“Perhaps he has his own ideas about what constitutes a proper game,” Augusta suggested. “Not everyone follows the same rules.”
Cassie tilted her head, and something shifted behind her eyes, a sharpness that reminded Augusta of Hudson. “Is that what’s happening with you and Hudson?”
Augusta’s lungs seized. “I beg your pardon?”
“You’ve been avoiding each other.” Cassie said it with the innocence of a child. “You eat in your room. He eats in his study. You moved my lessons to the nursery, which is the farthest room from his study. I measured the distance. It’s forty-seven paces.”
Pippin, apparently considering the conversation concluded, padded over and collapsed at their feet, resting his massive head on Augusta’s slipper with a sigh.
“I assure you, Cassie, there is nothing?—”
“It’s all right if you’ve quarreled.” Cassie pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. “He quarrels with everyone. He quarreled with Lord Ridgewell last Christmas because Jamessaid Father Christmas wasn’t real, and Hudson was worried I might overhear. I’ve known since I was seven, but he still won’t admit it.” She ticked off on her fingers. “He quarreled with Mrs. Beale about how to fold serviettes. With the stable master about whether horses dream. With the vicar about whether blue is a better color than green, which isn’t even a real argument. It’s just a preference.” She shrugged, a gesture so like Hudson that Augusta’s chest ached. “He cares about things. Too much, sometimes. It comes out sideways.”
Augusta smoothed her skirts, buying time. “We haven’t quarreled.”
“Then what?”
The question landed with the precision of a thrown knife.
Augusta had no answer. At least, none that she could give to an eleven-year-old.
Before she could formulate a response, Pippin erupted to his feet with a bark that rattled the bare branches overhead. A squirrel had made the fatal error of descending to lawn level, and the dog launched himself across the grass with a speed that seemed impossible for an animal of his size.
“Pippin, no!” Cassie shouted.
But the dog was already in full flight, barking with a volume that surely carried to the neighboring parish.
The squirrel, demonstrating the survival instincts that had preserved its species throughout millennia, shot up the nearest oak with inches to spare.
Pippin skidded to a halt at the base and barked upward, his one ear perked up, his tail beating the air. He had already forgotten what he was barking at; the principle of the thing was what mattered.
“He never catches them,” Cassie sighed, sliding off the bench. “Come on, we’d better fetch him before he tries to climb.”
They crossed the lawn together, Cassie calling encouragement while Augusta attempted to project a semblance of calm authority. Pippin, hearing their approach, abandoned his quarry and bounded toward them, his tongue lolling out, apparently delighted by the new game.
“He’s like Hudson, really,” Cassie said, scratching behind the dog’s ear. She threw her arms around Pippin’s neck and buried her face in his fur. “You’d protect Miss Norton too, wouldn’t you, Pip? You’d guard her, same as you guard me. The same way Hudson protects us.”
The dog answered by nosing her off-balance and washing her face with his enormous tongue until she collapsed in the grass, shrieking with laughter.
Augusta watched them, the girl and her ridiculous, enormous, wholly devoted dog.
This was why she was here. This was what she was meant to do. Live a life with this little girl who depended on her for reasons that she could not, for the life of her, understand.
She couldn’t avoid Hudson forever. It was unsustainable. She would find him. She would be calm, collected, and professional. She would explain that what had happened in the library was a lapse in judgment. A moment of weakness, brought on by lateness and proximity and the unsettling intimacy of firelight. She would assure him that it would not happen again. She would be the governess he had hired, nothing more.
She would not think about the way his hand had felt against her jaw. She would not think about the low rasp of his voice in the firelight, or the way his eyes had turned molten when she’d told him she was curious, or the devastating, world-ending press of his mouth against hers.
Resolving to avoid the man was easy to say, but actually doing it was an entirely different feat. As such, Augusta remained confined to the places where she hadto be, in the hopes of being less obvious.
As with all things, this could not last forever, and her success thereof came to a sudden halt on a stormy evening when she made her way to the kitchen for a cup of milk.
She rounded the corner.
He rounded it from the other side.
The collision drove the breath from her lungs. She hit the solid wall of his chest and shoulders, and would have staggered backward if his hands hadn’t closed around her upper arms, his fingers pressing into the wool of her sleeves.
The contact was a spark to kindling. Heat flared up her arms, across her collarbone, and down to the pit of her stomach.
