The Governess's Convenient Marriage. Amanda McCabe

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СКАЧАТЬ yet the moment he had touched her, he had been overcome by a wave of longing like he had never known before. A need for her softness, her sweetness. It wasn’t like him at all, the tough offspring of a crofter on the Duke of Waverton’s Scottish shooting estate, longing for a delicate fairy. He had worked his way up from a ghillie’s muddy son to being one of the richest men in England and not by giving in to any longing for softness and refinement.

      Nor had he done it by being ignorant of human nature. He’d learned how to read every nuance of people, to know what they desired before even they could see it and then provide it—for a price. Men and women, they were far more transparent in their wants, needs and deepest fears than they realised. It was his key to never going back to his miserable childhood, where one man was ruined at the mere whim of another.

      It was his most invaluable tool in his professional life and in his limited personal time, as well. He liked women, liked the way their minds worked in such subtle, slippery, fascinating ways, so much more complex than most men, shrewder, sharper. Like him, they had to make their way up in a world not designed for them, through back doors. And in return, they seemed to like him, too. Female company was not hard to find.

      But all his judgement seemed to have fled when he looked into a pair of heather-coloured eyes. Fairy eyes indeed, so large in her pale, pointed fey face, changeable blue-purple-green, set off by feathery, sooty lashes. He had never seen anyone quite like her. So small and delicate, pale curls escaping from that terrible hat, the silvery, unexpected sound of her sudden laughter. The way she felt under his touch, so light and frail, trembling as if she would sprout sparkling wings and fly away at any moment.

      He was enchanted, in a fairy-story sense of the word, taken out of himself. And fairies were dangerous creatures. Always flying away as soon as you touched them. Always putting a curse on your home.

      When he was a wee lad, after his mother died and his father went off drinking every night, his nanna would make him supper and tell him tales of the fairies, the winter and summer folk. When he held the lady’s hand in his, smelled her light, pale green lily-of-the-valley perfume, he whimsically wondered if he was seeing the pale winter queen set down in Hyde Park.

      And he was never a man to be whimsical. He had learned that from his childhood. Never leave your heart open. Never be helpless.

      It had made him take a foolish misstep, a rare misjudgement of a person. He had wanted her so much, he made himself believe she was available when she so clearly was not. He had a solid rule in romance—never dabble with an innocent. There was only pain and confusion in that for everyone involved. He stayed with women like himself, who knew the rules of engagement. He had built his life up by hard work to exactly where he wanted it. He wouldn’t let anything tear it down now. And he knew very well a woman like that was not for the likes of a Gordston.

      But, just for a moment, as he sat beside her and watched her smile, he almost would have been willing to watch his kingdom burn down.

      Surely it was a lucky thing she had run away. It just didn’t feel so lucky yet.

      Malcolm laughed again and put his hat back on before he made his way through the crowd towards the park gates. As usual, because of his height and the long, quick stride he needed to get where he was going fast, the knots of people unravelled before him. He rarely noticed it any longer; his mind was always on the next task, the next new idea. Yet today, he scanned the bright crowd, looking for a pale woman in blue. She wasn’t there, of course, yet he couldn’t seem to stop himself.

      At last he left the park and being on the clatter of the streets was like waking up to himself. There was work to be done. There was always work to be done.

      * * *

      Gordston’s Department Store was busy, as usual. Malcolm dashed up the marble front steps and through the gleam of the revolving doors into the lobby. Black-and-white stone floors were waiting, the gleam of glass counters, displaying every temptation from kid gloves to crystal perfume bottles to Belgian chocolates, beckoned. The salespeople greeted him with smiles, the customers with curious glances, but he saw none of it today.

      He took his own lift straight to the offices on the top floor. It was a different world from the shimmer and perfume of the sales floors, still luxurious with dark-panelled walls and thick Persian carpets underfoot, but with the buzz of low voices and tap of typewriters rather than laughter and the murmur of fountains. The air smelled of paper and ink instead of rose scent and violet powder. The buzz of efficiency and commerce, his forte.

      He went to his own office at the end of the corridor and had only a moment to drape his coat and hat on the rack before his secretary, Miss Mersey, appeared. Like everyone else on the top floor, she was efficiency itself in her white shirtwaist and black skirt, her greying hair pinned atop her head, her spectacles in place on her stern nose. She had been with him almost since he opened the store and he could not do without her.

      ‘Good morning, Mr Gordston,’ she said, snapping open her notebook. ‘Mr Jones has yesterday’s sales figures almost ready for you from the accounting office.’

      ‘Almost?’ Malcolm said as he sat down behind his desk. It was all in order, the stacks of reports where they were meant to be, his gold pen and blotter lined up.

      ‘It seems there was a small discrepancy with the glove counter, which is being sorted out. I have the travel arrangements finished for Paris, as well. The repairs to the yacht will be finished by Friday, so everything is quite on schedule. The latest reports from Monsieur Jerome’s architecture office are on your desk, as you see. The store will be finished on time and you will be able to depart for the grand opening as planned.’

      ‘You mean we will be able to depart.’

      For once, a tiny gleam of interest pierced Miss Mersey’s admirably steely exterior. ‘We, Mr Gordston?’

      ‘Of course. I could never manage my business in Paris without you.’

      ‘But the store here…’

      ‘Mr Jones will be perfectly able to oversee things for a few weeks. If you can bear to tear yourself away for a time by the Seine. Maybe dine in a café or two, a new hat…’

      Miss Mersey’s brow arched over her spectacles. ‘I think I could bear that, Mr Gordston, for the sake of my employment.’

      ‘Certainly. Now, Miss Mersey, about the new shipment of muslins from India…’

      * * *

      Once all the morning business was concluded, Miss Mersey closed her notebook and turned to leave, a stack of letters in her hand to be typewritten.

      ‘Miss Mersey,’ he called impulsively.

      ‘Mr Gordston?’

      ‘Do you happen to know of a customer who is a young lady, very petite, with pale blonde hair? Terrible taste in hats?’

      Miss Mersey tapped her pencil thoughtfully on her notebook’s leather cover. She had a prodigious memory, almost as good as Malcolm’s own, and could remember every detail of every regular customer, their orders and perfumes and likes and dislikes. But that description was probably too vague even for her. ‘There is Miss Petersham. She is blonde and ordered that odd parrot hat last month. Or Lady Minnie Grant? Mrs Gibson?’

      Malcolm shook his head. He knew all those ladies and none of them was his fairy. ‘If she’s been in, I doubt she’s a regular.’

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