Page 9 of The Lady’s Deception

More proper, perhaps, than the drawing room, where he and his siblings had taken lessons at their father’s knee over the course of more than twenty years. Nevertheless, something about the woman’s presumption aggravated him. How very like an Englishwoman to burst into an Irish household and begin giving orders about its management, with no concern for how things had always been done or what might suit the people who lived there.

Swiftly, smoothly, she slipped between the desks and strode toward him in a dress that looked vaguely familiar. One of Erica’s? Its skirts were streaked where she had wiped her hands. Eddies of dust swirled across the floor in her wake. “Daphne and Bellis—”

“Bell,” he corrected automatically.

The governess’s lips narrowed as her nostrils flared. “The girls indicated that the, ah—” Her pert nose twitched. “The, ah—” Her eyelids crinkled and she inhaled sharply. “Ahh—”

No one would deny that Miss Gorse was delicate. Her petite, fine-boned features would not look out of place on a porcelain doll. Ladylike in her deportment. The sort of woman one expected to sneeze with petite, delicate, ladylike sneezes, when such an affliction could not be avoided. Perhaps two or three little squeaks in a row: choo, choo, choo. Something in the nature of a timid mouse.

Instead, she blasted a single “Ahh—choo!” that ricocheted around the small room, bouncing from the rafters to the bare wood floor and into Paris’s aching head.

“God bless you,” Daphne said after a moment, sounding genuinely worried that the sneeze might have parted the governess’s soul from her body. Bell giggled. Wordlessly, he reached into his breast pocket, withdrew a handkerchief, and handed it to Miss Gorse.

“We’ll discuss the matter downstairs,” he said, fighting to keep his voice stern as she dabbed daintily at the end of her nose. As if they had not all just heard what that instrument was capable of.

“Of course, Mr. Burke.” She folded the square of linen but did not offer to return it to him. “I’ve scheduled a break in the girls’ lessons at half past eleven. I’ll be glad to speak with you then.”

A good barrister was never speechless. Paris was an excellent barrister. His lips parted automatically to form a reply.

When none came, he instead gave a sharp nod—Lord, but if his head meant to split in two, he wished it would just get on with the job—and left the room.

Most of the first floor was taken up by a drawing room that spanned the house from front to back and in which the family did the greater part of both its working and its playing. At the rear of the room stood his father’s desk, surrounded by bookcases and faded botanical prints, some sketched by Erica when she was a girl. Occasionally, his father met with clients in that room. In theory, the half containing his desk could be partitioned from the rest of the space by a pair of folding doors that Paris had never in his life seen closed.

If he had not imagined that time and disuse had rendered them immobile, he would have shut them now, though he could not say whether he hoped to close himself in or to close the world out.

In any case, he held no illusions that mere doors would have kept him free of Molly, who once more entered without knocking, this time carrying a laden breakfast tray. Not waiting for instruction, she deposited the tray on his father’s desk and set about pouring steaming coffee. He took the cup from her with a nod that quickly transformed into a grimace.

“Still got a head like a bear, Mr. Paris? Well, eat up,” she advised. “It’ll take the edge off.”

Warily, he eyed the contents of the tray: fried eggs, oatmeal, and a dish of what he rather hoped was stewed fruit and not something worse. His stomach quickly joined his head in its protest. With a flick of his free hand, he waved the food away. “They have indeed made a schoolroom in the attic,” he said after swallowing some coffee. “Moved everything that wasn’t nailed down. That was the racket we heard.”

She hoisted the tray to her hip. “Must’ve churned up a fair bit of dust too.”

He could not entirely contain the twitch of amusement that rose to his lips as he recalled Miss Gorse’s explosive sneeze. “Indeed.”

Molly sighed, presumably at the unwelcome addition to her workload. “May a body ask why?”

“The new governess says it isn’t proper for children to have lessons in a drawing room.” He gestured about himself with the cup as he spoke.

Dark liquid nearly sloshed over the rim but was ultimately kept within its proper bounds by the force of the housemaid’s glare. “I should think that’d be for you to say.”

He almost nodded in agreement, then thought better of it, for the sake of both his head and his pride. He shrugged instead. “What do I know of educating young girls? I’ve given her full authority in the matter.” Or more accurately, he’d abdicated his own.

Molly turned to leave. “Well, a bit o’ peace’ll be welcome enough, I suppose,” she said. “What will you do with yourself now, Mr. Paris?”

“Work.”

She paused to cast a glance over her shoulder, half scold, half worry.

Clever and quick, Paris had been born to the practice of the law. Benefitted in equal measure by his father’s reputation and his own savvy, he had never lacked for important cases once he’d been called to the bar. Whenever the atmosphere of the courtroom had grown stale, he had let himself imagine the day he might be elected to the Irish Parliament. Then rumors of its dissolution had begun to swirl. Just a few months earlier, the Irish Bar had passed a resolution against legislation intended to join this once proud kingdom to its enemy.

But by then, Paris no longer cared. Since the rebellion he’d found himself more and more drawn to the sort of work he once would have considered beneath him, defending clients no other barrister would touch. Devastatingly straightforward cases, they’d given him ample time to reflect on his mistakes. So many mistakes. So many cases. And so rarely was justice served.

The law, his great passion, had become his penance. Some days, his punishment.

A punishment he knew he deserved.

The work was never-ending. Sometimes, he suspected that his parents had contrived to leave Daphne and Bell behind to give him some other occupation. A distraction. His mother in particular cherished the hope that he would begin to yearn for family ties. Love and marriage. Children of his own.