The Governess Was Wicked Read online

  “I don’t believe the Nortons care for their daughters. They never will until they’re of age to be married. That’s when they will be valuable.” She could hear the bitterness in her voice, and dipped her head to try to hide any trace of it that might have played out over her face. She didn’t want to be this person—resentful and unhappy—but sometimes the Nortons made it difficult to be anything else.

  Slowly, Dr. Fellows tilted her chin up until their eyes met. It was the first time he’d touched her so intimately, save their kiss in the kitchen, and she couldn’t help the shiver of desire that raced through her. Her lips opened just a fraction, her body inviting him in with hardly a thought to the consequences.

  “You care for these girls very much, don’t you?” he asked, his eyes searching hers as though he could read every secret in the universe in them.

  “I do,” she whispered. “And it frightens me that they might be in any sort of danger.”

  His fingers splayed out now so that he cupped her cheek. “They could not have a fiercer protector than you. They’re in the very best hands.”

  For just one harmless moment, she closed her eyes and leaned into the comfort he offered. His palm was rough, as were the joints of his knuckles. She wondered as she always did how he got those calluses. There was so little she knew about this man, and yet somehow she felt as though she knew everything she needed to about him. About his character.

  “Thank you, Dr. Fellows.”

  A smile played across his lips. “Perhaps, just this one time, you might call me Edward.”

  His thumb stroked her cheek, sending desire pooling between her legs despite the thick cloak of worry she wore around her.

  “Thank you, Edward.”

  His hand fell away, and the connection between them broke, but not before Elizabeth spotted the same yearning in his eyes that she felt every time she saw him.

  “I’ll go tell Mrs. Norton the news,” she said, hoping the long walk down to the second floor and across to the opposite side of the house would cool her ardor.

  Dr. Fellows nodded and put a hand on the bedroom doorknob. “I’ll mix up a tonic for the young ladies.”

  “Will you be here when I return?” she asked, unable to hold back the question that slipped from her lips.

  He nodded. “I won’t leave your side.”

  As she let herself out of the nursery, Elizabeth couldn’t help but wish his words meant more.

  Elizabeth cast her shoulders back and steeled herself before knocking on Mrs. Norton’s bedroom door. She waited, hoping to hear a rustling inside. Nothing.

  She knocked again, harder this time, and put her ear to the door. There it was, the sound of bedsheets moving about. Then came a thin voice. “What is it?”

  Elizabeth turned the knob and let herself into the darkened room. The last embers of a fire gave off enough of a glow that she could make out the outline of Mrs. Norton’s massive gold bed with its elaborate scrollwork. Gauzy fabric spilled down over the four corners from a high canopy. In the middle of all that luxury, propped up on one elbow among a sea of down pillows, was her employer.

  “Who’s there?” called the normally sharp voice dulled by sleep.

  “It’s Miss Porter, ma’am.”

  Mrs. Norton let out a huff. “Are you aware what time it is, Miss Porter?”

  “I am, ma’am.” She hated that she was forced to answer every one of this woman’s demands and barbs with deference. It grated on her that Mrs. Norton had all of this—hideous as the overwrought bed was—simply because the woman had a family to ferry her through a season or two and ensure that she made a good match.

  But none of that mattered at the moment. She shoved her dislike of this woman aside in favor of the little girls who were in very grave danger.

  “Miss Norton and Miss Cassandra are unwell,” she said, clasping her hands together to keep them from shaking. Nothing would happen to the girls. Edward—Dr. Fellows—was with them. He would make sure nothing happened to them while she was gone.

  “Handle the problem, Miss Porter,” said Mrs. Norton, pulling at the covers as though she was preparing to roll over and fall asleep again. “This is what you’re paid, and generously given room and board, to do.”

  Setting her chin a little higher, Elizabeth tried again. “Dr. Fellows is here. He’s certain that it’s scarlet fever.”

  Mrs. Norton shot straight up in bed. “What?”

  “I sent for him when I saw Miss Norton had the rash. By the time he arrived, we discovered that Miss Cassandra also was beginning to show signs of the illness.”

  “Turn up that lamp!” Mrs. Norton shouted. “Oh my Lord, scarlet fever. We must move quickly!”

  Elizabeth was taken aback in the best way by her employer’s insistence. Mrs. Norton wasn’t known for being a logical, practical woman, but that was exactly what they had to do. The baby must be moved, and the girls must be made comfortable. They were all in for a long stretch by the sickbed.

  She reached for the nearest gas lamp and turned up the flame. The room flooded with light as Mrs. Norton leaped out of bed, shoving her arms into her pale-pink quilted silk dressing gown. “Ring for my maid,” the woman ordered. “Ring for everyone. We’ll have to pack for my sister’s as quickly as we can. George can’t catch the fever from his sisters.”

  Elizabeth’s newly found faith in her employer dissolved. Just as she’d predicted, the family would decamp to the Braithwaites’ elegant Berkeley Square home and leave the girls in quarantine.

  “You’ll stay with Juliana and Cassandra,” Mrs. Norton ordered.

  She pursed her lips. Naturally, it didn’t even occur to Mrs. Norton she might stay to care for her sick daughters.

  “Of course,” she said with as much deference as she could muster. “I’ll wake Nurse.”

  “Yes, do that,” Mrs. Norton said, rather distracted as she threw open her dressing room door.

  “Would you like to see the girls before you leave?” Elizabeth asked.

  Mrs. Norton stopped and turned around, a curious look on her face. “Why would I want to do that?”

  Her cheeks heated at the woman’s words, and her ire began to rise. Mrs. Norton—beautiful and elegant—was a rarefied figure placed on a pedestal. Juliana and Cassandra saw her for fifteen minutes in the late afternoon once all of Mrs. Norton’s calls were done and the drawing room was clear. They adored her precisely because their mother kept them firmly in the nursery at an arm’s length. It wasn’t an uncommon practice for women of her social standing, but that didn’t mean Elizabeth didn’t secretly hate it.

  “I’m sure they would take great comfort in seeing their mother,” Elizabeth said, trying not to clench her teeth. “They’re both scared.”

  Nothing about the woman’s stony expression changed, and she realized that she hated Mrs. Norton even more in that moment than she’d thought possible. For a woman to abandon her children just because they happened to be girls who couldn’t inherit the family fortune was unthinkable to her.

  “I would endanger George if I was around them,” said Mrs. Norton. “They have you and that’s enough.”

  It would never be enough. Juliana in particular sought the woman’s approval in everything, mirroring her behavior on what little she’d observed from her mother. They would be frightened and sick and wanting to know where she was, and Elizabeth wouldn’t be able to tell them the truth. Instead, she’d have to do what she could to be a substitute—albeit a poor one.

  When she left Mrs. Norton’s room, the household was already a whirl of action. Footmen were dispatched to drag trunks down from the attic, and Jeremy was sent off to the Braithwaites’ to inform the household that Lady Braithwaite’s sister and the healthy part of her family would descend before dawn.

  For her part, Elizabeth retreated to the quiet nursery, a little disappointed that Dr. Fellows wasn
’t there. He was a busy man, she reminded herself as she spotted two empty glasses that no doubt had held the girls’ medicine. He couldn’t stay by the sickbed of every patient.

  Elizabeth busied herself moving Cassandra back to the sickroom and applying cold cloths to burning foreheads. It was an hour and a half before a maid fetched her. Mrs. Norton wanted to see her in the entryway. Smoothing her hands over her dress, she straightened her shoulders and went to seek out the woman. She found her employer flitting from trunk to trunk in the entryway, a worried swirl of silk and fur, her hair expertly coiffed and a hint of powder that no one was supposed to notice dabbed on her nose.

  “Don’t come to Lady Braithwaite’s home,” Mrs. Norton ordered as soon as she saw Elizabeth. “Who knows what disease might cling to you.”

  The lady held a handkerchief to her nose as though the perfumed cloth would somehow ward away the scarlet fever that hung about the house. Behind her, Nurse carried George bundled up tightly against the January night. The last of the cases and trunks that had been haphazardly thrown together stood in the hallway, lined up and waiting to be deposited on the family carriage.

  “I shall send word when the children are better,” said Elizabeth, trying to hold the judgment from her voice.

  “I hope this won’t interfere with our plans this evening,” Mrs. Norton fretted through her handkerchief. “Mr. Norton and I should regret it so much if we were to miss the Countess of Madehurst’s ball, especially since the countess herself wrote out a postscript on the invitation begging me to attend so that she might show me the new Titian she bought when she was last in Rome. The woman has no natural taste, and she relies so much on my opinion when it comes to these things.”

  Elizabeth’s nails bit against the soft skin of her palms as she struggled to maintain her composure amid all the chaos. It wasn’t until the last trunk had been hauled up onto the carriage and the squalling heir to the Norton’s soap fortune swept out of the house that she let herself exhale.

  The three-story climb to the nursery was a long one, for dawn had already begun to break. Weary as she might be, she knew there’d be no hope of seeing her own bed again for hours.

  Pushing her limp hair back from her brow, she rounded the corner on the long hall to the nursery only to stop short. Carefully closing the nursery door behind him was Dr. Fellows. He glanced up as he heard her approach, his hand freezing on the doorknob.

  “I thought you’d gone,” she blurted out.

  “The head housemaid persuaded me to take a cup of tea in the kitchen after I’d finished administering to the young ladies.”

  “You shouldn’t have had to sit in the kitchen.”

  “I quite liked it actually. It has good memories.”

  She blushed fiercely, for she knew which memories he must be thinking of. Perhaps if she were a dishonest woman she could blame the rashness on her upbringing. Her father always said that an army camp was hardly the place to raise a daughter, even though her home had never been a true camp but rather a house near the barracks.

  The problem was, she couldn’t very well lie to herself. She’d kissed the doctor because she wanted to kiss him. And even worse, she’d enjoyed it and told him as much.

  This must stop. Two children were in danger. Children who were her responsibility. Children she loved. She hated to think of them in pain or discomfort, and she refused to entertain the idea that they might not survive this. She would nurse them back to health through sheer willpower if that was all she had.

  “How are they?” she asked, trying not to let her fear show through.

  With a sigh, he scrubbed a hand over his chin. “You caught the sickness early, so with any luck we will be able to bring down the fever quickly. I’ve given them each a tonic of mitre and acetate of ammonia and made sure they are wrapped up against their chills.”

  “I’ve asked the maids to keep bringing cold cloths for them.”

  He checked the watch that hung on a chain from his black waistcoat. “Those should be changed every hour. Make sure that whoever cares for them keeps them as comfortable as possible.”

  “I’ll care for them.” Her words sounded fiercer than intended.

  “Surely there’s someone who can help you,” said Dr. Fellows with some concern. “You must sleep yourself.”

  She drew herself up to her full height. “I’ll catch a little sleep here and there. Thank you, Dr. Fellows.”

  “Not Edward this time?” he asked with a small smile.

  The suggestion that the invited intimacy between them might continue—that he wanted it to continue—sent her heart soaring in spite of herself. “I thought you meant it only in the moment.”

  “I suppose the moment has passed.”

  Her hopes crashed back down to the ground. She was tired. She was misconstruing concern for flirtation and sympathy for seduction. The sooner Dr. Fellows left the nursery, the sooner she could begin trying to tamp down the emotions yanking her this way and that.

  “I’m sure you’re wishing for your own bed,” she said, effectively ending their interaction. “I’ll say good night.”

  She started to move around him, but his hand shot out and caught her arm. Her heart leaped into her throat. These little touches here and there couldn’t be anything other than gestures of comfort, but she wished they meant more.

  “I’ll return later,” he said. “I promise you that.”

  She looked down at where his hand gripped her arm and tried her best to push any enjoyment out of her mind. Even if she could convince herself to flout all the rules and obstacles standing between them, reality would keep them apart. Dr. Fellows was leaving in April. He would be in New York and she would stay in London, doling out teaspoons of cod liver oil between French and history lessons. The girls weren’t Elizabeth’s only worry; she had her own heart to protect too.

  But she couldn’t say any of that out loud. All she did was nod and push past him to write a letter to Mary and Jane explaining that she wouldn’t be at tea for some time.

  Chapter Four

  A man may tempt a governess to dream above her station, but a prudent woman lowers her eyes and never hopes for more.

  —Miss Carrington’s Guide for Governesses

  After leaving the Nortons’ home, Edward went back to his little house on Sydney Street, breakfasted under the watchful eye of Mrs. Mitchell, and began his workday. He saw some patients at his practice in the morning, and then it was off to make calls at the homes of his wealthiest patrons. They kept him busy until supper. He raced home, bolted his food (much to Mrs. Mitchell’s dismay), and snatched up his medical bag to make his way to the one place he truly wanted to be: the Norton nursery.

  “How are they?” he asked Crane as the man led him up the stairs.

  “I’m certain I cannot say, sir.”

  He frowned. “Do you know if Miss Porter has had any rest?”

  “I couldn’t speak to that either, sir. I have little to do with the running of the nursery.” The butler’s expression never changed, but Edward could feel the man’s icy chill freeze the air in the corridor.

  “I hope Miss Porter is getting the support she needs,” he said, a little more sternly than he might speak to a servant who was not in his employ.

  “Miss Porter requested the help of a housemaid earlier to move Miss Cassandra from her room back into the sickroom. Other than also asking that her meals be brought to her on a tray, that’s all the assistance she has required.”

  “This is a dangerous time for the young ladies.”

  “And even more dangerous for Master George. We’re all relieved he wasn’t exposed to the illness. Losing his heir would be a great blow to Mr. Norton,” said Crane.

  Edward was about to remind the man that the loss of any child was a tragedy when Crane opened the door to the children’s bedroom. Miss Porter was kneeling by Miss Cassan
dra’s side, a wet towel in her hand as she dabbed the girl’s forehead between coughs. She was unquestionably breathtaking. How had no one else come across her in all of her beauty and snatched her up? She was incredible, heart-stopping, devastating, and when she looked up at him with those sorrowful brown eyes, a part of him shattered. He wanted to brush her hair back from her brow and kiss her forehead, her eyes, her cheeks, her lips. He wanted—no, needed—to reassure her that he was there with her. They would nurse the young ladies together.

  “You’re back,” she said, her voice just a little ragged from exhaustion.

  “I’m here,” he said, trying to hold back the urge to sweep her up and into his arms.

  “I’m glad, Dr. Fellows,” she said as she turned back to her work.

  He swore at that moment he would find a way to convince her to call him Edward again.

  For three days he repeated the same ritual. Each and every night Miss Porter would keep vigil over the little girls. He’d watch as she administered foul-tasting tonics he knew the girls objected to, and kept the cool towels pressed to their foreheads, but still their fevers climbed.

  Finally, on the fourth night, there was a change. When he arrived at the house, Miss Porter was in her rocking chair and Miss Norton was sitting up in bed.

  “Good evening,” he said, his medical bag clasped in both hands in front of him.

  Two sets of eyes, both ringed with exhaustion, looked up at him. Miss Porter shot him a thin smile. “I believe Juliana’s fever has broken.”

  He nodded and strode to the bed. Carefully, he eased a thermometer under the girl’s tongue before examining the child for physical signs of her progress. She was still weak, but she appeared to be out of the very worst danger. The thermometer confirmed that her fever had dropped.

  “You’re on your way to being healthy again, Miss Norton,” he said with a smile. “Now how does Miss Cassandra fare?”

  Miss Porter shook her head. “No change.”

  He examined the patient in the other bed just as he had the other evenings. The little girl’s linens were drenched with sweat, and her head cast about restlessly in her sleep. Angry red splotches still marred her skin.