Chapter Two
THE OTHER GUESTS of the house party would continue arriving over the next few days, but knowing David was already here put Dina on alert.
The morning after he’d found her in the yard, she’d watched from the nursery window as the men went off to shoot.
David’s dark red hair made him easy to track even from a distance.
As children in Scotland, the three of them had only ever ridden bareback.
It seemed that David had mastered the skill of saddle riding in the years since.
After dinner that evening, Dina brought the girls into the drawing room so that they could perform some Scottish folk songs she’d taught them.
Mr. Jennings, Mary’s husband, was supportive of Mary’s desire to teach their daughters about her homeland, provided it did not interfere with their other education.
During the performance, Dina felt David’s eyes on her several times, but she did not let herself look at him.
Once out of the room, Dina chased the girls up the stairs so that their giggles and squeals would push every other thought from her mind.
Or, well, most of them. She had not managed to forget about David over the last years of separation, therefore it was foolish to think she would be able to push him from her thoughts now that he was under the same roof.
On Friday, the girls had their weekly riding lesson at the same time that Mr. Jennings took the gentlemen of the party on a tour of his stables—there were five men in the party now.
Dina caught several glimpses of David as the group made their way through the outbuildings, but she did not think that David noticed her.
She had heard Mary telling Mr. and Mrs. Donning that the last of the guests would arrive today, including Miss Johansson and her mother, Lady Clairmont.
Saturday afternoon, Dina and the girls joined Mary and the other women of the party for tea—Dina’s first time in Miss Johansson’s company.
Dina’s attention was primarily focused on making sure the girls displayed their manners correctly in the presence of these fine ladies, but she unobtrusively studied Miss Johansson too.
The woman who would become David’s wife in a few months’ time sat between Lady Clairmont and the odd Mrs. Donning on the other side of the ring of chairs and wore a beautiful pink dress with cream accents and four-inch lace at the end of each sleeve.
Her dark hair reflected the light from the tall windows of Mary’s parlor, contrasting with the bright blue of her eyes.
She was absolutely beautiful, and though it hurt to admit it, there was no denying that she and David would make a striking couple.
Mrs. Donning was droning on and on about this grievance and that one against a cousin and a neighbor and her lady’s maid.
Miss Johansson made validating comments, even offered advice regarding the maid.
Mrs. Donning did not acknowledge this, however, and it became clear to Dina near the same time it must have become clear to Miss Johansson that the old woman only wanted to complain.
Miss Johansson drew back to sounds of sympathy at that point, and Dina admired her tact amid an uncomfortable conversation.
“And you, Miss Cameron,” Lady Clairmont asked several minutes into Dina’s silent presence at the table. “I understand you are a Scottish lass.” She smiled, and Dina smiled back, glad the woman had said it with kindness and not censure. “Where are you from?”
“Braemar, originally.”
“Not far from where David also grew up, I believe. Before he settled in England,” Miss Johansson said, turning her attention more directly toward Dina. “I understand the three of you have been friends from childhood.”
Mary looked between Mrs. Donning and the very pregnant Mrs. Havershorn, whose expressions showed confusion.
“Dina is my cousin on my mother’s side,” Mary explained.
“Whereas David is a cousin on my father’s side—both Scots.
Dina often visited me in Aberdeen, and David’s father’s estate bordered our own, so there was a great deal of time spent together when we were young.
I am a few years older than them both, however. ”
No mention of London, which was just as well.
Hiring poor relations to care for one’s children was a common enough practice, and Dina had seen going to London as a more grown-up version of her trips to Aberdeen before Mary’s marriage and David’s schooling had taken her playmates away from her.
When David came to London a few weeks after Dina had arrived to help care for baby Rebecca, she’d known right away that things were different between them.
After she’d left London some months later and without notice, she’d taken a teaching position in Braemar and cared for her grandfather who had raised her after her parents’ deaths when she’d been young.
After Grandfather passed, she’d quickly come to realize how little Scotland had to offer her.
The men who showed her attention were either too hard or too uneducated or too much in need of a wife who baked bread and did laundry, not who read books and spoke their language with an English influence.
She had become a woman without a place to call her own, so she had asked Mary if she might return as a governess for Mary’s three children.
To Mary’s credit, she had never allowed Dina’s flight from London to change the love they shared for one another.
Mary had accepted Dina’s request, and now, two years later, the arrangement continued to meet the needs of all parties.
These thoughts passed through Dina’s mind in the space of a blink while Miss Johansson continued looking at her expectantly.
“We caught a great many frogs in those days,” Dina said, summing up all the years of connection with one small part.
The women laughed. Miss Johansson smiled. “You should join us for the visit to the ruined abbey on Tuesday, Miss Cameron. David will be there. The two of you can reacquaint yourselves with one another.”
To Dina’s credit, she did not shift in her seat in response to the discomfort she felt. Mary, however, did. “I’m afraid I am a bit a tyrant, Miss Johansson. There are daily lessons Dina must attend to, and the girls, as delightful as they are, require a great deal of attention.”
Mary’s explanation could be interpreted as not wanting Dina to participate, but Dina had asked Mary to help her stay apart from the party.
Were she a governess without relation to the family, she would not be included in a house party, and she preferred that position rather than that of a low-class woman putting on airs and vying for a place that was not hers.
The exceptions to Dina’s wish for distance, of course, were moments such as these when the children were included.
Mary had argued with her for a few days early on in the planning, then thrown up her hands in surrender.
“I will never understand you, Dina. You make the oddest decisions sometimes.”
Like leaving London without notice. Like accepting herself as member of this family until a house party made her stake claim to the role of a governess.
“Of course, you would have responsibilities. My apologies,” Miss Johansson said, adequately sheepish. She paused, then pressed forward. “When is your half day, Miss Cameron?” She turned to look at Mary. “She has a half day each week, does she not?”
Mary seemed surprised, as was Dina, by Miss Johansson’s determination. “Oh, well, Dina has a full day on Mondays.”
Miss Johansson smiled wider and turned her sparkling blue eyes to Dina, who was busying herself with showing the girls the proper way to tap off the sugar spoon so that nothing spilled between the bowl and the cup. “Then we shall visit the abbey on Monday so that Miss Cameron can attend.”
She was a persistent one, Dina thought, trying to keep her irritation and anxiety reined in. “I appreciate th’ consideration, Miss Johansson, but I attend to my personal business during my day off. I thank you all the same.”
Miss Johansson did not give in and continued to suggest other ways that Dina could be included until Rebecca—who had been working so hard to behave like a proper lady throughout the tea—spilled her tea on both her dress and Dina’s.
Dina gathered all three girls and made a hasty and apologetic retreat.
When the door closed behind them, she took a deep breath of relief.
“My dress,” Rebecca whined, holding out the skirt of her dress that was now a patchy blue and brown. Rebecca’s disposition was always quick to tears, and her lower lip began to tremble.
“Dresses wash, mo chroi,” Dina assured her. Her own lavender day dress was not fancy, but the brown swath of tea down one side did no favors. She’d need to change and set both dresses to soak.
“I dinnint finish my sweet,” Elizabeth pouted.
“You had plenty,” Dina said, ushering them toward the stairs.
“There are my lovely girls!”
Dina looked up to see Mr. Jennings striding toward them.
She smiled in greeting, but her eyes went immediately past him to David, positioned just behind Mr. Jennings’s left shoulder.
The other male houseguests were there as well, but she only had eyes for David as the men came to a stop at the base of the wide staircase that led to the bedchambers—family on the right, Dina’s room included, and guests on the left.
“What’s happened, Beebee?” Mr. Jennings asked, bending to one knee in front of his oldest daughter but also glancing at Dina’s dress as well. The girls immediately crowded him, and Dina attempted to gather the spoiled section of her dress in one hand to hide it from additional notice.
“I spilled my tea all over everything,” Rebecca said with a tad more dramatic energy than she’d had prior to her father’s attention. Fat tears rolled down her cheeks, which Mr. Jennings wiped away with his thumb.
“I want more jam,” Elizabeth added.