Chapter 12 #2
Cait looked at her. "He's Daniel's brother. And Reese's friend." She paused slightly as though choosing her words carefully. "And he has connections that are useful."
There was something in that pause. Not a lie necessarily, but something Cait wasn’t saying. Cori didn’t press her. After all, pressing Cait never did anyone one bit of good.
Linthorpe Library
Acklan Castle
James had kissed her in this room.
The night before, he’d kissed her and called her his dear before he’d escorted his daughter back to the nursery and spent the rest of the evening pretending he hadn’t done something so insanely foolish.
But he had done it.
This morning, he’d successfully pushed away the memory of the night before from his mind.
There’d been too much that needed to be dealt with, after all.
Ducal duties and responsibilities that required his attention.
He’d met and plotted with Daniel and Darling.
Then he’d sent a letter off to Burroughs, asking the fellow to travel to Valenciennes in search of a heinous peer.
After that, he’d devoted himself fully to the Greaves tenancy before turning his attention to a myriad of other correspondence that had thankfully arrived just in time to keep his mind occupied from other thoughts…
Until there was nothing else that required his immediate attention.
When there was nothing left to distract him, he’d somehow ended up right back in the library where the memories he’d avoided all day were there waiting as soon as he crossed the threshold.
The fire had been laid in the hearth but not lit. So, he crouched and lit it himself with the tinder. Then he stayed there a moment, watching the flames take hold while the memory of a gentle beauty danced about the edges of his mind.
He’d kissed her in that room.
James straightened back to his full height and blew out a breath. He was a damned fool. That’s all there was to it.
He went to the window, but there was nothing to see on the horizon. The rain was still coming down, making the moors impossible to see in the distance. Just grey land and sky through the blurry, rain-streaked glass and fading light.
He turned away from the window.
Alice’s book of sonnets was still on the side table and he felt a pull in his heart.
Damn it all.
He had kissed Cori in that room. Last night.
And the truth of the matter was, she’d fit rather perfectly in his arms. Her kiss had stirred something deep inside him that he’d thought long dead. She heated his blood anew and clouded his mind until he couldn’t even remember his own name. If Hannah hadn’t come upon them when she did…
James closed his eyes in an attempt to block out his foolish memories.
It didn’t work. He could still see Cori, staring up at him like she had the night before in his mind’s eye. Her long hair down around her shoulders. The way her fingers felt against his jaw. The way her breath felt against his lips.
Damn it all. He’d kissed her in that room, but it hadn’t been fair to her in the least. He had no right to kiss her, to let her hope for something that couldn’t be. But he’d kissed her anyway, selfish bastard that he was.
James crossed to a row of shelves and looked at them without truly seeing them. He pulled a volume from its spot, turned it over in his hands, then put it back.
He was still staring at the shelf when the library door opened and he turned toward the sound.
Hannah stood in the doorway in a frock that had seen better days, Marmalade tucked under one arm, her small face set with purpose. She had not been sent for. Of course, she rarely was.
"You’re supposed to be with Miss Roseberry," James said.
"She’s resting." Hannah shrugged slightly. "She said I could sit quietly for a quarter of an hour."
"And you’ve decided to sit quietly in the library?"
"It is a quiet room, Papa," she told him, stepping more fully into the library.
James supposed she had him on that count. "Come in, then, if Marmalade can behave himself."
“Marmalade has been naughty,” Hannah told him as she went directly to the hearthrug with determined purpose.
“Has he?”
“Mmm.” She settled cross-legged in front of the fire with Marmalade in her lap. The kitten endured this for less than ten seconds before relocating himself to the rug beside her. Hannah accepted the amendment without comment. "He made Mr. Atherton fall down in the drawing room."
James looked at his daughter. Then at the little orange kitten, who was washing his face with complete tranquility. "Yes, I’m aware of what happened in the drawing room this afternoon."
"How?" Hannah asked, her innocent face turned upward to his.
"I know everything that goes on in this castle, Hannah." That might not be exactly true, but it wouldn’t hurt if she thought that was the case.
She absorbed this with the seriousness she brought to most things. Then she turned back to kitten and pointed her finger at him like she was the severest of task-masters. "You should not have been a naughty cat," she told him. "Gentlemen's wagers are not your concern."
James managed not to smile.
Marmalade continued washing his face, utterly unmoved by the rebuke.
"I daresay gentlemen’s wagers are not your concern,” he told his daughter.
“I wasn’t there,” she said reasonably. “Samuel told me.”
Ah, the chatty footman.
“He said Marmalade was in the corridor. Then he went into the drawing room to see what was happening.”
“Is that so?”
His daughter nodded. “But he shouldn’t have sat in the middle of the rug.” She turned her attention back to the kitten. “That was not well done of him.”
Marmalade stepped to the far edge of the hearthrug and sat with his back to both of them, as though he was quite finished with being lectured on the matter.
"He knows he was wrong," Hannah said, studying the kitten's back. "He simply won't say so."
"A trait he has in common with a great many creatures," James said and managed not to let any trace of amusement reflect in his voice.
Then Hannah tipped her head and looked at him with an expression that always made him feel as though he was being assessed by someone much older than five. "Papa?"
"Yes."
"Is Cori going to go back to Bermuda?"
Maybe? Probably? Oh, damn it all. "I don't know."
In fact, James hadn’t given that any real thought at all.
He probably should have. But he'd managed to keep himself too busy to think about her today, or he’d tried to.
The library had put an end to that fiction.
Since then, he’d been thinking about the night before, the kiss they’d shared, about what all of it meant.
But not about her leaving. That possibility arrived now like a stone dropping into still water.
"I hope she doesn't," Hannah said, with the simple conviction she brought to all her preferences. "I like her very much."
So did James. Better than he should. "I know you do," he said.
She was quiet for a bit after that, looking at the fire and then the orange kitten while James just let himself just watch the child who was so much like Alice that at times it hurt to see her. She was—
The door opened.
Miss Roseberry appeared in the doorway, a little breathless, and stopped. Her gaze went from Hannah on the hearthrug, to the kitten, and then finally landing on James. Something in her shoulders settled.
"Lady Hannah," she said, with the composed patience she always managed even when it was clearly costing her something. "I said you might occupy yourself quietly. Not that you might wander to another part of the castle entirely."
"I was quiet," Hannah said.
"You were in the library."
"It’s a quiet room," Hannah said again, with full confidence in her argument.
The governess looked at James. James looked back at her. Something passed between them, an acknowledgment, unspoken, that the child was not technically wrong on the specific point she had made, and that this therefore made it a difficult case to argue.
"Come along, my lady," Miss Roseberry said, already holding the door open. "It’s time to get you settled before dinner."
Hannah pushed back to her feet and collected Marmalade from the hearthrug, before turning to James with the formality she reserved for proper farewells. "Goodnight, Papa."
"Goodnight, sweetheart," he said.
Hannah went to Miss Roseberry without argument, Marmalade draped over her arm with the resignation of a cat who knew when an excursion had run its course.
At the threshold, she paused and turned back to look at James. "I’m going to tell Marmalade again tonight that he was wrong," she said. "Even if he won't listen."
"That is very thorough of you," James said.
She nodded, seemed satisfied with that response, and then followed her governess into the corridor
The door closed behind them.
James sat alone in the quiet library. The fire. The rain against the glass. The book of sonnets on the side table.
He thought about a governess who had obviously just spent some time not knowing where her charge had gone.
She was patient and accomplished and she did try her best. He believed that, but Hannah needed someone who would meet her where she was rather than redirect her from it.
It wasn’t Miss Roseberry's fault. She simply wasn’t the right fit, and he had known it for some time.
After the house party came to an end, he would deal with the situation.
Of course, he'd ensure she received a good reference and a full quarter's wages to carry her through until she found a charge that would be a better fit. It wasn’t the happiest solution, but it was the right decision.
James heaved a sigh and the book of sonnets caught his eye once more. The memories from the night before flooded back to his memory all over again. Oh, he was a damned fool.