Simply Unforgettable

embarrassment lest he somehow discover that that light bundle contained new stockings.

And then when she had taken one of the day pupils home early one day because the girl had a fever and waited until Mr. Blake had been summoned so that she could carry word of the girl’s condition back with her, he had insisted upon walking her all the way to the school doors.

Now he had got word of the fact that she had been invited to sing at the Reynolds soiree, and since he was an invited guest himself, he had called at the school, had Keeble summon Frances to the visitors’ sitting room after very correctly asking permission of Miss Martin, and asked to be allowed the honor of being her escort for the evening.

She would have had a hard time saying no if she had wished to do so. Actually, though, she had been relieved. Since the outing was to be in the evening, she knew that Claudia would have insisted upon sending one of the maids with her. It would have been a dreadful inconvenience. Besides, walking in on an evening party alone would have required a great deal of fortitude.

“I do not believe a teacher has time for a beau,” she said now. “And even if this teacher did, I am not at all sure she would choose Mr. Blake. He is perhaps a trifle too earnest for her taste. However, he is handsome and he is a perfect gentleman and he has a perfectly respectable profession, and if she decides that she does want him as a beau, she will be sure to inform her dearest friends and warn her employer of her impending departure into the world of idle marital bliss.”

She laughed as she lifted her cup to her lips.

“Well, I would not settle for a mere physician,” Susanna said, sitting down again and clasping her knees as before. “He would have to be a duke or no one at all if he were to attract me. Except a prince, maybe.”

Susanna had come to the school at the age of twelve as a charity pupil. She had lied about her age before that, saying she was fifteen in an attempt to acquire employment as a lady’s maid, but two days after she had been rejected in that capacity she had been found by Mr. Hatchard, Miss Martin’s London agent, and offered a position as pupil at the school. Two years ago Miss Martin had given her employment as a junior teacher. What her background was before the age of twelve Frances did not know.

“Oh, not a duke, Susanna,” Miss Martin said firmly.

Frances and Anne exchanged amused glances. Susanna rested her forehead on her knees to hide her own smile. They all knew about Miss Martin’s aversion to dukes. She had once been employed by the Duke of Bewcastle as governess to his sister, Lady Freyja Bedwyn. Like a string of governesses before her, Miss Martin had resigned after a very short time, having discovered that the job—or rather her pupil—was impossible. But unlike the others, she had refused to accept either the money payment the duke had offered or the recommendation to another post. Instead she had marched down the driveway of Lindsey Hall, taking her triumph and her personal possessions with her.

After she had opened the school and struggled to keep it going, she had been offered the financial assistance of an anonymous benefactor. But before she had accepted, Miss Martin had made Mr. Hatchard swear on a Bible that the benefactor was not the Duke of Bewcastle.

“He will have to be a prince,” she added now. “I flatly refuse to attend your wedding if the groom is a duke.”

Anne had finished her mending. She folded the shirt, picked up her scissors, needle, and thread, and got to her feet.

“It is time I looked in on David,” she said, “to make sure he is still sleeping peacefully. He ought to sleep well, though, after all the running he did in the meadows this afternoon. Thank you for the tea, Claudia. Good night, all.”

But the others had risen too. Days at the school began early and ran late and were extraordinarily busy between times. Very rarely did they talk late into the night.

Frances thought about the following evening as she got ready for bed. The singing was something she looked forward to with eager anticipation, though she had not done any public singing in three years. She would be nervous when the time came, of course, but that would be natural. She would not let it affect her performance.

She was, however, a little nervous about another aspect of the evening. Mr. Blake really would become her suitor with a little encouragement. He had not said so, but her woman’s intuition told her she was not wrong. He was perfectly eligible even though he must be at least ten years older than she. He was also good-looking, intelligent, amiable, and well respected.

Her prospects of marrying were not bountiful. She would be foolish not to encourage him. She enjoyed teaching, and her salary was sufficient to cover all her most basic needs. The school provided her with a home and friendship. But she was only twenty-three years old, and her life had once been very different. She could not pretend to herself that she would be perfectly happy to remain as she was for the rest of her life.

She had needs, basic human needs that were very hard to ignore.

Mr. Blake might be her only chance of attracting a decent husband. Of course, matters were not quite that simple. There would be details from her past to explain to him, some of them not reflecting well on her. He might not be at all willing to pursue his interest in her once all had been told. On the other hand, perhaps he might. She would not know if she did not put the matter to the test.

She blew out her candle when she was ready for bed, drew back the curtains as she always did, and lay on her back, staring out into the darkness and picking out a few stars.

She had wept when she had learned that she was not with child. Tears of relief—of course!—and tears of sadness.

In three months she had not fully recovered her spirits. It was because she had lain with him, she told herself, because she had given him her virginity. Of course it was difficult to recover, to forget him. It would be strange if it were not.

But when she was being strictly truthful with herself, she knew that it was more than that. Most of the time when she remembered Lucius Marshall, it was as much other things about him she recalled as it was that. She thought of him peeling potatoes and shoveling snow and drying dishes and lifting his jug-eared snowman’s head onto the hollowed-out shoulders and waltzing and . . . Well, of course, her thoughts always did come back to what had followed that waltz.