Chapter 6
Six
“I see you’ve found some red-capped mushrooms,” he said, noticing what I had been examining. “Those are poisonous, you know, so don’t eat them.”
“I’ve never seen any like them before, and the only mushrooms I’ve ever picked to eat are chanterelles and penny buns, and only in autumn. How do you know they are poisonous?”
“The red caps and the little white spots. My nurse taught me to identify mushrooms. I have a book of illustrations and information about mushrooms in my library if you’d like to borrow it.” He put the pipe between his lips and puffed once, twice.
“Thank you.” I actually had very little interest in mushrooms, but I didn’t want to offend him after he so generously offered. I’d never thought lords would wish to loan out books to servants, but perhaps it was because I was the governess and therefore had more education.
“Did you have a specific focus of study at Mrs. Southey’s? I believe that’s the school you mentioned.”
“Yes. I did extra studies in literature, and that is the subject I taught.”
“You must feel as if you’re wasting your education with such young pupils as Samuel and Annabelle. They’re only seven years old, after all.” He drew on his pipe again.
“I have taught young children their age before, and it has its own rewards. I am quite content to teach your siblings. They are very bright and clever children.”
“You do not think it beneath you to teach them?”
“No, of course not.”
He frowned and folded his arms across his chest, again gazing up at the nest. “So you taught literature. I suppose you taught Shakespeare, Burns, and Wordsworth.”
“Among others.” I couldn’t help smiling at his wry way of mentioning such great authors.
“Tell me your opinions. Who do you like best and least? Be honest—and be controversial, if at all possible.”
I couldn’t help the smile of delight I felt spreading across my face. “Well, I adore Wordsworth and Burns, but I don’t care at all for Milton. So dull and sanctimonious.”
“Brava, Miss Robbins!” He was truly smiling now, even showing his teeth. “A true and honest—and controversial—opinion. Thank you for that.”
What would he say next?
“And you?” I asked. “What literary greats do you enjoy most and least?”
“I’m afraid I never developed an appreciation for Shakespeare. So self-important, even in his comedies. And Jonathan Swift is an absolute bore. What say you, Miss Robbins?”
“I’m afraid I cannot agree with you on Shakespeare—”
His brows went up. He almost looked . . . delighted that I would disagree with him.
“—but Swift, yes, he is quite dull. But you haven’t said which authors you admire.”
“So I haven’t.” He cleared his throat again.
“Although I generally prefer prose to poetry, when I am in the mood for verse, I like Thomas Gray. But I rather think English writers’ best novel-writing days are ahead of them, as I’ve read one or two recently by living authors that were very entertaining. ”
“May I ask which novels these were?”
“Sense and Sensibility and another, Pride and Prejudice, by the same anonymous author.”
“I must read them as soon as I am able.”
“I shall lend them to you.”
“Thank you, my lord. That is very generous.”
“Read them quickly, for I’d like to hear what you think.”
He’d been asking me what I thought since our first meeting, so it seemed almost natural now.
He eyed me with a penetrating gaze from beneath heavy black brows.
Again, I should have felt intimidated, but somehow I didn’t.
Somehow I understood that he was a man with normal human feelings, perhaps due to the familiar way he’d been speaking to me, or perhaps due to the state in which I’d seen him on the first evening, when we’d both been standing on the roof and he’d been so melancholy I’d worried about leaving him alone.
The thing that was different about him was that he was expressing his feelings—and expressing them to me.
“It is the way of the Englishman—and Englishwoman—to send their children to an institution, and you were no exception to that, Miss Robbins. Tell me of your experiences at Mrs. Southey’s school.
You seemed to want me to think that you had good experiences there, but you were also mistreated, I suppose?
And the teachers, the cruel ones, beat you and punished you for even minor infractions, breaking your spirit and making you feel as if you must feel guilty twenty-four hours of every day in order to make amends and eke your way into heaven? ”
“No, not at all.”
“And the food was rancid and barely edible, much less palatable.”
“No, it’s not true.”
“You are smiling. My words amuse you. Why? Tell me.” He suddenly looked rather severe.
“Forgive me, sir. I meant no offense.”
“Explain.”
It had grown so dark that I could barely make out his expression, but I thought he looked rather sullen.
“I’m sorry, but I did not have that kind of experience.
My teachers were kind—most of them—and I had one or two friends at all times, from an early age, whose situations were similar to mine, and we enjoyed each other’s company.
There were bullies, from time to time, who made life difficult.
Was your school as cruel as you describe? ” My heart constricted at the thought.
He puffed on his pipe while I talked, then blew out a long cloud of smoke and said, “I’m glad your experience of school was relatively good.
As for me, let us just say that I got in a lot of fights, and I lost most of them.
Then a gamekeeper, a wise old man, taught me better fighting skills, such as how to hold one’s fist and strike in a manner to cause the greatest impact. But you don’t want to hear about that.”
“I am sorry you got in so many fights.” My spirit was heavy as I thought of him being forced to physically defend himself.
“Yes, well, I daresay after I learned, I won them all and the other boys decided not to fight me—not as often, anyway.” He took another draw on his pipe. “I was given good food, had adequate heat in winter, and I learned to defend myself—an essential skill, wouldn’t you say?”
“Indeed.”
“And you were not taught to fear God and tremble in terror that your sins would find you out?”
“I was taught to fear God, of course,” I replied, “but I like to read the Bible for myself, and I consider that fear to be more of a reverence, as Scripture also says that love drives out fear, and we are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.”
“Well said, Miss Robbins. You read the Bible for yourself, do you, and use your own sense to understand it?”
“I have always believed that Scripture is true and helpful, and I like to draw my own conclusions about what it means.” I lifted my chin, daring him to say that I should allow the clergy to explain the Bible to me.
“Good. I respect that. Since you have no family, Miss Robbins, tell me of your friends.”
“My friends, sir?” What could he possibly wish to know about my friends?
“Do you exchange gifts on holidays? Do you employ one another’s help to snare an eligible man’s attentions? Or do you simply talk of the weather and the state of the roads?”
“We do exchange gifts on holidays. My closest friends are Hattie and Susan, and the three of us share many of our deepest hopes and feelings. We have never assisted one another in ‘snaring an eligible man’s attentions,’ as you say, but we certainly talk of more than the weather and the state of the roads. ”
He opened his mouth as if to speak, but I pretended not to notice and continued. “And you, Lord Brookhaven? What of your friends? Do you speak of more than the weather?”
“Tit for tat, eh?” He gave a wry almost-smile.
“I suppose it is a bit different with men, but yes, I have one or two trusted friends with whom I speak of more than the weather.” He took a quick draw on his pipe.
“My aunt, Lady Derringer, who was my father’s sister, is a widow and a good friend.
Does that surprise you? She and my uncle, who died two years ago, were closer to me than my own parents.
They were unable to have children of their own. ”
No wonder the earl had looked so distraught on the roof that first night. He’d lost his uncle and the woman who had been like a mother to him in a relatively short period of time.
“Have you ever lost anyone close to you, Miss Robbins?”
“In truth, I have not, sir.” Was it worse to lose someone close to you? Or to never have anyone close? But I refrained from asking.
He stared pensively into the dark trees, smoking his pipe.
“When I was fifteen years old,” I said, remembering, “I spent the summer with a family who lived near the school. I had thought the daughters, who were about my age, were my good friends, but things were not as I’d perceived them, and it was a very long summer for me.”
Lord Brookhaven was looking at me now.
“I thought I would be welcomed into a cheerful home, where I could see what life as a family was like, but I soon realized there was something unsettling about that family. My friends, Rebecca and Christina Mead, resented their brother George’s attentions toward me.
I neither desired nor encouraged his attentions, but that didn’t seem to matter.
And his mother hated me as well, forcing me to do more than my share of the work around the house, work that her daughters had been accustomed to performing.
I spent the whole summer afraid of the brother and feeling hated by the sisters. ”
I shivered and pulled my shawl up to my neck and held it closed over my chest. “It was a terrible experience, as bad as you might have expected me to have at a boarding school, and I was quite glad to get back to Mrs. Southey’s school.” I let out a deep breath, wondering why I told him that.
“That does sound like a very bad experience. But I am glad you escaped that brother. There are many evil men in this world who prey on women, I’m afraid.
But I have made you melancholy, forcing you to speak of the past. I have a tendency to dwell on the past, one of my many faults. Forgive me, Miss Robbins.”
“There is nothing to forgive. I am well.”
He stood there holding his pipe and staring quite soberly at me. “And you have no family? None at all?”
“When I was eighteen, Mrs. Southey allowed me to read all the documents that had been brought with me when I came to her. There was some information about my parents and grandparents, who were all deceased, and a letter from my father’s solicitor saying he would be sending an annual sum for my upkeep at the school, with the balance being paid to me on my eighteenth birthday.
I received twenty-five pounds, all that was left of the amount my parents had entrusted to the solicitor.
And as far as he knew, I had no other family. ”
“What was this solicitor’s name?”
“I remember it was Graham . . . perhaps Gilbert Graham? No, Garrett Graham.” Why did he want to know that?
He smoked a while longer, then said, “It is cold. We should go inside before Mrs. Merryweather sends out a search party for you.”
With that, we started back toward the house in silence.
William’s heart burned within him. He walked toward the house with Miss Charlotte Robbins beside him as he dwelt on the many emotions he’d experienced while listening to her.
Never had he felt anything like this for any of the society darlings that he met in London.
Miss Robbins was all truth and justice, courageous yet kind and compassionate and good.
Other young ladies he knew were tepid, jaundiced in their opinions, self-centered and conceited, and never talked about their true feelings and concerns.
He knew his feelings were a bit extreme, but he wanted to protect her, shield her from the world. He didn’t care that she was only a lowly governess, a poor orphan. Find him the richest duke’s daughter and she wouldn’t be half—nay, one-fifth—the lady Miss Charlotte Robbins was.
How unfair was life. But he, the Earl of Brookhaven, could easily raise Miss Charlotte Robbins’s level in society.
He could give her the life she’d only dreamed of.
Samuel and Annabelle had their own inheritance from both their mother’s and Father’s estate.
They would be taken care of. But Charlotte Robbins had nothing and no family.
He would give her the happiness that had been denied her all her life.
Why not? She was a pure soul, and many impure souls had everything this world could offer.
Besides, just thinking of seeing her thriving and happy, experiencing things she’d always wished to experience, gave him such a burst of joy that he wasn’t sure he’d be able to think of anything else until he could see it come to pass.
But he was getting ahead of himself. She might not want for herself what he wanted for her. She deserved to be able to choose.
He felt something new and different when he was in Miss Robbins’s presence. There were times it had completely driven his melancholy away, and wise or unwise, he knew he would not stop until he’d made sure Miss Robbins was truly happy.
He’d missed opportunities to do something good in the past—spoiled, selfish, only son of an earl that he was—but he would not let this one pass him by. He would not be like his father.