Page 34 of One Thing Leads to a Lover

His shirt clung damply to him as he now set about opening more windows, inviting a warm, desultory breeze through the larger space of the schoolroom. Remembering the maid’s scandalized expression, he unrolled his sleeves and picked up his wool coat, though he couldn’t bear to don it just yet.

While she worked, whistling tunelessly, he made a more careful examination of the boys’ map of rivers and whatever else of their work he could find. Compositions. Even a few poems. Most of it showed promise, though the poetry was plagued by rather clumsy rhymes.

He would have to play at being a real tutor, if he did not want his presence in Bartlett House to raise more suspicions than it doubtless already had. Would have to set them lessons and hear them recite.

He’d worn many disguises over the years. Rich men. Poor. Somehow, though, the particular irony of pretending to be a schoolmaster, a model of behavior and intellect, for two privileged and sheltered boys…

A bark of a laugh erupted from his chest.

“How’s that?” the maid called out, popping her head past the door jamb. “Something you wanted, sir?”

He shook his head and ran thumb and forefinger beneath his spectacles, wiping away a sheen of sweat. “Nothing, thank you.”

“Lady Kingston, Mrs. West, and the boys will shortly take luncheon, if you”—again her eyes flickered over him and her already red cheeks grew redder still—“wanted to make yourself presentable and join them.”

“No,” he replied, a shade too quickly, once more scandalizing the maid. Tutors and governesses did sometimes eat with the families who employed them, of course. But he hadn’t been invited to join the family here and by the look on Lady Kingston’s face when she’d left the schoolroom, he did not expect to be. “I never take luncheon,” he made excuse.

Her head bobbed in an uncertain nod before she returned to her work. He resumed worrying at the problem of how best to proceed. The opportunity—the idea of inserting himself into the household—had presented itself only last night, and he’d had no chance to formulate a detailed plan. No sleep, either, but that was nothing new.

Mrs. West, the maid had said. He’d nearly forgot Lady Kingston’s mother. What sort of woman was she? Protective? Interfering? The other watchmen had reported that she was considerably more social than her daughter, which meant she would be an easier target if Hopkins’s captors sought a vulnerable point at which to launch their attack against Bartlett House. Langley glanced out the windows at the bright but sunless sky, the color of polished steel. Dare he hope Mrs. West was the sort to stay home when it rained?

And then, of course, there was Lady Kingston herself. Lady Kingston. He made himself repeat her title every time the name Amanda intruded into his thoughts. Dulsworthy had dared to address her as such, and he hoped the man knew how fortunate he was to have left the library unscathed. Not because Langley would have—could have—called him out on his rudeness. Dulsworthy needed to believe he was the tutor, and it was not a tutor’s place even to notice such things. But if Langley were not very much mistaken, Amanda—Lady Kingston—had had to restrain herself from slapping her name from Dulsworthy’s drawling lips. He had his doubts about the notion that the two planned to wed. Clearly, she did not like the man—and with good cause.

The memory of that flash of color in her cheeks, the swift curl and splay of her fingers, hidden behind her back but visible to him, brought a satisfied smile to his lips. Langley was just devilish enough to enjoy that hint of her fierceness, though he knew he had no business enjoying any such thing. Nevertheless, he understood its appeal in a way he might never understand the appeal of her sunshine and good cheer, though he could not deny that they attracted him too.

The ghost of that sly curve, a glimmering of his more disagreeable nature, must still have been lingering on his face when the maid emerged from the bedchamber with her apron streaked with dust and loose tendrils of hair clinging to her damp neck. “The room’s all set,” she began, and then froze when she saw him sitting there. Something sharper than surprise flared in her eyes. Something more like fear. She swallowed and bobbed a curtsy. “Sir.”

Had he let his mask slip so entirely?

“Thank you.” Jerking to his feet, he slid back into his current guise more swiftly than he slid his arms into his coat. The harmless tutor again, almost one of her own.

He’d let his voice trail upward, fishing for her name. She shook herself—casting off the foolish notion that he could be anything other than the gentleman Lady Kingston had hired to teach her sons—and supplied it. “Mary, sir.”

“Thank you, Mary. I’m Stanhope.”

“Shall I bring you some hot water, Mr. Stanhope?” Once more, the maid’s gaze raked over him, this time openly appreciative. “You might like to freshen up.”

“That would be most welcome, Mary. And I had a valise with me when I entered the house.”

With a smile, she was gone, appearing perhaps half an hour later with the requisite items, having made shift in the meantime to freshen up herself, he noted. He refused her offer to unpack his scant few items of clothing and began to think he would be obliged to refuse an as-yet-unspoken offer to help him strip off his shirt and wash, when a woman’s voice called up the open stairwell. “Lud, that’s Mrs. Hepplewythe,” Mary gasped. From the dossier, he recognized that name as belong to the housekeeper. The maid hurried off to her work.

The remaining hours of the afternoon passed with restless languor, as he paced the schoolroom, wondering what went on below and when he might have an opportunity to sort matters with Lady Kingston and begin his real work here. Dinner was brought on a tray by a footman he didn’t recognize and who was not inclined to converse. An hour or so later, the boys trudged upstairs, their expressions still a mixture of curiosity and resentment. After dutifully mumbling their goodnights, they disappeared into their room to make themselves ready for bed.

He pretended to do the same, though the hour was ridiculously early for a grown man to retire for the night. Twilight had only just fallen. He was exhausted, though—could hardly recall a time when he had not been. Waiting, doing nothing, was frequently the most fatiguing mission of all. He plucked off his spectacles and laid them on the washstand. Perhaps he would just stretch out on the cool, crisp linens for a few moments…

All was dark when he awoke. Night had fallen while he slept, but the usual coolness had not accompanied it. The air of the little room was heavy. His shirt was once more damp with sweat.

He pushed to his feet, stretched away the familiar stiffness of sleeping on a sagging rope bed, splashed tepid water on his face, and scrubbed his palms over a day’s growth of beard.

The window over the washstand still stood wide open, though it brought no relief. He peered out through the doubled layers of rippled glass, the lower sash pushed up over the upper. Rather like exploring the world through the wrong end of a spyglass. In the distance, lightning streaked the sky. But below, far below, wasn’t that…?

He fumbled for his spectacles, tucked them over his ears, and looked again. Yes. His modest quarters overlooked the back of the house. And despite the rapidly approaching storm, Amanda—Lady Kingston—was in the garden, pacing along the flagstone path. Anxious? Sleepless again?

What he had to tell her would not help to set her mind at ease.

But he could not deny this was the opportunity for private conversation he’d been waiting for.

Hoping his movement did not alert the boys, that the hinges did not squeak nor the floor creak, he crept from his chamber, across the schoolroom, and down the stairs.