Simply Unforgettable

He sipped from his glass of port.

“And what does such a school teach girls?” he asked her. “What do you teach?”

“Music and French and writing,” she said. “Creative writing, not penmanship—Susanna Osbourne teaches that. The school instructs girls in all the accomplishments they are expected to acquire as young ladies, like dancing and painting and singing as well as etiquette and deportment. But it also teaches academics. Miss Martin has always insisted upon that, since she firmly believes that the female mind is in no way inferior to the male.”

“Ah,” he said. “Admirable.”

She turned her head sharply to look at him, but it was unclear to her whether that judgment had been spoken ironically or not. His head was resting against the high back of his chair. He looked sleepy. His short curly hair looked somewhat rumpled. She felt a strange little fluttering in her lower abdomen.

“I like teaching there,” she said. “I feel that I am doing something useful with my life.”

“And you were not doing anything useful with it before three years ago?” He rolled his head around to look at her.

Her mind touched upon the two years following her father’s death, and for a moment she felt that she could weep. But her tears for those distressing, bungled years had all been shed long ago. And she had never been sorry for the choice she had then made to teach instead of running off abjectly to the sanctuary of her great-aunts’ house and support. If she could go back, she would do the same thing all over again.

Independence was a marvelous thing for a lady.

“I was not happy three years ago,” she said. “Now I am.”

“Are you?” he asked, his eyes moving lazily and disconcertingly over her face and neck and shoulders and even down to her bosom. “You are fortunate to be able to say so, ma’am.”

“Are you not happy, then?” she asked him.

“Happiness.” His eyebrows rose in obvious scorn. “It is a foolish word. There are enjoyment and sensual gratification, and there are their opposites. I cultivate the former and avoid the latter whenever I may. It is, you may say, my philosophy of life—and of most people’s lives if they are honest with themselves.”

“I spoke unadvisedly,” she said. “I used the wrong word. I ought to have said that I am content with my life. I avoid either of the extremes you named for the sake of greater peace. It is my philosophy of life, and I believe many people have discovered that it is a wise way of living.”

“And also dashed boring,” he said.

And then he did something that caused far more than flutterings within her. It took her breath away for a moment and left her almost panting.

He grinned at her—and revealed himself as a very handsome man indeed.

She reached for a reply, failed to find one, and ended up gazing silently into his eyes and feeling heat rise in her cheeks.

He gazed back, equally silent, his grin fading.

“I think,” she said, finding her voice at last, “it is time for bed.”

If ever she had wished to recall words after they were spoken, this was the occasion. And if ever she had wished for a black hole to open at her feet and swallow her up whole, this was the time.

For a few ghastly moments she could not look away from him, and he did not look away from her. The air between them seemed to sizzle. And then he spoke.

“I presume,” he said, “that you mean alone, Miss Allard. And you are quite right—it is time for bed. If we were to sit here much longer, I daresay we would both nod off only to be awoken later when the fire had burned down, with cricked necks and frozen toes. You go on up, and I will see to banking the fire and putting the guard across it. I’ll check the kitchen fire too, though I daresay Peters and your Thomas will be playing cards in there and grumbling darkly at each other for some time to come.”

He got to his feet and bent over the fire even as he spoke.

She wondered as she rose from her chair if her knees would support her. What a ghastly slip of the tongue! She should have made her home in the kitchen after all.

“Good night, Mr. Marshall,” she said to his back.

He straightened up and turned to her, one mocking eyebrow cocked.

“Are you still there?” he said. “Good night, Miss Allard.”

She fled, stopping only long enough to take up one of the candles from the counter. She hurried upstairs to her room, where she was surprised to see a fire burning. Although Mr. Marshall had said earlier that he would get Wally to light one, she had not heard him give the order. She undressed and made her other preparations for bed quickly even though the room was not cold, and dived beneath the covers, pulling them up over her head as if to shut off her thoughts.

There were feelings, though, as well as thoughts—and they were definitely not the feelings of one who cultivated calm contentment in her life. Her breasts felt uncomfortably tight. Her lower abdomen throbbed. Her inner thighs ached. And she was not such an innocent that she did not recognize the symptoms for what they were.

She desired a man she did not even know—and probably would not like if she did. She had even despised him for a few hours. How mortifying!

She waited tensely beneath the covers for the sound of his footsteps coming up the stairs and entering his room.

But though she did not fall asleep for a long time, she did not hear him come.