The Wanton Governess. Barbara Monajem

Look at him.

      She did. He stared back, the anger slowly draining from his features, surprise taking its place.

      That’s a good start, the Wanton said. Now, let your eyes do the talking. But Pompeia had done that once before to Sir James—accompanied by words that permitted no misunderstanding—and received a stinging refusal.

      That was then; this is now, the Wanton insisted. Smile, for pity’s sake!

      Pompeia felt her lips tremble into a travesty of a welcome.

      Sir James’s mouth quirked the tiniest bit in response. “Pompeia,” he said.

      She forced her tongue into motion. “J-James.”

      “Unbelievable.” Slowly, he shook his head. “Oh, Pompeia.”

      “Pompeia? Who’s that?” demanded the dowager, glowering at each of the frozen conspirators in turn and fixing again on James. “Why do you stare at Mary like that? What’s going on?”

      James’s brows drew together. He glanced at his grandmother. “Her name is Pompeia.” His eyes rested on her again, warmly approving. No, wickedly so.

      This was astonishingly different from the last time they’d met, when the chill in those eyes had made even the Wanton cower. No, particularly the Wanton, who had gone into hiding for quite a while after that.

      What had happened to change things?

      Ah. James did know about Pompeia’s disgrace, just as she’d assumed. And, in the way of all men, he anticipated that she would willingly be just as disgraceful with him.

      Yes! Do let’s! Just this once! the Wanton pleaded.

      “Mary?” The dowager’s voice startled Pompeia from the tumble of her thoughts. “Is this so?”

      “Mary is my second name,” she blurted. “I always use it when employed as a governess, because Pompeia sounds so…”

      “Decadent.” Simon lounged in the doorway.

      James shot him a scowl, and when he faced Pompeia again, the corners of his mouth curled in the beginnings of a grin. “It’s a delightful name and suits you perfectly, but you’d better stop brandishing that knitting needle, my dear, or I shan’t dare to come any closer.”

      But come closer he did, and plucked the needle from her white-knuckled grip. She hadn’t even noticed she was holding it. He squeezed her hand and passed the needle to his mother. Pompeia realized she had dropped the half-knitted stocking onto the carpet. Several loops had slipped off one of the other needles. “Oh, dear,” she said foolishly. “I’d better pick up those stitches before we lose them for good.”

      Sally, beside Simon in the doorway, gave a hysterical little laugh.

      “Throw that abominable excuse for a stocking into the fire,” the dowager said, but her eyes were narrowed upon James. “It is a delightful surprise to see you so soon, James. Mary or Pompeia, whatever you wish to call her, has told us all about your whirlwind romance. Now we should like to hear it from the knight errant’s point of view.”

      Unbelievable was the only word for it. Fairy tales weren’t supposed to come true.

      James sobered himself. The tension racketing through the room, and the despair on Pompeia’s lovely face, told him this was no fairy tale. What had happened to that fresh, sensual girl in the four years since he’d seen her last?

      He certainly hadn’t changed. One look, and he was smitten with the same wild urges that had gripped him years ago. He would do anything for this woman.

      Had done, actually, but he’d been a young fool then, brimming with heroic notions and principles of behaviour which, quite rightly under ordinary circumstances, didn’t include debauching a virgin. In Pompeia’s case, that had proved to be a mistake.

      He wanted her as much as ever, but he was older now, too old to rush in regardless of the consequences. He needed to find out what had happened in the intervening years and why she was here in his house. Yet even as he cautioned himself, he knew one thing for certain: if fate was indeed offering him a second chance with Pompeia Grant, he was damned well going to take it.

      “You shall hear all about it,” he told his grandmother, “once I’ve bathed and changed. And now, if you’ll excuse us, Pompeia and I need a few moments alone.”

      In the passageway, Pompeia tried to tug her hand from his. She whispered, “I’m so sorry, Sir James.”

      “Not here.” He pulled her toward the staircase, adding in a low, terse voice, “We need to speak privately, and my brother’s man is in my bedchamber. Where have they put you?”

      “In the blue guest room,” Pompeia said, “next door to your grandmother.” He released her, and she gathered her skirts and preceded him up the stairs in mingled relief and shame.

      He’s watching our derriere, the Wanton said.

      Pompeia slapped it down, banishing her gratitude for its earlier assistance. Sir James didn’t look the least bit charmed anymore. It was typically kind of him, she thought, to deal with her perfidy in private. She’d forgotten that aspect of his character, remembering only his white-faced rejection of her in the past.

      How could she have agreed to pretend to be his wife?

      He ushered her into the blue bedchamber and closed the door behind them. She hovered uncertainly in the middle of the room, clasping her hands tightly before her. This was no different from an irate employer, she told herself. She had held her head high through all those accusations and dismissals; she could do it again now.

      No, she couldn’t. For once, she was entirely in the wrong. What was worse, she cared what Sir James thought of her, but it was too late to do anything about that. Saving Sally’s chance of getting the vouchers was all that mattered.

      “Miss Grant, don’t be frightened. I mean you no harm.” Perhaps not, but his voice was impatient, and rightly so.

      “I’m not afraid, Sir James,” she said. “I am ashamed.” She went to the clothes press and flung it open. Perhaps if she kept busy, this wouldn’t be quite so bad. “It is I who have done you harm, although I didn’t mean to.”

      She removed her pitiful pile of garments from the clothes press, laid them on the bed, and reached underneath it to pull out her valise. “Fortunately, it will not be difficult to lay the blame for everything on me. You need merely say I am an adventuress who took advantage of your family’s generosity.” Rapidly, she stowed patched nightgowns and stockings into the valise. “No blame will fall upon Sally, and she will still get the vouchers and go to Almack’s.”

      “Sally can go to the devil. What are you doing?” he demanded.

      “Preparing to leave, of course.” It was embarrassing to fold her shifts in front of him, although the Wanton Within, needless to say, detected titillation in his considering gaze. “I must hurry, as it’s a long walk to the King’s Arms.”

      There was a brief silence. “You can’t walk, what, nine or ten miles to the inn!”

      “Indeed I can. I walked here, and I can walk back.” She unearthed her two ugly, brown, stuff gowns, the ones she wore as a governess, from the bottom of the clothes press.

      “You walked here?” Exasperation suffused his voice. “Miss Grant, I don’t know what brought you here, but I can’t just let you walk away. You could encounter any kind of danger, and even if you arrived safely, I doubt they would give an unaccompanied woman a room.”

      She clutched the gowns to her chest. “I shan’t ask them to, as I cannot afford to stay there. I only have enough for the stagecoach fare.”

      “Enough to go where?”

      “To my aunt’s house in Berkshire,” she said wearily. She laid the gowns on the bed and spread the first one for folding.

      “You