a doll for her fifteenth birthday, I daresay she shan't speak to you ever again."

"And I imagine you know the perfect solution then, do you?" Gregory retorted, unable to keep the sardonic twist out of his words.

"As a matter of fact, I do," Miss Heart replied, tossing her head. "I've taken her measurements down; it would be a simple thing to visit a dressmaker."

"A dressmaker?" The crease between Gregory's eyebrows deepened. "Has she outgrown her pinafore?"

"She outgrew her pinafore a long time ago," Beatrice answered with surprising gentleness. "If you do not help her to enter society now, while she is under your protection, then it will be all the harder for her later."

"She is too young to be out," Gregory protested, feeling his hackles rise. He did not like to consider that his darling daughters were growing up right before his eyes; it was far easier to pretend that time had ceased with the death of his wife.

"She needn't be fully out," Miss Heart countered. She stepped closer to the heavy desk. "She only needs to be able to pay calls upon your neighbours, to make friends her own age without feeling embarrassed."

Gregory did not answer immediately; instead, he rose suddenly, pacing anxiously in tight, rigid steps. He could feel Miss Heart's eyes on him, which did nothing to ease his vexation. "And it is your conviction that the time has come for her to put her hair up and go out into the world?"

"In a manner of speaking," Miss Heart said. "Is it not better to help usher her into society under our protection than simply turning her loose with no preparation later?" She gave Gregory an arch look, and added, "Would you send your own troops out so ill-prepared?"

The colonel stopped pacing, turning a wary eye on the governess. "You speak as if I will be sending her into enemy territory."

Miss Heart blinked once, her eyes widening. "You are woefully misinformed about the nature of society if you believe otherwise. The ton preaches that women ought to be genteel, docile little lambs, but you shan't meet a more ruthless gang of cutthroats than a set of dowagers at tea."

Gregory stared at Miss Heart, unsure if she was having a jape at his expense again. She stared right back, uncowed by the directness of their shared gaze. "I am going into York tomorrow," she continued, "if you are truly uncomfortable with such things, I am happy to shop on your behalf if needed."

"You are going to York? What of the girls?"

"Mrs Turvy has agreed to mind them for a few hours," Miss Heart replied. "They have assured me that they will be on their very best behaviour."

Gregory gave Miss Heart a baleful look at that statement, but otherwise let it pass without comment. "How will you be getting there? Surely you do not intend to walk."

"It would not be the first time I've walked the distance," Miss Heart sniffed, lifting her chin. "But no, I have arranged to ride in the back of a farmer's milk cart."

"You are going to ride in the back of a milk wagon?" Gregory repeated. He was not generally given to bouts of humour these last few years, but the image of a perfectly dressed and poised Miss Heart rattling around in the back of a wagon alongside jugs of milk was simply too much to bear. One side of his mouth drew up in an almost-grin. "You really must learn to drive out on your own, particularly if you are sincere about the girls socialising more."

Miss Heart's nose wrinkled up. "What, you mean drive myself ?"

"Don't most governesses do so? I should think you would have learned to already," Gregory countered, seeing a crack in Miss Heart's careful exterior.

"Oh, well," Miss Heart hedged, folding her arms again, "I've never really had cause to. I've lived so long in London, you see." A hint of colour appeared on her cheeks, which Gregory immediately noted. "Besides, I've never seen the appeal of spending so much time in proximity to horses."

"Have you not?" Gregory asked, coming to stand behind the desk again so that they were facing one another. He was hardly surprised by this and was feeling bemused at having discovered something Miss Heart found distasteful. "No taste for creatures as wilful as yourself?"

"No," Miss Heart snapped back, "if I wished to spend time in the company of sweaty, smelly beasts of burden, I'd simply spend an hour or two in the card room at a ball, pouring drinks for the men." With that, she turned on her heel and swept from the room with a great deal of dignity...or at least, with her nose in the air.

As she left, a strange, unfamiliar sound could be heard in the Hillmot house, emanating from the library. The sound was so unfamiliar that it caused the footmen to pause as they set the table for luncheon; the maids, too, stopped to tilt their heads as they polished the furniture. It was laughter, deep and rumbling from Gregory. It was a product as much from the humour of what she said as the realisation that he had for once been left standing, and she had been the one to storm off.

***

B eatrice was no stranger to shopping trips - there had always been a steady stream of gentlemen willing to allow her to purchase on their credit. As such, her experience shopping in London was one of comfort and luxury: A carriage would be provided, or at the very least, a sedan chair; she would visit fabric sellers that specialised in luxurious silks that looked like liquid gems, or muslin so delicate that it could have been woven by spiders. Her every whim and comfort would be attended to as she haughtily perused trays of pearls and diamonds.

She was under no illusions that this particular shopping excursion would be even remotely the same, but she was still not entirely prepared for what it would entail. The day started ominously, with the colonel appearing at the breakfast table already swathed in his oilskin coat and holding a whip smartly.

Mornings were never Beatrice's strong point, and her weeks in the Hillmot household had not changed this fact one jot. Blearily, she stared at the colonel over the rim of her cup of coffee as he looked to her expectantly.

"We shall be departing in ten minutes' time," he announced. "I shall meet you out front." He paused, sweeping his eyes over her, and added, "Dress warmly."

Beatrice, dressed but wrapped snugly in a shawl, simply stared blankly back at him. Though her eyes were open and she had the appearance of one who was fully awakened, her mind was still firmly snuggled back in her bed, the covers pulled over her head. The colonel left the dining room without waiting for a reply, and Beatrice blinked slowly after him.

"Does this mean that Father is accompanying you to York, then?" Florence asked, leaning forward a little eagerly.

"He is," Beatrice murmured, her voice still gravelly with the weight of sleep.

"Then you have brought him round, yes?" Florence asked, her eyes wide and hopeful.

"Perhaps, though I shouldn't wager on it," Beatrice answered. "I suspect he is merely going as a means of tormenting me—he has promised to give me a driving lesson on the way."

"Oh." Florence, clearly a little crestfallen, turned her gaze to her plate. Despondently, she pushed her cold ham about with her fork.

"Don't lose heart," Beatrice said, reaching over to pat Florence's hand reassuringly. "What is it the farmers say about here? We shall find a way, 'by hook or by crook,' no?" Florence, mollified, gave Beatrice a half-smile very much like her father's.

Downing the last of her coffee, Beatrice rose from the table. "Now, if you will excuse me, I am off to don every cloak and shawl I own in hopes of staying warm and dry." The girls giggled as she left the dining room. It was a testament to their progress under her tutelage that Beatrice did not feel in the least compelled to admonish them to behave in her absence.

If Beatrice had hoped that the worst she had to look forward to was merely an early start, she was sorely mistaken on this point as well. Though she had chosen a sensible thick linen walking dress in a dark coffee-coloured brown and piled on not only a wool pelisse with a patterned shawl atop that, she still doubted the likelihood of staying warm and dry on the drive to York.

She exited the front door of the manor house and found the colonel was indeed awaiting her on the circular drive. The thick-boned cob was once again harnessed to the small hunting trap, and he looked no less thrilled to be pressed into service than Beatrice was at this moment.

Well, I suppose at least we have that in common , she thought dryly. I suppose it really was too much to hope that I might be allowed to ride in an enclosed vehicle in comfort.

"How good of you to join us, Miss Heart," the colonel called out, touching the brim of his hat with the whip.

Beatrice did not reply to that, but tipped her head upward to look dubiously up at the slate-grey sky. She was rewarded for her efforts by a face-full of cold drizzle. "Are you quite sure this is the best weather for this sort of outing?" she asked.

"Certainly so," the colonel responded definitively. "If you learn to drive in inclement weather, you will be a veritable Boadicea on sunny days."

Beatrice sighed, and stood next to the cart, looking expectantly at the colonel. The colonel stared back at her, both of them clearly waiting for the other to do something.

"Miss Heart, we shall be here all day at this rate," the colonel said finally. "You will have to learn to enter a wagon without aid if you are to drive the girls about."

Beatrice simply continued to stare for a moment. "What, you mean haul myself up like—like a milkmaid?" She eyed the conveyance warily, then placed a foot experimentally on one of the wheels. The moment she attempted to put weight on it, her foot slipped on the rain-slick spoke, and she jolted back down to the ground with a little squeak.

The colonel, making a sound somewhere between a sigh and a chuckle, put the reins down on the footboard and climbed down. "Stand, Jolly," he commanded the horse as he passed in front of his nose.

Beatrice, doing her best to preserve what dignity she had left, tossed her head proudly. The colonel, however, seemed determined to pay her posturing no mind; instead, he positioned himself quite close behind her. Though his proximity was unexpected, Beatrice was grateful for it nonetheless: His tall frame acted as a windbreak, sheltering Beatrice from the worst of the gusts.

"Now, take your right hand, and place it here," he instructed, seemingly completely oblivious to their closeness. He took her wrist in his long fingers, placing her hand where he indicated on the front railing of the trap. "Your left hand, here," he said, likewise positioning her other hand on the ledge that ran alongside the narrow seat. "Your right foot goes there, on the hub—no, don't turn your foot, just your toes will do fine. Then just pull yourself up, and—"

Beatrice, having quickly caught on to the lesson, hoisted herself accordingly, and found herself sitting easily on the seat. She blinked, then looked triumphantly down at the colonel. Though she preferred having a gentleman, preferably of the handsome and strapping variety, to lift her up, she would never turn down the chance to further her own independence. The colonel, still somewhat bemused, dipped his head at her triumph, however small it may have been.

Beatrice, meanwhile, was busy looking about herself, settling her pelisse more agreeably about her legs. "I suppose it cannot really be that difficult," she said, busying herself with flexing her fingers in her gloves and ensuring her bonnet was tied on securely. "It's a matter of learning the correct steps, and then—"

Her musing was quickly interrupted, however, by the fact that the colonel was now pulling himself up on the trap on the same side that Beatrice had. Instinctually, Beatrice tilted away from him a little, turning her face upward to blink up at him in surprise. She was a tall woman by most standards, her height giving her an advantage on the stage; it was a fairly new sensation, then, to experience what it was like to have a man looming over her.

The colonel, meanwhile, balanced with one foot on the wheel hub, one hand on the front of the trap, the other on the back of the seat, stared directly at Beatrice. He, too, seemed a little out of sorts at their sudden position, but his dark eyes were riveted onto Beatrice's.

In the grand game of London society, Beatrice was used to playing the part of a proud lioness: she picked and hunted her prey with razor-sharp accuracy and detachment. With the colonel looming in such a way over her, she was quite out of her element, and it made her heart pound so loud in her ears that she couldn't hear anything else for a moment.

The colonel found his voice first. "You'll have to shift over, if you are going to drive," he said, the action of him swallowing hard visible even beneath his starched collar and cravat. He jerked his chin in the direction of the other side of the trap's narrow seat.

Beatrice obliged, sliding over warily. She folded her hands tightly in her lap as the colonel settled himself, taking up the reins that had been on the footboard. "I'll take us up the drive and to the lane proper," he said gruffly, adjusting his hold on the lines. "No sense in letting you turn us over before we even leave the property," he added.

Beatrice gave him a baleful glance from beneath her bonnet, which he either did not see or did not care to acknowledge. He instead called out to Jolly, "Walk on," and they set off with a small lurch. Still feeling a little unbalanced in more ways than one, Beatrice momentarily seized onto the colonel's arm. She promptly dropped it once she was steadier.

Careful, Bea , she thought to herself. You left London to escape trouble of the masculine sort; don't let yourself fall into that trap again , the logical side of her mind cautioned. No matter how very nice and solid he feels when you grasp onto him. And most definitely do not consider how very striking his profile is set against that grey sky... Unbidden, Beatrice let out a little groan, clenching her hands tighter against that particular train of thought.

The colonel, glancing over, inquired, "Are you in some distress, Miss Heart?"

"Of course not," she replied sharply. "Just...just feeling a bit nervous, I expect." She did not elaborate further, particularly as it was the fact that his leg was so very near hers that she could feel it pressing against her through her pelisse, dress, and petticoats, that was causing a good deal of her nerves.