Miss Court might have a lover lurking nearby and she was being rude to the very person she ought to impress if she wanted to keep her post. Was he more impressed by his title than he thought, then? No, he didn’t want to be an earl today any more than he had ten years ago. Miss Court made him feel like a grubby schoolboy who hadn’t washed behind his ears even as his inner demons tempted him to kiss the wretched female and find out if she was as headlong and determined a lover as she was as a rescuer of wild girls in the semi-darkness. And it would be nice to find a way to make her stand back and take notice. Not that she’d waited for him to fight his inner demons back where they belonged. She was almost beyond reach by the time he realised he didn’t want to be left here like the last lame nag in a stable. He speeded up and almost fell over a tree root in the shadows.
‘Devil take it, woman, will you slow down?’
‘No. You didn’t want to come in the first place, so I don’t understand why you won’t go away. I should never have made you come, you’re no help at all.’
‘If the girl doesn’t want to go home, you won’t be able to drag her back,’ he pointed out rather sharply.
Had she paled at the idea of having to force her errant charge to obey her? Hard to tell in the gloom and why should he care if she endured the role of governess or loved it? Catching himself out thinking like the spoilt aristocrat he’d sworn not to be, he wondered if his half-brother was right and he was as arrogant as any Selford in his own way.
‘Hush,’ she whispered. ‘Do you hear something over there, on our right?’
‘No,’ he said in a normal voice, telling himself he was bored with looking for unruly schoolgirls who didn’t want to be found.
‘I wish I hadn’t bothered to find out who was lazing about in the stables when the lads were supposed to be looking for Lavinia,’ she informed him crossly and strode into the night yet again.
‘The wages of curiosity,’ he called, then scurried after her like a tardy footman before she could disappear. ‘Where are we going?’ he asked when he almost ran into her standing still under a tree as if she could hear her way to what she wanted if she tried hard enough. She was warm and rather delightfully curved and he felt passion thunder through his senses until he reminded himself the woman was his cousins’ governess and he was her employer.
‘Will you go away?’ she demanded as if she was oblivious to him and his unruly masculine urges, then she started off again without giving any indication where she was heading.
‘No,’ he said, grabbing the back of her cloak and holding on when she did her best to snatch it away. ‘Tell me, or I’ll shout a warning we’re on our way.’
‘Can’t you hear the poor girl, you blundering great idiot? She isn’t going to run in that state,’ she whispered furiously as she towed him forward by his hold on her cloak.
He wondered how he’d managed to miss it as well now; self-preservation, he decided ruefully. Noisy sobs and the odd pathetic little moan carried on the cooling air as the girl fought for breath against all that sorrow. Fergus wished he’d left the governess to cope with a soggy storm of tears and almost melted into the darkness as Miss Court ordered. On the one hand, he would be obliging a lady, on the other he’d be a coward. He let go of Miss Court’s cloak and meekly followed in her footsteps.
‘It’s me, Lavinia,’ Miss Court said so gently he wondered if he’d been wrong to class her as an irritable she-wolf in petticoats when she’d first loomed out of the darkness. ‘You must be hungry and cold, and you sound as if you need a shoulder to cry on.’
Fergus could make out a Grecian-style temple. As they emerged from the trees he saw the first stars reflected in the lake beyond it and wondered how it would feel to meet Miss Court here for a twilight tryst. Exciting, a forbidden voice whispered in the back of his mind and he uneasily tried to ignore it. He didn’t even know the woman; even if he did it would be wrong to lead her on when he was really her absentee employer and never mind this odd feeling of connection to the wretched female.
‘Oh, Miss Court,’ the girl gasped and Fergus backed away when an overgrown schoolgirl pelted down the steps of the summer house, then flew into her governess’s arms with such force he stepped forward to steady the woman and never mind feminine tears and his dread of a scene. ‘I’m so sorry,’ the girl managed to gasp out between sobs. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever learn to behave properly or keep my temper as you say I must.’
‘Hah!’ Fergus muttered darkly. He felt Miss Court stiffen beside him and knew she must have heard him, but she had lost hers with him several times and if she was going to pretend to be a pattern card she should get her emotions under better control.
‘Never mind that now. I’m so glad you’re safe, even if you are more than a little bit woebegone. And it’s getting dark and chilly, so why not come home and be pampered a little for once? We can talk about your troubles when you’re feeling better. I only want the best for you and, whatever your cousins say when you all lose that fiery Selford temper, they love you, Lavinia. At times I’m even quite fond of you myself.’ Miss Court ended with a laugh in her voice that made Fergus smile in the darkness, so he wasn’t at all surprised to hear a watery chuckle from the drooping young lady snuggled in her governess’s arms as if they’d never had the argument that probably caused this fuss in the first place.
How unworthy of him to envy the girl and wish he was enjoying all that warmth and welcome. Miss Court was a lady and he certainly wasn’t a land steward. He hadn’t even met the woman in the clear light of day, he reminded himself hastily and if this was what pretending to be Moss did to him, he might have to reconsider the plum she’d handed him when she’d made that hasty assumption about who he was. He could have been anyone, he condemned her with a frown it was as well she couldn’t see. Who knew what sort of rogue could be stumbling about in the dark silently lusting after her if he hadn’t found her first?
‘Thank you, but I do wish Mama hadn’t died, Miss Court. There’s nobody left to love me,’ Lavinia confessed in a whisper and reminded him they had a very effective chaperon and Miss Court had only ever seen him as an extra pair of eyes and ears to help her find her charge.
* * *
Nell knew how it felt to be lonely, but at least her brother had always loved her, however determined their eldest uncle might be to keep them apart. ‘All the wishing in the world won’t bring her back, I fear,’ she said gently, ‘but soon you’ll be able to show the world how a true Selford lady behaves and what a shame to waste it on the first callow youth to pluck up the courage to ask you to wed him.’
‘Heaven forbid,’ Nell thought she heard muttered with heartfelt sincerity by the annoying man behind her. She turned around with Lavinia in her arms and the silence that met her glare was so innocent she knew she’d heard aright.
‘Who are you?’ Lavinia demanded and Nell didn’t correct her manners for once because he didn’t deserve any better.
‘Miss Court will tell you I’m the new land steward,’ he said in the lazy drawl that made Nell’s palms itch.
‘And are you?’
‘So it would seem.’
‘You are a very odd person if you need someone to tell you who you are, isn’t he, Miss Court?’
‘Mr Moss seems quite deaf, the poor gentleman. He certainly takes no notice of anything
