‘As do you, by all appearances,’ he said, sitting beside me. ‘You are pale and your eyes . . .’
Modesty dictated that I should look away, change the subject to one that did not concern my personal appearance, but I found myself meeting his gaze, which was of such genuine concern that my heart was pierced.
‘Oh, I am quite well, I assure you,’ I told him. ‘A slight cold, perhaps.’
He did not believe me: that much was plain from the sober judgement of his fascinating eyes. I could not determine their colour. They seemed to hold a little of each, the predominant shade varying with the light.
‘Miss Manning,’ he began, but the girls chose that moment to reappear, and, oh! the sight of them was enough to make me cry out in dismay.
Their pinafores were torn and filthy, their faces smeared with mud, their ringlets tangled with dead leaves and twigs.
‘I thought you said hide and seek,’ remarked his lordship. ‘Not stick in the mud.’ He paused. ‘Well, I had come out here to invite these two young ladies to take tea with me, but it is clear that they are in no condition to do so.’
Even through the caked-on dirt, their faces could be seen to fall. In amongst my anger and distress, I felt a pang of sympathy for them.
‘Oh, Papa,’ remonstrated Maria, but he waved them away.
‘Go and put yourselves into a bath. I will speak to you in my study after tea. And, since I now require company for that repast, I will invite instead Miss Manning here.’
Maria and Susannah stomped off with murder in their eyes, and all directed at me.
‘Would you do me the honour?’ asked Lord Harville, standing and extending his arm.
How strange it felt to enter the house on his lordship’s arm – surely hardly appropriate, and yet also thrilling in the extreme. I am not a lady, but I certainly felt like one at that moment. I enjoyed it entirely too much.
At tea, he was terribly kind and managed to tease out from me the difficulties I had been having with the girls. I begged him not to be harsh with them but he made me no promises.
‘But do you see your way to establishing a firmer footing with them?’ he asked me. ‘For Rome, of course, was not built in a day, and I fear even the architects of that eminent city might themselves have baulked at the challenge offered to them by my daughters. But I think there is hope. I must allow myself that, at least.’
‘Oh, I am sure it is but a matter of their becoming accustomed to me,’ I said.
I did so want to reassure him – and myself at the same time – that I allowed a breath of optimism to enter my hitherto despairing soul.
‘I do not know how they can treat you ill,’ he said, his peculiar eyes upon me again. ‘I am sure I never could.’
By the time I was sure I had heard him aright, a maid came in, breaking the unholy silence between us. I excused myself immediately, claiming a headache.
What did I fear? Why did I leave so precipitately?
I scarcely know myself.
‘Woah, cliffhanger,’ said Jason. ‘He’s a fast worker, though, I’ll give him that.’
‘Lonely, I suppose,’ said Jenna. ‘Widower, rattling around in that house with two wild daughters. I bet he couldn’t believe his luck when he got a governess who was young and pretty.’
‘Do you think he ends up marrying her, though?’ asked Jason dubiously. ‘He could probably have talked her into bed without all that.’
‘Only one way to find out,’ said Jenna briskly, turning a page.
January 26th
I have been in such torment, such precious torment, and now it has been transformed into a sparkling ocean of pure joy.
‘Wow,’ said Jason with feeling. ‘Carry on.’
These past four days I have kept as strictly as I can to the school room and my bedchamber, for fear of encountering Lord Harville. I could not bring myself to express aloud, or even in my thoughts, my reasons for doing so, but I can say it now. It is because I love him. Yes, I love him. I have been fascinated by him since the moment I entered this house. No man has ever looked at me so, with such a penetrating need to understand what he sees. To begin with, it frightened me, for I could not accept that such a man might have any interest in me. I suspected that he might have some nefarious intention and I made sure to be circumspect. Besides, Susannah and Maria took up quite all of my time, with their demands and their disappearances and their long periods of mute defiance.
I was exhausted and low in spirits this evening, having bade them goodnight and taken my place in my window seat with my work basket.