Page 52 of The Lady’s Deception

His sisters gave a rare, unified squeal of surprise and delight.

Rosamund smoothly eased her fingers from his grasp. “I should exercise caution if I were you, Mr. Burke.” She was all prickly, prim governess now. Aloof and cool, she suddenly made him wonder whether the memory of holding her in his arms wasn’t a dream, after all. Then a defiant spark lit her eyes. “I might just say yes.”

Chapter 18

When he had agreed to undertake this journey, Paris had imagined himself fully prepared to face its torments. The general awkwardness and discomfort of travel, exacerbated by sharing a coach for nearly three hundred miles with his two youngest sisters. His family arrayed before him in a disapproving line at the journey’s end.

He hadn’t fully considered the particular sort of torture involved in sharing that journey with Rosamund, however.

A thousand meaningless, incidental touches to be endured. The clasp of hands or the cupping of an elbow every time he helped her into or out of the coach. Inside the coach, the nudge of shoulders or brush of legs. Then, of course, there were the nights. He’d made certain there could be no repeat of the temptation at the inn in Holyhead. For four nights, he’d arranged a room for Rosamund and the girls, while he had sat up in the pub, even when he might have had a bed to himself.

But he hadn’t yet found a public room bench or an ancient oak settle hard enough to keep him from thinking of her.

Sitting up nights provided a ready excuse to sleep, or at least to feign sleep, during the day, which would have absolved him of listening to the girls’ chatter. But he had rediscovered a kind of pleasure in his youngest sisters’ company. They were bright and amusing and cleverer than he had realized. Besides, he did not want to miss a glimpse of Rosamund’s smile or the sound of her laugh. He even enjoyed her ill-fated attempts to get his sisters to absorb occasional knowledge about geography or the history of the places through which they passed.

Yes, torment was the word for it, worse now as they neared the end of the journey. The girls had long since given over teasing him about marrying Miss Gorse. But the carriage still seemed to echo with Rosamund’s words. I might just say yes. He wanted her in a way that he had not wanted anything for a very long time. Perhaps ever. Yet he could not quite convince himself that he deserved happiness. And he knew she did not deserve misery.

When the carriage stopped for what would likely be the last change of horses before reaching their destination, he said to Rosamund as she descended, “Might I have a word with you, Miss Gorse?”

As usual, her fingers lay across his palm as he handed her down from the coach. This time, he let his grip tighten. Neither incidental nor meaningless. She did not pull away.

“Looks a respectable place,” he announced as he glanced around the inn yard. “Perhaps it would be best to dine here. While we’re waiting, we can stretch our legs.” Not once in his life had he been enthusiastic to arrive in London, and this time was no exception. He nodded toward a path leading into the center of a small village, on the edge of which stood the posting inn.

The girls, eager for even a moment’s freedom from the coach, did not need to be prompted a second time. Rosamund let him thread her arm through his and hold it there. “We can walk and talk, Miss Gorse. Let the girls run ahead.” As they strolled along behind them, he told her, “I wrote to my family and told them to expect us by tonight.”

Above them, the tree limbs were still bare, though dotted with the promise of leaves; the air was sharp with the scent of new growth pushing aside the old. She breathed deep before responding. “We will all be glad to be done with our journey, I’m sure.”

Once his sisters were out of earshot, almost out of sight, he asked, “When we reach London, what then?” An awkward foray into uncovering the deepest desires of her heart.

“I suppose I will try again to do what I intended to do in Dublin: hire a lawyer, someone who can help me challenge my brother’s guardianship.”

He stopped walking, the better to take in what she’d said. “You mean, when I met you on the King’s Inns Quay…”

“That’s right, Mr. Burke. Ironic, isn’t it? You’ve brought me all this way, when I’d already found just the man I wanted.” And with that, her fingers released his arm, one by one, and she dropped her hand to her side.

Good. She ought not to rely on him. He could not be the one she needed.

She seemed to know it, too. “You intend to return to Dublin, I assume. The case that took you to Kilready sounds desperate indeed.”

Would she—could anyone—understand these feeble attempts to make amends for his past mistakes?

“My father is an excellent lawyer,” he assured her. “And my brothers-in-law are powerful and well-connected men, with experience on both the field of battle and the field of honor. More than capable of standing up to your brother. They will know what is due a viscount’s daughter.”

Her head dipped in a sort of nod. “Then I must hope I can enlist them to my cause. Though I fear there’s nothing anyone can do. More than anything, I want to be able to return to my home in Berkshire and see that all is well taken care of.” The brim of her bonnet hid her expression from his gaze, though if he leaned forward slightly, he could see her soft, trembling lips. “But Tavisham isn’t really my home, is it? And little as some of its people have, I have nothing to add. Nothing to offer them at all.”

Had her father left nothing for her maintenance, made no provision for her dowry? Was that why her brother was so determined to see her wed Dashfort?

They walked a few steps more in silence before she said, “I suppose I shall have to take a post as a lady’s companion instead. Or perhaps a…” She swallowed the word on a quiet gasp.

“A governess?” he finished for her.

“At least I now have some experience. Oh, I am sorry for deceiving you and your sisters,” she confessed in a rush. “I convinced myself that my charade would do no real harm. And,” she added after the slightest hesitation, “I knew it was the very last place my brother would think to look.”

No, Setterby had some other misery in mind for her. But Paris’s search for someone to care for his sisters had taught him how poorly the world treated the impoverished gentlewomen responsible for girls’ upbringing and education. It could be lonely, difficult, even demeaning work. On one hand, Rosamund already seemed inured to the isolation. He had no doubt she could survive it. But survival…well, sometimes, it was a punishment all its own. Daily, she would be surrounded by someone else’s family, taunted by what she might never have, like a mirage appearing to one dying of thirst in a desert.

“You are good with children,” he murmured. So far removed from their earlier banter, what else could he tell her? That her presence in his home had dusted off old memories and teased laughter into his veins and made him remember that once, his family had been his sanctuary, his joy? That he wanted, somehow, to make her part of it, though she was English and needed something not within his power to give?

She made no reference to his mock proposal, nor gave any indication that she either expected or would welcome a real one. “You are kind to say so. Very few will be as eager to learn as your sisters, I’m afraid.” They rounded a bend in the path and the girls came into view once more, walking on the low stone wall surrounding some sort of monument, arms extended to keep their balance. The kitten was perched on Bell’s shoulder, tail in the air.