A Temporary Governess Page 2

  Now, Alex bent and bussed the courtesan's cheek with a lack of passion, then took hold of Georgianna's delicate wrists and gently removed them from around his neck.

  With an unperturbed expression, Alex scooped her up unceremoniously, walked to the four poster, and dumped her and her enticing buttocks on the feather mattress in the center of the big bed. Smiling at her seductive but losing antics, he said, “Try to behave with some decorum, Georgie. If I do not see you on the weekend, I shall endeavor to return in a few weeks. That is, of course, unless Ponsonsby is back from his fishing trip."

  So saying, he strode through the doorway, down the steps and out of the Berkeley Square town house.

  Chapter Two

  The servants in the Priory and the workers on the estate had always been fond of the former marquess's youngest son. Alex had been a prankster as a boy but often suffered from his father's uneven discipline. Without a mother to coddle them, their father disciplined both sons by prodigious use of a Malacca cane, the youth's backside bent over a polished desk in the marquess's study with the boy's trousers lowered. The fourth marquess wielded it fiercely against those bare buttocks. Their behinds stung and turned black and blue when either son spoke out of turn or rode their horses too recklessly.

  Richard, the eldest, was opposite in spirit from his brother. He was serious-minded, usually well-behaved, his demeanor straitlaced, trained since boyhood to assume his father's title. Rarely did Richard feel the caning on his lanky buttocks. The marquess later forgot about discipline when he learned of his sons’ lusty, immoral escapades. It was the marquess's considered opinion, like his father's before him, that rank youths were expected to sow their wild oats by fornicating with discreet partners. The marquess firmly believed his offspring would settle into proper behavior when the time was ripe.

  As it turned out, the youngest son, Alexander, was the first to marry. He may have wished to wait a while before being leg shackled to Lady Harriet Reed, but she soon bedazzled him with sweet kisses.

  And more.

  They met accidentally, Harriet out riding and escorted by a pimply-faced groom. Alex was out for a solo jaunt. They succumbed to mutual attraction at the onset, Alex believing it was because of his handsome good looks, charm, and worldly persona.

  Lady Harriet Reed, only daughter of a viscount, was a petite blond, and fragile-looking. Alex was entranced by Harriet's ethereal beauty, assured that he had found his true love. For days Alex's eyes and his thoughts were dazzled by her. Then, one day, Harriet managed to elude her groom. The pair of young lovers met in an unused barn on Trury Priory's grounds. Unable to keep his hands off of her, Alex grabbed her shoulders and kissed her, pushing his tongue into her open mouth. He may not have been as experienced as some, but he knew how to please.

  "I should not let you do these things to me,” she had whispered, her blue eyes gazing into his heated orbs, “but I cannot help myself, Alex."

  Then quite abruptly, Harriet pulled away from him and yanked at his clothes, exclaiming urgently, “Oh, do hurry, Alexander!"

  She was unbuttoning her riding jacket, pulling it open as she tugged at a lightly-boned corset and silk chemise, exposing her small, pale breasts with their rosy nipples. “I want you to touch me there, Alex. Please,” she implored, bringing one of his hands to her bare bosom and pressing a warm breast into his big palm.

  Alex had a moment or two of conscience, but his body had already swelled to monstrous proportions beneath his skintight breeches, anticipating the carnal pleasures to come. His hands itched to fondle the soft weight of her breasts. He succumbed quickly to her entreaty and rubbed thumbs again and again over her prominent nipples. When a sharp point dug into his palm, his erection jerked upward, his groin tightening.

  Harriet clamped her eyes shut and moaned, low and long.

  Alex dipped his head toward a breast and licked the pouting bud.

  Harriet squirmed, moaning even louder. “Umm, oh yes! Oohh!” she exclaimed.

  Alex sucked on her so hard he wondered if she might give milk. When he switched to the other breast, she grabbed his head with awesome strength for a girl her size and pressed his mouth hard against her.

  "Oh, Alex! I love that. Suck me harder. Do more things to me."

  They had stumbled to a corner of the barn and fell onto a pile of new, sweet-smelling hay. Harriet now writhed with ecstasy. Alex pinched her nipples, sucked them a while longer, then pulled up the hem of her voluminous riding skirt, pushing it above her hips and out of his way.

  He had lain with some willing town girls, but he had never ravished a lady of his own class. And Harriet Reed was a blue blood, a peer's daughter. He knew there would be consequences, but he thought himself truly in love. His blood simmered as flames traveled through his randy body, on the verge of plunging between Harriet's willing thighs.

  She frantically plucked at his jacket, trying to help him get rid of it.

  "I'll take it off,” Alex gasped, yanking his arms out of his coat and throwing it onto the hay along with his waistcoat.

  "Hurry,” she exclaimed. “Take off your shirt, too!"

  Alex stripped away his shirt and cravat, leaving him naked above the waist.

  Harriet clamped onto his biceps and dragged him on top of her. She looked wild-eyed, staring up at him, pupils immense in her cobalt irises, her cheeks rosy with heat; her breath coming in whisper-like pants.

  "Now, Alex! Come inside me!” she demanded, made frantic by his kisses and the things he did to her breasts.

  She scared him a little when she bit his bare shoulder, leaving half-moon teeth marks on his pristine flesh. Blood seeped toward his broad chest.

  Alex's erection grew inches long, big around, and hard. With a strangled sound, he pushed a finger inside, between Harriet's thighs, to test her readiness.

  "Harriet! Are you ready?"

  "Yes! Oh, yes! Hurry!"

  When Harriet exhorted him to, 'Take me now' he braced his buttocks and plunged into her in one swift, powerful stroke.

  It came to him only much, much later that he didn't recall breaching her maidenhead.

  When Harriet spoke again, she smiled, declaring her undying love for young Alex Warner. She clung to him and pressed him to marry her with ardent, wheedling murmurs.

  At two and twenty Alex hadn't thought about marriage yet. However, with the love bug biting him unexpectedly and himself engulfed in a wholly improper, clandestine tryst, Alex knew he was obliged to do the right thing. By not doing what was expected of him, he would badly blemish his family's name, title, and honor.

  Harriet suddenly displayed a will of iron when it came to a wedding date. She wanted them married quickly by special license. No long engagements.

  Their marriage took place in the spring of 1803. Later that year a girl, Beatrice, was born early in the eighth month of their marriage. At first, Alex chastised himself for impregnating Harriet during their initial intercourse. He should have pulled out before spilling his seed. Now, because of it, he carried a weighty burden of guilt on his conscience.

  When the babe was born, she seemed very small and fragile, like her mother.

  Harriet survived the child's birth but unfortunately, she steadily grew weaker and weaker during the weeks that followed. Their physician blamed it on childbed fever. At the end of the third week, the physician warned Alex that Harriet might not last the night. Grief stricken, Alex sat in a chair next to the bed, silently, solemnly, enduring a painful vigil.

  He stared down at Harriet's face, pale and expressionless as the goose down pillow lying beneath her limp golden curls. Remaining there through the dark hours after midnight, he sat at her side. Now and again one of his large palms would reach out and gently take her fragile fingers in his, squeezing them tenderly, hoping for a word from her colorless lips. Time and time again, he whispered how sorry he was that his unbridled passion had taken such a toll on her dainty constitution. Deeply aggrieved and in pain, he allowed no one in Harriet's bedchamber with hi
m, not even her parents. Nor did he permit sorrow and wrenching despair travel across his youthful countenance. He maintained a stoic countenance, his lips pressed together in an unrelenting, tight line. It was only during the waning hours of his wife's faltering handhold on life that he sat alone in the gloom, salty tears flowing from Alex's eyes and trickling down his unshaven cheeks almost unconsciously.

  Finally, exhaling so quietly he barely heard the sound, Harriet choked out a soft moan. “A-A ... Al ... ex."

  Roused from his solo anguish, Alex quickly leaned toward his wife. Her dull eyes were wide open, but she was unable to focus. “W-where ... are y-you ... I c-cannot see ... you,” she croaked, her voice splintering.

  Alex bent close to her ear, after brushing a feather light kiss on her sunken, once petal-like cheek. “Dearest, hush. Don't try to talk. Conserve your strength."

  "I ... I can't ... must ... confess...."

  "A priest has been here already, Harriet. Rest easy, love."

  With great effort, it seemed, Harriet turned to face her husband. “N-o-o-o, Al-ex,” she moaned, her words, garbled, caught in her throat. “M-must ... confess..."

  Her chest suddenly rose and fell alarmingly fast, her lungs straining to suck in air as she fought for every breath. Her slender form wracked by visible shivers, foam bubbled from her lips and clogged the breathing passage to her lungs. Valiantly, Harriet still struggled to continue.

  "N-not y-your ... child ... A-Al-ex."

  Alex was not sure what he heard before his wife closed her eyes and turned away from him. A soft rattle escaped from her chest and with a final ‘whoosh’ of bubbling breath expelled from her lips, Harriet Warner gently released her grip on life and expired.

  Alex's lungs seized, the air in them forced out by a sudden and painful clenching of muscles that kept him immobilized after realization hit him. He sucked in more oxygen.

  Not my child!

  Eight months ago she had been so eager ... hardly able to wait for him to make love to her. He never gave it a thought when she begged him, over and over, to hurry. He had thrust into her ... wildly ... again and again. Never taking the time to notice her maidenhead had already been breached.

  Oh, sweet Jesus! She had been pregnant when I took her! That meant...

  Beatrice was not his daughter!

  The child had arrived earlier than expected, but the midwife told Alex when his wife's labor pains began that it was quite possible for a first child to be early a month or more. It had been a difficult birth for Harriet. The babe was small in size but seemed sturdy and in good health when she finally struggled out of her mother's womb.

  Sickened by the discovery of Harriet's betrayal, his masculine pride badly damaged, an angry Alexander Warner cursed and ranted for hours after his wife died, confiding his secret to no one. He speculated as to which of his friends or acquaintances had initially taken her virginity. Was it someone he knew, someone close by, even within the Priory's environs? Or perhaps a culprit in town, like the blacksmith, or the groom from her father's stable.

  He should have guessed. He sensed Harriet had a wild streak beneath that fragile façade of hers. Was it not she who approached him first when they were out riding? And was she not the one who suggested they meet secretly in the dilapidated barn?

  Nevertheless, Alex was captured by her sweet, untutored kisses at the beginning. They didn't know each other well, even after they wed, but how easily she had fooled him with her innocence, disguising her immoral proclivities, and behaving so ladylike in her demeanor as a proper and chaste wife by not letting him touch her once she knew she was with child. After listening to his wife's garbled confession, Alex realized that the babe was tiny, but full term. Harriet was with child when they met—but who was the father? He would throttle the man if he knew, just to satisfy his own ego if nothing else.

  Alex ordered Harriet Warner laid to rest in the Priory's graveyard with no one the wiser that the child, Beatrice, was his wife's bastard.

  Mortification and humiliation damaged Alex's painful memories of his wife, embedded like poisoned darts in his flesh, although no one knew the truth. Perhaps not even the child's natural father. If he had been fooled once, though, Alex vowed he would not be fooled again. His youthful crush on Harriet died a quick death along with her demise. He kept her memory alive only to remind him that the conniving wench never told him she was with child until she lay on her deathbed. Harriet had betrayed him, and Alex would not—could not—forgive her or her bastard child. His first thought was to disclaim his parenthood, disown her. But that would turn back on him. He would be a laughingstock amongst his peers—cuckolded before marriage instead of after. So he compromised. He gave the girl his name because he had to, but vowed he would never get to know her or become fond of her.

  Mrs. Emma Pritchett, nursemaid and nanny, was hired to take charge of raising Harriet's daughter. Alex hardened his heart from then on, emptied it of any emotional ties toward another man's child. Nor did he longer blame himself for his wife's pregnancy, nor her subsequent death.

  Bile and bitterness festered inside him, leaving a sour taste in his mouth about the world of women and marriage. Once a charming and delightful companion when in company of the opposite gender, Alex now used women simply for his own sexual pleasure. If his partner enjoyed his attentions, all the better. Nowadays, his normal liaisons were made strictly with widows or willing, unsatisfied wives. He would never again be caught in a seemingly virginal bind. He shunned the idea of marriage. Forgiveness of any kind now stuck in his aristocratic craw.

  * * * *

  The Marquess of Chester drove his team of matched bays along St. James Street, musing about his loose attachment to Georgianna Ponsonsby. She was possibly the most talented and passionate woman with whom he copulated. And without doubt, she was beautiful. Thank God, he did not love her—but simply fell in lust for her. He knew from the beginning that she was married, of course. But something else about her teased his brain. The beauteous countess had something up her sleeve. He could feel it. If she thought he would jump into the murky marriage market when the earl gave up the ghost, she was sadly mistaken. Then again, was he ready to give her up for someone less talented in bed?

  The marquess reined his team into the drive and halted his cattle beneath the pillared portico in front of his town house. Jumping down from his curricle, he threw the ribbons to a groom and strode up the front steps with a new spring in his step.

  Chapter Three

  The door snapped open abruptly and the housekeeper's voice said, “Daydreaming, again?"

  The Honourable Lady Clarissa Manning dragged her gaze from the view outside of her father's study window and shook her head. “Oh, Olly. I was reading this wonderful story. The hero is so dashing and handsome,” she sighed wistfully. “And he loved her so much."

  First as Clarissa's nursemaid and now as her father's housekeeper, Mrs. Bertha Oliver merely sniffed disparagingly at the young woman's dreamy reply. “Come along now, Miss Clary. You should be out in the fresh air instead of cooped in here reading another one of those silly romance novels."

  Bustling into the room, Olly picked up a scarf that was lying on one of the faded chair cushions. A rather shabby lady's bonnet lay next to it and several books had been left to lie on the floor. A striped cat was curled up next to the bonnet.

  Clarissa rested her head against a chair's back. “They're not silly, Olly.” She defended the book in her hand written by the author, Fanny Burney. “I was just getting to the good part. I wish I could write a book like this."

  Bertha Oliver, a rather imposing woman of middle years with a round, pleasant face and a commanding bosom, sniffed through her upturned nose a second time. “I dare say that will be most unlikely, Miss Clary."

  "You know as well as I do that we need more income, Olly. If I sold a story...."

  "Humph! What kind of occupation is that for a young lady. Besides, it will not bring in much to swell your father's coffers. From what I'
ve heard, authors starve in musty garrets infested with mice and bats before they ever get their book published,” she retorted.

  "I suppose you are right,” Clarissa sighed. “Thanks to Jacob and your vegetable garden, we're well fed. But I am desperate in need of a new gown and bonnet. Fiddlesticks! If I have to go to church in the same bonnet for the next five years, it will fall to pieces while I am singing the Sunday hymns. Then, you surely will be ashamed of me."

  The housekeeper twitched her lips but didn't reply.

  "Anyway,” Clarissa commented, “not that there is anyone of importance that comes to church or notices what I am wearing! Everything is so dull and uneventful around here,” she mumbled.

  "Come now, Miss Clary,” her housekeeper repeated tartly, changing the subject. “You seem a bit crabby. ‘Tis fresh air you need to put the roses back in your cheeks and brighten your spirits. Why don't you take up sketching again ... or gardening ... like other young ladies do?"

  "Who? Which young ladies? You know I have no friends my age within walking distance. I cannot even ride to Lower Cadbury because poor Flame is too old and lame to carry me that far. I need the carriage, and Father has hitched up Boliver and taken it."

  Seeing she was getting the worst of the discussion, Mrs. Oliver turned and headed out of the study. “I cannot stay here gossiping all day, Miss Clary,” she said, sounding grumpy, too. “I've got dinner to prepare. That hen Jacob killed is so ancient I'll have to boil her for hours in order for us to chew through her tough hide,” she complained. “About time he got rid of the old biddy, anyhow. She hasn't laid a single egg in ages!” she nodded vehemently. Without waiting for a reply, Mrs. Oliver shut the door behind her and never heard Clarissa's tinkling laughter.

  Clarissa had heard the noisy tiff between Mrs. Oliver and Jacob half an hour before and giggled to herself. The age and toughness of the chickens in the barnyard were an everlasting bone of contention between the two middle-aged sparring partners.