The Ungrateful Governness

outraged at her effrontery in trying to pass herself off as a member of the beau monde. Anyone of any sense and decency would agree with him. It was she who was in the wrong. Entirely so. There was no question about it. His attitude was perfectly correct. There was nothing cruel, nothing merely snobbish in his disapproval.

Why was it, then, that she made him feel so brutal? Why was it that a few cold words from her could put him instantly in the wrong? His feeling of guilt the afternoon before at Astley's had ruined the first few performances for him. He had been unpardonably rude to her and could not excuse himself even with the assurance that the provocation had been great. By retaliating with words that were so uncharacteristic of him he was merely lowering himself to her level.

Sitting next to her at the circus, Hope at her other side, Godfrey beyond her, he had wanted to take Jess's hand in his again and beg her to forgive him. She sat so rigidly upright next to him that he knew he had made her miserable. She deserved to be miserable, of course, he had told himself. And he had convinced himself; he had not apologized. Thank God, he had not apologized. But he had still felt guilty.

And very aware of her. It would have done him a great deal of good if he had had to endure rejection now and then through his adult years, he supposed. It surely could be only her rejection of him that made him want her so badly. He could not recall ever having had this all-pervading, aching need for one particular woman.

Why should it be so? Really, when it came right down to the physical act of bedding, one female body was very much like another. Why the craving for the one woman who chose not to bed with him?

He had sat beside her, tortured by guilt and desire, until a surprising sound from beside him had caused him to turn his head and look directly at her. She was giggling. Very quietly, it was true, with one hand over her mouth, but her shoulders were shaking and her eye? twinkling. And it was definitely giggles coming fror behind her hand, not just polite laughter.

He had turned his head to the performance that had been passing unnoticed before him and saw a group of ragged clowns tripping and falling and stumbling as they rushed around about some urgent errand and constantly collided with one another. It was funny, he supposed. A child would be amused. Jessica Moore was amused.

He turned back to look at her, smiling at her reaction rather than at the antics of the clowns. She was like a child. She would never have been to Astley's before, of course. When she burst into open laughter and turned to him with the human instinct to share delight, he laughed too.

'I wonder they do not hurt themselves,' she said. ''They collide with such force.'

'Doubtless they practice for long hours,' he said. 'They are all acrobats in their own right.'

But she did not even hear his answer. She had turned back to the performance and was clapping with delight.

That was not the part of the afternoon that had really confused his feelings, though, and sent him in frustration and self-hatred on his night's orgy. That had come later, when the trapeze artists had been performing.

She had been amazed, enthralled, and ultimately terrified. His own attention had been caught, too. For the space of a few minutes he had become so involved with the danger of the tricks that he lost his awareness of her. He had stared down almost with incomprehension when her hand had first stolen into his. When it had gripped convulsively and her shoulder pressed against his arm, he had covered the hand lightly with his free one. And his attention had again been effectively drawn from the flying acrobats to the woman beside him. She had watched wide-eyed and with parted lips, gripping his hand, totally unaware of his presence until the act must have reached its climax and she turned suddenly with a gasp and buried her face against his sleeve.

And then looked up at him with round, horrified eyes and down at her hand sandwiched between his two. She had stared at their hands for a stunned moment and then pulled hers away as if from some deadly snake.

'Oh!' she had said and looked back up at him. Her lips had moved but it seemed that she did not know what to say or whom to blame.

'One wishes for one's own comfort that they would work with a safety net, doesn't one?' he had said with a smile, trying to turn the moment into something quite commonplace.

He did not know what she would have said, if anything. Hope had turned to her at that moment in order to make some enthusiastic comment on the acrobats, and she had remained turned away from him for the rest of the afternoon. Somehow she had contrived to be escorted back to the carriage by Godfrey.

Rutherford turned over onto his other side in bed, but much more cautiously than he had done a few minutes before, trying not to alert his headache. Why had he almost held his breath while she clung to him and drew close to him? Why had he been afraid to move a muscle for fear that she would realize what she was doing and withdraw from him, as she had done eventually? Why must he behave as if she were important to him, as if she were someone to be wooed and won with patience and tact? She was a governess masquerading as a grand lady. A servant. A country parson's daughter. A female appealing enough to be invited to his bed, shrugged off and forgotten if she declined.

Not a woman to watch as if there were nothing else around him to see, to absorb all of his attention as if there were nothing else worth paying attention to. Not a woman whose unconscious touch was to be so cherished that he must hold himself still and breathless for fear of losing it. Not a woman to so torment his mind and his body that he must go out at night trying to free himself through the entertainment of cards, the oblivion of drink, and the drug of sexual satiation.

And now this morning, Rutherford thought with a sigh, kicking the blankets off his body and turning onto his back again, she was causing him even greater torment than she had the day before. Drinking had brought him a hangover but no oblivion. Sex, for the first time in his memory, had left him feeling soiled, nauseated, and quite unsatisfied. He had an ugly suspicion that the sort of desire Jess had aroused in him could be satisfied by no one else except Jess. And if that fact was not about to ruin his hitherto quite satisfactory life, he was a fortunate man indeed.

Who exactly was Jessica Moore? he wondered yet again. Strange to be so obsessed by a woman one scarcely knew at all. Girls have mothers too, his grandmother had said. Who had her mother been? And who had the parson been before becoming a clergyman?

It seemed that further encounters with Jess were going to be inevitable. He would dare swear she would be at Faith's soiree during the coming evening. If meet her he must, he might as well talk to her too. Find out more about her. But whether he wished to find out good things or bad he did not know. Further reason to spurn her or some hitherto unsuspected reason to see her as more of a social equal.

'Not as your fancy piece,' his grandmother had said. 'As your wife.'

Rutherford swung his legs over the side of the bed, drew himself cautiously to a sitting position, groaned, and rose to his feet. Riding would probably bounce his head right off his shoulders, he thought, moving slowly into his dressing room to find riding clothes with which to cover his nakedness. But it seemed to be the only alternative to lying sleepless on his bed. He certainly would not be able to support the exertion of walking.

The Bradley soiree did not involve either dancing or card playing. Such activities were frequent enough at evening parties to become tedious, Lady Bradley told her grandmother and Jessica as she was welcoming them to her drawing room. Consequently, there was music in the music room for those who were interested, provided by a hired pianist, violinist, and harpist, though guests were encouraged to contribute their talents too. And there was conversation in the drawing room for those who wished to discuss politics or art or literature. Or even the weather and the state of the participants' health, she added with a laugh.

'Hope is beckoning you, Miss Moore,' she told Jessica. 'She is with Sir Godfrey Hall and Lord Graves. Would you care to join them? Grandmama, Mama has directed me to fetch you to her the moment you arrive.'

Lady Hope was indeed gesturing to Jessica from across the room. And Sir Godfrey rose to his feet, bowed, and smiled amiably at her as she approached. Jessica scurried across to them in some relief. She felt decidedly self-conscious about attending a party given by Lord Rutherford's sister. Of the earl himself there was no sign. Surely she would not be fortunate enough to find that he would not attend at all.

'We have been telling Lord Graves about our afternoon at Astley's Amphitheater, dear Miss Moore,' Lady Hope said. 'And I do believe he is laughing at our childish delight in all the splendid acts. Do come and lend your voice to ours.'