But she did not avail herself of his offer. Instead she turned her attention upon Eleanor. “I would be obliged if Miss Thompson would take a walk along the lakeshore with us,” she said.
Eleanor looked at her in surprise. She had thought herself beneath the notice of such a grand lady. “Thank you. That would be pleasant,” she lied.
“It must be very gratifying for you, Miss Thompson,” Lady Connaught said as the four of them moved off, “that your sister succeeded in snaring England’s greatest matrimonial prize a few years ago. It is a feather in your cap to be able to boast of the Duke of Bewcastle as your brother-in-law.”
“Indeed it is, ma’am,” Eleanor said. “I am delighted to boast of both my brothers-in-law because they make my sisters as happy as my sisters make them.”
“It must be a matter of regret to you,” Lady Connaught said, “that you were unable to do as well for yourself. However, your loss is possibly our gain. You own and manage a girls’ school in Bath, I understand.”
“I do indeed,” Eleanor said and glanced at the earl. She had not told him that when they dined, only that she was a teacher. He smiled at her, and her breath caught annoyingly in her throat.
Lady Connaught drew breath to say more, but they were interrupted by Georgette, who had come dashing from the bottom of the hill to hurl herself upon Eleanor, just as she had done in the nursery yesterday. Her dress was strewn with assorted debris and streaked with grass stains. Her hair, still tied precariously behind her head was nevertheless disheveled and liberally decorated with grass and twigs. There was a dirt streak and a slight scratch across one of her cheeks. Her hands were dirty. Her eyes sparkled. And her mouth was, of course, in motion.
“Miss Thompson,” she cried, “did you see? Did you, Papa? I just rolled down the hill for the sixth time. It looks ever so frightening from the top, but it is the best fun ever. Lizzie has come with me three times though the first time her papa had to come too. You see? There is her mama hugging her and her dog licking her hand. She is blind. Did you know that? But of course you did. You were with her yesterday. She is full of pluck, is she not? And Robbie—have you seen Robbie? Have you, Papa? Look, he is getting ready to roll down again. It was positively inspired of the duchess to send him to look after Tommy yesterday, was it not, for now he has a whole group of the very little ones thinking he is very grown up and wanting to be his friends. He has hardly glanced at me all afternoon. Oh, here he comes. Does it not do your heart good, Papa?”
While she had been speaking, she had caught Eleanor’s hand in one of hers and reached out to take her father’s hand in her other. She was almost jumping up and down between them now and laughing as Robert led his little band down the hill.
“It does indeed,” the earl said. “I am very happy, Georgette, that you are both enjoying yourselves so much. I will be happier still when you recover your manners from wherever you have put them and make your curtsy to Lady Connaught and Miss Everly.”
“Oh.” She bobbed a curtsy that encompassed them both.
“Dear Lady Georgette,” Miss Everly murmured. Her arm had been somehow forced from her escort’s.
“It is perhaps a good thing you have no mama at the moment, Georgette,” Lady Connaught said, smiling graciously. “She would doubtless be ashamed to own you.”
All the light went out of the child, and her hold on Eleanor’s hand slackened. “My mama would never ever have been ashamed of me,” she said almost in a whisper.
“That is because she would have trained you to behave like a proper lady,” Miss Everly said sweetly. “And then she would have been proud of you.”
“I—” Georgette began.
“I believe Lizzie is waiting for you, Georgette,” the earl said. “Go and have fun with her and the other children.”
The child looked from him to Eleanor, her light still dimmed, her eyes glistening with what might be tears. Eleanor smiled.
“I am envious, I must confess,” she said. “The duchess, my sister, has the courage to come rolling down that long hill, but I am afraid I would stand cowering at the top and then make some excuse to descend the sedate way along the wilderness path.”
“I am proud that my daughter has more courage,” the earl said, also smiling. “Off you go, Georgette. And try to leave at least some grass on the hill, will you?”
She released their hands at last, after looking earnestly at them each in turn and went dashing off to rejoin her new friend.
“Miss Thompson,” Lady Connaught said “perhaps you can understand why Lord Staunton is in desperate need of your services—if, that is, your school is sufficiently strict with girls who are difficult.”
The lady’s interest in her was explained. Eleanor was the one who was to take the Earl of Staunton’s precocious daughter off his hands so that Miss Everly as his new wife would not be troubled by her. No doubt there were other plans forming for Robert’s future. Oh, it was none of her business, Eleanor thought as they moved onward. Except that she was being drawn into the scheme, which might just possibly be the best option for Georgette anyway if her father really did marry Miss Everly. Oh, was he mad?
“I would not describe Georgette as difficult, ma’am,” the Earl of Staunton said, “only as having a greater than usual exuberance of spirit and an insatiable curiosity about the world around her.”
“Almost all girls are difficult,” Eleanor said, drawing his reproachful glance her way. “Growing up is difficult. At my school I always find myself more concerned about the girls who are not difficult. I try to discover what is wrong with them. As for strictness, well, it is a word that can be defined many ways. We do try, my teachers and I, to keep harsh punishments to a minimum, experience having taught us that they do not often have any permanent effect for the good. On the other hand, for our own peace of mind and for the well-being of our girls, we cannot allow anarchy. Teaching is difficult and perhaps one of the most enjoyable and rewarding of careers.”
The walk did not last long. Neither Lady Connaught nor her daughter seemed to find her worth knowing after all, Eleanor thought with some amusement—or with what would have been amusement if she had not been feeling half sick with apprehension for those poor children.
And if she had not wanted to shake their papa until his teeth rattled.
Chapter 5
For his children’s sake he was glad he had come, Michael decided after the first week of the house party. They were having the time of their lives. Georgette had become firm friends with Lizzie and Becky, Lord Aidan Bedwyn’s adopted daughter, and a few of the other older girls. And she was free to pursue those friendships and be a carefree child of ten, for Robert did not need her constant protection. Oh, he still ran for cover if any adult or older child showed signs of singling him out for attention, but he had gathered about him a small circle of younger children who looked upon him as a leader, and he frolicked all day long with them. Sometimes, though, he needed an adult to observe some feat he was about to perform—floating on the lake without anyone holding him, for example—or to look at something he had found—a ladybird cupped in his palms, perhaps—and then he called out to Miss Thompson as well as to his papa. Once, when everyone was returning from a picnic after a few hours of vigorous play at the far side of the lake and he was tired, Robert took her hand almost absently, it seemed, and walked all the way back to the house with her, just as he might have done with his mother, had she lived.
Michael might have been enjoying the house party with unalloyed pleasure on his own account too if it were not for one fact. The house was comfortable, the park surrounding it spacious, the weather perfect, the company congenial, the activities varied. He had always considered the Bedwyns to be a haughty family, aloof and formidable, even cold. But when thrown into their company as he had been during the past week, he had discovered their more human side and actually liked them. They had forceful personalities and boundless energy, but they all, with the possible exception of Bewcastle himself, had a strong sense of fun too. They all appeared to have contracted happy marriages and adored their children and one another’s—and the children of all the other guests too. And even Bewcastle, Michael was interested to discover, was deeply involved in a love match with his unlikely duchess and gazed upon their children in unguarded moments with a certain light in his silver eyes that proclaimed his love for them.
