Rebellious Rake, Innocent Governess. Elizabeth Beacon

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СКАЧАТЬ became conscious of Mr Shaw’s acute gaze.

      Did he think she was responsible for such cynical observations from one so young? She sincerely hoped not. While anything other than a distant acquaintance was clearly impossible between them, somehow she didn’t want him to think she’d foist her own views of the world Isabella must move in sooner or later on her pupil. She suspected he would need to look closer to home for that, to Celia Braxton and her stony-hearted mama, who seemed to have had too free a hand in the education, or lack of it, provided to the younger Miss Alstones before their grandfather finally realised it and sent them both to school. When Charlotte first met them there, she had been shocked by both girls’ ignorance of so much that seemed essential to a well-adjusted young lady, especially considering the acute minds concealed by their often careless behaviour. Four years on she was fairly confident they’d realised more of their potential, and would make fine wives and mothers as their destiny surely dictated. She sincerely hoped, however, that they would wait to feel something more than the bare tolerance that seemed to Charlotte to constitute most society marriages.

      She wondered what Mr Shaw would expect from marriage and felt herself blush, as the combination of his speculative gaze and her improper fantasies blossomed into something downright outrageous. Still, a cat could look at a queen, or a king. Some instinct told her he would be a magnificent lover and she tried to meet his gaze with an indignant question in her own, even as her mind skittered over the mental picture she suddenly had of Ben Shaw naked and superb and very masculine indeed. Building a picture of what he might look like under that finely cut coat and all that pristine linen ought to be far harder for a respectable spinster lady than it actually was. She could imagine hard muscle rippling under a sweat slicked, satin supple skin, and really those breeches and his very highly polished boots left far too little to her fertile imagination!

      Shaking her head sadly at her own folly, she looked up again and encountered laughter and what looked suspiciously like a reflection of her own state of unwilling arousal in his eyes, which she did her level best to return with her best governess look. Perverse creature that he was, her formidable frown seemed to encourage rather than reproach him and his firm mouth actually had the cheek to tip into an open grin as she fought off her ludicrous state of confusion, made even worse by that inviting, too-understanding smile.

      ‘What think you, Miss Wells?’ he asked mockingly and she had to fight hard to keep her own expression serene as he openly challenged her.

      ‘That hearts aren’t quite so easily broken, and that Isabella needs to learn some compassion toward vulnerable young gentlemen before she makes her own come-out,’ she managed to say calmly enough; at least formulating a reply gave her something to do other than speculating about Mr Shaw’s masculine at tributes.

      ‘How very well done of you, Miss Wells,’ he returned softly and still she could read secrets in his eyes no governess could afford to look for and stay sternly respectable, and therefore in employment.

      ‘It seems to me that young ladies require protection against the gentlemen rather than the other way about,’ Isabella put in and Charlotte finally managed to give more of her attention to her pupil than their visitor, and saw there was more than just youthful scepticism behind her attitude toward Kate’s suitors.

      ‘That is always a consideration, of course,’ she replied carefully, ‘but your sister is a beautiful young woman with plenty of native wit and a great deal of family influence at her back. It would be a very reckless, or downright foolish, man who would risk bringing all that to bear against him.’

      ‘Why? It didn’t stop that worm of a Braxton creature Cousin Celia married from deceiving Miranda into eloping with him and then treating her abominably, and I don’t want to lose Kate from my life for five years as I did my other sister, thank you very much.’

      As Isabella stuck out her chin and looked determinedly defiant after making that pronouncement, Charlotte knew they had finally got to the crux of her pupil’s restless moods and uncharacteristic irritability of late. She had thought it came from taking her lessons alone and being bound to the schoolroom while Kate shopped, danced and was driven round the park, and, yes, slayed gangling young gentlemen through the heart with just one limpid look from her famous dark-blue Alstone eyes. Really she should have known there was more to it than that, and it wasn’t Mr Shaw’s fault she had failed to look deeper, so why she was scowling at him instead of thanking him for bringing the whole matter into the open, even she could not have said.

      ‘Ah, but Braxton didn’t have Kit Alstone to deal with now, did he?’ Mr Shaw asked with apparently academic interest. ‘And can you honestly see Kate falling for some plausible rogue with such an example before her? I’d say she’s got too much common sense to do anything of the sort, but if you think otherwise I suppose I must bow to your superior knowledge.’

      Isabella looked thoughtful and Charlotte could see her testing his words against her experience of both her sisters and some of the tension went out of her young shoulders and a smile began to dawn. ‘Miranda always was a dreamer,’ she finally admitted ruefully. ‘Kate is much more practical.’

      ‘You can’t be too practical when your future happiness is at stake,’ Charlotte said impulsively, then immediately regretted it when Mr Shaw’s attention centred on her once more. What a fool she was to give him so much to speculate on, she condemned herself, and risk revealing painful decisions she had made when no older than Kate.

      ‘I suspect there’s a happy medium between being a dreamer and Miss Practical,’ Mr Shaw drawled with a sidelong glance at Charlotte that she was quite sure was intended to provoke her. ‘Perhaps we can rely on you to find it one day, minx,’ he challenged her pupil on just the right note of affection and speculation to set Isabella a task she would find irresistibly challenging.

      With an internal groan as she dreaded Isabella practising it on every susceptible young gentleman in Derbyshire, Charlotte cast Mr Shaw an impatient look, but at least he’d diverted Isabella from Kate’s future.

      ‘Whichever you plan to be, Isabella, a sound education is going to stand you in good stead, so perhaps it’s time I got on with providing it?’ she suggested and won a moan of protest from Isabella and another of those speculative, sensual looks from Mr Shaw.

      ‘Trying to get rid of me, Miss Wells?’ he asked inexcusably and perched himself on the corner of a map table she was certain would bow under the pressure, but even that piece of inanimate oak failed her and remained as stout as ever.

      ‘Not with notable success,’ she managed to say coolly, as his wicked grey eyes met hers with an open invitation to look her fill, as he had so obligingly put himself on her eye level.

      Well, she wouldn’t! That way lay the ruin of many a good governess’s future and one she would have thought him all too conscious of. Shooting him a hostile look, she pulled the book she’d found on the lives and customs of the Native American tribes toward her and tried hard to focus on it, only to find it might as well be written in one of their languages.

      ‘Please stay, Ben,’ Isabella urged him traitorously and Charlotte found herself quite unable to insist he went away and left them in peace in the face of his innocent look and Isabella’s pleading one.

      ‘Then you may take over the lesson, Mr Shaw. After all your voyages, doubtless you know the customs and habits of our American cousins much better than I do, or the author of this book,’ she informed him briskly and met his eyes with a certain triumph in her own.

      Unfortunately he confounded her by returning her gaze with one that answered her challenge and returned it with utterly wicked intent. Part of her was fascinated by the prospect of being teased and maybe even seduced by a master, but another was horrified. СКАЧАТЬ