His Wayward Bride (Romance of the Turf Book 3) Read online

  “Let me stop you right there,” Irene cut in. “I am a teacher because I’ve always liked the work and believed myself suited for it.”

  Seraphina’s questions were natural, maybe, but they set Irene on edge. Many times before, her Englishness and capability had been questioned because of the color of her skin. Though perhaps that wasn’t what Seraphina had wondered about.

  “My parents saw you teaching last term and thought you weren’t suitable,” Seraphina blurted.

  Or perhaps Irene’s complexion was exactly the problem.

  “Your parents didn’t think it was suitable for you to be taught by a skilled and qualified instructor who treats students with respect?” Irene asked evenly. “That is unfortunate.”

  Seraphina’s mouth opened and closed.

  “That’s enough said about that,” Irene added. “I know you are asking these questions because you want to think for yourself.”

  Yet the girl’s comments hurt; the questions hurt. Acting calm and pleasant hurt, when Irene wanted to shake the complacency off the privileged girl’s face. Not everyone looks like you, she wanted to shout. Not everyone has the same chances as you. That doesn’t mean you’re better. It means you’re lucky.

  Irene wouldn’t change a bit of her own background—though she’d take a bit more luck, if it was being handed about. But on both sides, she was descended from people who made their own luck. Her maternal grandparents, the Norrises, had been born in the United States and had fought for the Crown in exchange for their freedom. When the United States won independence, they immigrated to England along with their three young children—Irene’s mother, Susanna, being the eldest. The family had settled in the working-class London neighborhood of Shoreditch, where two more children had been born.

  Her father’s story was also one of travel. Victor Baird’s ancestors traveled from Ireland to the United States; Victor sailed to England as a young man. Sometimes Irene wished him back across the ocean again.

  But she owed him her existence—and her existence, like that of every person, was itself a matter of luck. Of time and chance, of meetings and decisions and hopes. As swiftly as a purse might be put back into a pocket, a life might find a new path.

  “With the minute we have remaining,” Irene told the class, “let me pose some questions to you. How many of you are from England?”

  Almost every girl lifted a hand.

  “Consider this, then. How did your parents get here? And what about your ancestors before them? There was a time when no one lived on this island we call home. Look back far enough, and we’re all from somewhere else.”

  She smiled. “And now we’re here. And, as a reminder, your essays are due next Wednesday.”

  Seraphina raised her hand again.

  “Miss James, that’s enough.” The Welsh-accented voice came from the doorway—Mrs. Brodie, impeccable in severe black, her gray eyes fiery. “I am dismayed that your parents are dissatisfied with the finest teacher of history and geography I have ever encountered. I will inform them that I would be happy to give your seat to any one of a dozen pupils whose connections would add to this academy’s prestige.”

  One could practically hear the words thumping the floor, so solid was each one. Mrs. Brodie had defended Irene well.

  But Seraphina wasn’t the one who needed to hear this. Her parents were. And it would be better if the headmistress had not been called upon to speak in Irene’s defense at all.

  “How may I help you, ma’am?” Irene addressed Mrs. Brodie.

  “I came to offer you a damp sheet for the windows. Miss Yarborough believes it will cool the room as the fabric dries.”

  An excuse, perhaps, as she’d clearly listened to the class from the corridor before making her presence known.

  “We’re done here, but I will try hanging a damp sheet for the afternoon classes. I’ll let Miss Yarborough know while the girls are at luncheon.” The teacher of sciences was as fond of experiments as she was of controlled explosions.

  Irene dismissed the girls, who filed past Mrs. Brodie with the nervousness of apprentices before a foreman. Once they had gone, Irene sighed. “So you heard Miss James’s concerns.”

  “I heard some nonsense parroted from her parents, yes.”

  “No matter how many of the beau monde’s daughters I teach, I’ll never be like one of them. I’ll never be treated like the other teachers.”

  Mrs. Brodie looked at her sharply. “You might not, but you’re not alone. You know that.”

  Part of the school’s motto. I know that I am never alone, because my teachers and sisters will always watch out for me as I watch out for them.

  Sometimes Irene felt as if she watched over everyone—her parents, her brother, a street sweeper, a dog, her students—and no one returned the favor. But today, Mrs. Brodie had. And Jonah had too, though he was often too far away to make a difference.

  “I know,” Irene said, trying not to sigh again. “Thank you.”

  Mrs. Brodie nodded crisply. “Come to my office after today’s lessons, please. I’ve a mission to discuss with you.”

  Chapter Six

  The chair was probably meant to be elegant, which meant it was too small for a man of Jonah’s size. He shifted uneasily. When the furniture gave a warning crack, he grimaced at the two young women who shot him startled looks.

  He should have smiled. It was their space, not his.

  They were Irene’s fellow teachers—a square-shouldered redhead and an olive-skinned woman with a slight French accent. Like Jonah, they sat in spoon-back chairs with striped upholstery, relaxing into their conversation. Besides the scatter of chairs, the airy room held a writing desk and a tea table and tall shelves of books.

  So this was the teachers’ parlor at Irene’s academy. The precious school that kept her from him.

  In a stitched sampler over the fireplace in the teachers’ parlor, bright threads picked out some sort of motto:

  I am an exceptional young lady. I deserve the best and am prepared for the worst. Whatever comes my way, I am equal to the task. I know that I am never alone, because my teachers and sisters will always watch out for me as I watch out for them.

  How the devil was Jonah to compete with that? He was only one man, and he had horses to watch out for, as well as relatives.

  Irene stepped into the room then, and Jonah stood to greet her.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Tweedy,” she said briskly. “Are you ready for your tour?”

  Tweedy? Really? Jonah lifted his brows.

  Ignoring this, Irene addressed the other two women in the room. “Mr. Tweedy is the parent of a potential student.”

  After everyone had spoken the proper polite words, Irene escorted Jonah from the parlor. She marched him up one corridor and down another, past classrooms where girls in blue uniform gowns were squaring away papers and quills for the day.

  The academy was everything one would expect from an elite girls’ school. It was large, clean, orderly. Elegant, but a bit spare.

  Except for the walls. Every wall was a riot of color contained within gold frames. There were oil paintings, watercolors, needlework so elaborate it seemed to take on three dimensions. A hand-drawn map of Europe was delicately labeled and tinted.

  He slowed to study the pieces as they walked along, and Irene halted her brisk step to wait for him. “Students’ work. It’s good, isn’t it?”

  “It’s wonderful,” Jonah said truthfully. “The girls must learn a lot here. It’s not only in your special missions that you shape the world.”

  She looked pleased, her stiffness ebbing. “Thanks.”

  “Don’t you mean, ‘Thanks, Mr. Tweedy’?”

  Irene laughed. “As I finished a meeting with the headmistress, the butler peeked in to tell me I had a caller. When Hobbes said the man was big and grumbly looking, I was sure it was you.”

  “I thought you’d sort it out.” Jonah tried not to appear grumbly looking, whatever that was. “I didn’t know what na
me you’d want me to give, so I didn’t give one.”

  “I don’t know either. I’m Mrs. Chalmers here—”

  “I know.”

  “—and a widow.”

  “I know,” he grumbled, forgetting his good intentions. “It’s fine. Since you’ve already killed me off, call me whatever you like.”

  She tilted her head. “So agreeable. Is everything all right?”

  “Everything is fine. I brought your purse. I didn’t know when you’d be back, and I thought you might want it.”

  He handed it over, and she thanked him. “I wished I’d had it this morning,” she said. “Let me stow it in my chamber.”

  A few more steps down the corridor, and she unlocked a plain wooden door.

  The chamber into which she showed Jonah was small and tidy. A pen drawing of the academy hung on the wall over one bed, and a watercolor of a group of women hung over the other. A chair held a riotous stack of embroidered cushions.

  “Gifts from students,” said Irene. “Want to sit? I can toss them out of the way.”

  “No need. This is a call of business, isn’t it?”

  “Because you brought my purse?”

  “Because I’m a parent of a potential student. I’m interviewing a teacher. I’m thinking about having my fictional daughter attend here.”

  The notion of a daughter made him a little melancholy. He’d love to have a daughter with wide brown eyes and curling black hair and Irene’s little dimple.

  He covered this thought by adding lightly, “You said you needed your purse this morning. What happened?”

  She was rummaging through a desk drawer. “Aha.” She’d lifted up a part of the drawer. “It always takes me a moment to pop up the false bottom. We’re rather fond of our security measures here.” Stuffing the purse into the secret area of the desk, she snapped the compartment closed again and slid the drawer back into place.

  “I didn’t have any money to give a street sweeper. He was so small, and he told me I reminded him of his mum. So I told him he ought to apply to the Chandler town house for a job.”

  She and her mother, both desperate to rescue. Irene didn’t see the similarity between them, but to Jonah, it was unmistakable. And a boy was a devil of a lot more trouble than a handful of silk scraps and papers. He should know. He’d been one.

  “Are you going to send me a stray every day?”

  “And more often, if need be.”

  Jonah sighed. “It’s going to be a full house in a hurry.”

  “What if it is?” She blinked at him. “Do you think I shouldn’t help when I can?”

  He chose his words carefully. “I think you could share the burden. Entrust it, sometimes, to someone else.”

  “I have. I’ve entrusted the boy to you.”

  He shook his head, but he felt a smile tug at his lips.

  She began sorting through papers and maps from a neat stack on a writing desk, and Jonah trailed around the room, taking in details. The wardrobe. The shelf for hats. The vanity with a scattering of belongings. The two beds, each made neatly with bedclothes that looked as warm and comforting as a bran mash was to a horse.

  The writing desk was probably the very surface on which she wrote her letters to him, each one a test. Would he respond? Would he come to meet her for a rare interlude when summoned, dutiful?

  He wasn’t dutiful anymore. He’d grown too greedy for that. Greedy for more of her, for the sight of her, the sound of her voice. The scent of her hair. The taste of her lips. When they had only hours together, they all but leaped into each other’s arms. Now, with the promise of weeks and months and years, they had hardly kissed a greeting.

  “Oh!” She held up a large, flat volume. “Here’s a book for Laurie, from the library here. Can you take it to him? He gets it for two weeks.” After handing that to Jonah, she snatched up a few papers from one of the beds. “These are for him too. He asked a whole flock of geometry questions of my chamber-mate, and here are her answers.”

  “I can take them. But if I’m your errand boy, I ought to have a tip.”

  She held out her palm, from which a silver coin winked.

  “Damnation. Quit picking my pocket.”

  She dimpled at him. “Was that not the sort of tip you had in mind?”

  “You know it wasn’t. But if you won’t be coaxed into kissing me, I’ve need of your help.”

  “Finding your mysterious young half-sister?”

  “Her mother, rather. My father sent along a drawing of the girl’s mother. She’s the only one who knows where the daughter is located.”

  He pulled a creased pencil sketch from his coat pocket, handed it to Irene, and replaced the drawing with the sheaf of papers for Laurie. The book, he dropped onto the bedcovers.

  “The mother’s name is Anne Jones, if that helps,” Jonah explained. “According to my father, she has a talent for crime and intrigue.”

  “I’ve never heard the name.” Irene unfolded the paper. Blinked. “This is the woman? The woman who had your father’s love child?”

  “It’s not a perfect likeness.” Really, Jonah thought the drawing could be of almost any white woman around the age of forty. “My sister-in-law Rosalind used to work for her and drew it, and Rosalind’s not much of an artist.”

  “Rosalind.” Irene bit her lip. “All right. Who else in your family has met this woman?”

  “My father, of course. My brother, Nathaniel. Both of them are even worse with a pen and paper than Rosalind is. And Rosalind’s entire family, which is a houseful of siblings and the two parents.”

  “I see.” Irene folded the drawing again. “Is there another copy?”

  “No, this is it until Rosalind draws another. Will you show this drawing about? Your headmistress might know this woman. Maybe the girl even attends this school. Maybe she’s one of your students.” He warmed to the subject, rather pleased with the idea.

  “I doubt she’s at school here.” Again, Irene cracked open the desk’s secret compartment, then tucked the paper inside. “What will your father do if he locates the girl?”

  “Give her money, I believe, so her future is secure.”

  “But she doesn’t know him. You said she thinks the people raising her are her parents.”

  Jonah had to think about that. “You’re right. He shouldn’t blunder in and upend her life. If you find her, he’ll have to pose as a distant uncle or cousin of some sort.”

  This satisfied Irene, for she snapped the drawer shut with a decided click. “Very well. I’ll find out something for you.”

  And Jonah realized what he’d done. “I’ve told you I wanted to share your burdens, but now I’ve given you another. That’s not right.”

  She patted the top of the desk. “It is. We’d talked about it, and I want this one. I have a reason.”

  “May I know it?”

  She pursed her lips, thinking, then shook her head. “Not yet. If I’m right, I’ll be able to tell you soon.”

  “Do all the teachers here have special skills like you?”

  “Not all. Some truly do only teach. But we all have our reasons for being here.” She looked bleak. “We all have someone we’re hiding from.”

  Her father, Jonah had once assumed. Now he wondered if she was hiding from him too, from the staid life he represented.

  Maybe he should remind her of what he had to offer.

  He bent his head to her neck, then pressed his lips to the delicate skin. He breathed her in, warm and sweet, drawing the kiss upward to just below her ear. With a gentle graze, he caught her earlobe in his teeth.

  She pulled away. “Don’t. Please. I’ve had a horrid day, and I’d rather hit something than kiss you.”

  He stepped back, surprised. “You seemed fine when you met Mr. Tweedy.”

  “I’ve got skilled at hiding it. The trouble was this morning, and I had hours left to teach. But Mrs. Brodie was…good.”

  This was the sort of short, inadequate word that Jonah was far mo
re prone to use than Irene. “What does good mean in this sense? I would like to be good too.”

  Briefly, in a toneless voice that revealed more pain than tears would have, Irene recounted the questions and doubts a wealthy student had expressed that morning.

  “Mrs. Brodie overheard, and when we spoke in her office after classes today, she listened to me. She didn’t try to tell me that I hadn’t been hurt, and she didn’t excuse the girl’s rudeness. I did that myself.”

  “Irene.” He folded her hand in his, not knowing what to say.

  She blinked, her voice tight with suppressed feeling. “I have to swallow this pain, and it’s like a tiny stab every time. Not enough to make me bleed if it only happens once, but…”

  “It happens all the time,” Jonah realized. “I’m sorry. I wish I could shield you.”

  Now a smile, but a sad one. “You married me. That’s a shield. Best of all is”—she hesitated—“that you’ve let me live as I wish. The law says you’ve the right to control me.”

  “Damn the law,” he said calmly. “The love of a wife I controlled wouldn’t mean anything.”

  Her fingers were so capable, strong in his grasp. But just now they were cold, trembling.

  “I should always stand up for you,” he said. “Demand respect for you. Is there more?”

  “If you could get that for me, that would be enough.”

  It cost her so much to admit, he guessed, and cost him nothing at all to agree. Somehow, he was still taking from her. Somehow, she was still his comfort. “I want to.”

  Irene drew back her hand, folding her arms protectively about her heart. “Why don’t you see me as others do?”

  It was a fair question, and one he wanted to answer no more than she’d wanted to face the snobbery of her own student. Had he lived at the heart of London Society, she could have found no place at his side. Her birth was unimpressive, her fortune meager.

  These were far greater trespasses against the goodwill of the ton than the color of her skin—which was uncommon enough to draw second glances, but hardly unprecedented and certainly no scandal. Had she been an heiress, biddable and sweet, she might have had her choice of fortune hunters and fops.