A Wanton Indiscretion (Wild Wicked and Wanton Book 5) Page 3

  “It wasn’t your fault. No one had taken the time to properly teach you. Those teachers had prejudice against you. They developed those opinions before they even met you. They listened to gossip about you, thoughtless words from people who never bothered to learn the truth of your situation.”

  “Everyone still believes the gossip.”

  “That’s only because you haven’t been in society yet. You will prove them all wrong. You must remember all the progress you and I have made.”

  “The only reason I have made any progress, slow as molasses, is that you have worked so hard to make things easy for me, to make all the tedium more interesting.”

  “I have done the job any teacher should. Perhaps you would do better with someone more versed in the social gra—”

  Miss Cathy jerked her head around to face Abigail more fully. “Don’t say it! Don’t. What do I care about your social status or where you come from? None of those other governesses would stay. You have. But I fear that even you will soon have lost patience!”

  Tears began to fall from the girl’s eyes, and she jumped to her feet and stormed out of the chamber.

  Abigail walked to the empty window seat and sank upon it. There would be no further lessons today. When Miss Cathy got overset, it would typically last all day. Cathy’s father had turned down inquiries for the girl’s hand in marriage because he felt she wasn’t emotionally ready. Abigail knew that he was correct, without a bit of disrespect for the girl in her heart.

  Cathy was different.

  Abigail had heard the story several times. When Cathy had been eight and her brother, Edmund, had been nine, the family had been visiting relatives in the South. There had been a terrible storm and an ancient tree had crashed through the wall in the chamber where the children were seated, Edmund playing cards with his sister to distract her from her fear of the howling winds. Edmund had been taken instantly. Cathy had suffered a blow to the head so dreadful that her coffin had been made, and her white silk burial gown trimmed in dainty white velvet primroses and lavish amounts of lace had been hastily sewn and hung waiting in the wardrobe.

  Yet the days had passed, and she managed to cling to life.

  Cathy had been slow to recover, mentally and physically. Even now, there were some lingering effects. Sometimes she tired easily. Sometimes it was hard for her to adequately follow the conversation when conversing in a group of people. When the weather changed, sometimes she suffered with sick headaches. Many people thought that marriage and motherhood would simply be too much for her. Some people whispered that Cathy had suffered some permanent damage to her mental abilities. But Abigail knew better. She’d been entrusted with this position because of her experience and training in how to help those who had taken blows to the head.

  Daily walks and slow, steady exercises had improved her balance and increased Cathy’s stamina to some degree. The same slow and steady approach had overcome the neglect of Cathy’s education. She could read and do math as well as any other New England young lady, this Abigail would wager her whole savings on. Now that Cathy had made such hard-won progress with her physicality and academic studies, she could still become easily overwhelmed with strong emotions. Abigail believed some of this anxiety came from actual damage from the trauma, but some was exacerbated because Cathy had been sheltered and had her abilities doubted and so she lacked confidence in her dealings with people outside her family. It was difficult to sort out how much belonged to either cause. But Abigail knew that Cathy possessed the ability to use her rationality to better cope with the times she became overwhelmed. Her girl was resourceful and strong. And Abigail worked with all her ability to teach the young woman how to behave with composure and self-discipline. To be a lady equal to any other.

  And over the past three years, Abigail had seen the light of hope grow in Cathy’s parents’ eyes. They now believed that marriage and motherhood could be a part of Cathy’s future.

  Within the next year or so, it would be time to let Cathy out of the schoolroom and test everyone’s hopes.

  The sound of the door opening brought Abigail out of her thoughts. Cathy stood there, with slightly reddened eyes. “Forgive me, I should not have left as I did.”

  “You were overset.” Abigail waited, giving Cathy space to speak.

  “So I was. But I remembered what we’ve worked on. I sat on my bed and focused on slowing my breathing. I tried to focus on what seemed most pressing, most confounding to me.”

  “And what was that?”

  “I am afraid.”

  “Afraid of what?”

  “I am afraid of never finding a husband who will accept me, as I am.”

  Abigail’s chest tightened. She didn’t want to face the self-reproach, but she forced herself to it. She’d been a bad teacher. She owed Cathy nothing less than honesty. “I am sorry, Miss Cathy, I behaved in a thoughtless manner. I sought to motivate you to be more serious about your studies. Instead, I made you afraid by speaking of your future husband in such provoking terms.”

  Cathy hugged herself and looked at the floor. “I was the one being provoking.” She paused and took several deep breaths. “About Mr. Pierce.”

  Abigail’s heart swelled at Cathy’s honesty in response to her own. “Let us place the whole matter behind us.”

  “I think that’s for the best.” Cathy nodded, rapidly, her expression easing.

  “And I think it best that we both forget about Mr. Pierce and go about our lesson,” Abigail said, more to herself than Cathy.

  Chapter Three

  A soft knock upon the door awoke Abigail. Dragging her head from the pillow, she called out. “Come in.”

  The door opened and Cathy’s white nightgown glowed in the light of her candle as she glided over to the bedside table and placed it there. Wishing only to go back to sleep, Abigail pulled herself up to prop against the overstuffed pillows then she pulled the covers back. She motioned to the place beside her, but she needn’t have; Cathy was already pouncing on the bed then huddling under the covers. “It is chilly in the corridors tonight.”

  “What is on your mind?” Abigail asked. This was not an uncommon occurrence. Cathy occasionally behaved as one might expect a girl a couple of years younger to act, though it was more often during a thunderstorm, which reminded her of the initial accident that had taken her brother’s life and caused her such injury. Or if she were unwell, she might come here for comforting. It wasn’t her fault; she’d been unduly sheltered. Her parents had meant the best, but they had not allowed Cathy to grow and learn. Yet, then as she grew to be fourteen, her parents suddenly became impatient with her and wouldn’t comfort her fears or help her cope with the questions about life and growing up that were natural for any young lady. They had coddled her, sheltered her from her peers and then later expected her to just naturally know how to be the same as those other young ladies. As though those things came from some instinct and not from interactions and proper parenting.

  Now Cathy was trying to catch up to her peers, all on her own with no map to follow, all at once and with the characteristic impatience of an adolescent. And anyone who cared for an adolescent must be open to listening at any time. Rubbing her eyes, Abigail struggled to awaken.

  “I don’t want my husband to be ashamed of me.” Cathy spoke quickly, her agitation apparent.

  “What?” Abigail suppressed a yawn.

  “My future husband, I want to be worthy of his love.”

  “Oh, my darling,” Abigail said, sleepily. “I was wrong to speak as I did today. Better we should worry about you finding a husband who is worthy of your love.”

  “I don’t want to be like Juliana de Lange.” Cathy’s voice dripped with scorn on the last words.

  “Who?”

  “Cousin Grey’s wife.”

  “Oh, of course…” Head buzzing with an odd mix of not wanting to acknowledge what she’d just heard and a surge of what must be anger, Abigail realized with some shock, the reaction was—good heavens, jealousy.

  “She was terribly beautiful. Dark-eyed and dark-haired, just like you.”

  “Was she?” That odd buzz grew a bit more intense. Abigail became aware that she was experiencing an intense emotional state. But one totally out of proportion to current conversation. What did it matter what this woman’s name was or if… “Like me?”

  Even her voice did not sound like her own. She sounded defensive. Hostile.

  And she had not meant to.

  “Oh no,” Cathy spoke hastily, “Not like you, not really. I’ve seen her portrait. Cousin Jan keeps it at his mansion in the country. Cousin Grey cannot deny his son that mark of affection and respect for his own mother. She was dark haired, dark eyed like you, but cold looking. And she was not anywhere near as clever.”

  “Wasn’t she?” How ridiculous, Abigail comparing notes with this unknown woman, as though they were in competition.

  “Juliana was so unwise. Mama said she would never have caught the Sexton scion if she hadn’t got to him before he was dry behind the ears.”

  “Wet behind the ears?” Abigail asked. Sometimes Cathy reversed her words, unintentionally.

  Cathy nodded, with a smile and a wink. Then she continued, “He was only nineteen and she was several years older. Some whispered that she needed a fuller skirt to be married in than she ought.”

  “That’s not so uncommon.” Abigail remembered who she was speaking with. “Not that it is right. A woman takes a terrible chance when she trusts a man enough to be intimate with him before the wedding day, no matter if they are engaged or not.”

  “They were never engaged. They were wed suddenly without fanfare.”

  “Well, then she was a foolish woman. She might have lost all.”

  “Yes, Juliana d
e Lange …we always call her by her maiden name. That’s how much everyone in our family feels that Cousin Grey should never have married her. She was a foolish woman. Papa said that Grey grew to despise her foolishness.”

  “I am sure she had her good sides.” Abigail knew she should not pry into her benefactor’s past. And she was definitely not in any competition with the deceased woman. Or jealous of her in any measure of the word.

  “She behaved as a harlot does.”

  “Miss Cathy,” Abigail chided. “You should not use such common, vulgar language. Nor unjustly call someone such an ugly name.”

  “Well, Mama said so once,” Cathy said, defensively.

  “Your mama used such a word, within your hearing?” Abigail blurted, more loudly than she intended. But she was shocked. Mrs. de Grijs was the consummate New York lady.

  “She was speaking with Papa in the carriage. They were speaking softly. They thought I was asleep.”

  Cathy often became lightheaded and sleepy in the carriage.

  “It is not for us to judge,” Abigail said, forcing the words out for she wanted nothing more than for Cathy to go on talking. But she knew it was wrong. Had she ever been so torn in a moment? Was it rational to want to know so much about a woman who meant nothing to her? Juliana de Lange. The name sounded so elegant, so feminine.

  “She closed her bedchamber door to him and then she played the flirt with so many men. A legion of them!” Cathy’s eyes were wide in the candlelight.

  “I am sure it couldn’t possibly be as dreadful as that.”

  “I am sure it was. Grey fought duel after duel with her lovers.”

  “Goodness.” Abigail couldn’t picture her cool, controlled benefactor ever being so bellicose.

  “He was forced to do that. He couldn’t allow an insult like that to his honor. He would lose his reputation and that could affect his ability to engage in business dealings. Or so Papa said.”

  “Usually he de-de…” Cathy stumbled over the word.

  “Deloped,” Abigail finished for her.

  “Yes, that’s it, deloped. But honor was served.” Miss Cathy’s expression turned somber. “But eventually, the faithless Juliana managed to get a man maimed.”

  “Mr. Sexton maimed a man?”

  Cathy nodded, gravely. “Only one thing is strange.”

  “What is that?”

  “He never challenged Mr. Pierce. Or, at least, there was never any gossip about it.”

  “Why ever not?”

  “No one knows.”

  The clock began striking in the distance. Once, twice.

  “You better go and find your bed again. It will soon be morning and I will not be lenient about your studies tomorrow.” Abigail gave Cathy a small push.

  Cathy sighed, dramatically. “Couldn’t we start just an hour later?”

  She had such a woebegone expression, that Abigail suppressed a smile. “All right, one hour. But we shall have to work through tea to make up the difference. And you must hurry and promise you will get right into bed and straight to sleep. No reading those dreadful little novels you keep in your night table.”

  “Fair enough,” Cathy said, bounding off the bed, snatching up her candle and scurrying out of the chamber.

  * * *

  Abigail watched the door close and sat in the darkness. No longer sleepy.

  Mr. Isaac Pierce had carried on a grande passion with a woman that Cathy said looked like her.

  It should not matter a whit to her.

  Yet, she found her blood heating and her thoughts turning to that moment yesterday when his emerald gaze had held hers. Spellbound.

  She shook herself. She was not a woman who became spellbound by anything or anyone. Especially not some scoundrel pretending to be a gentleman.

  She forced her mind to focus on the rather shocking revelations about Mr. Sexton. Though he was curt and stern, she had never feared him. Instead, she had admired his stoicism and self-control and thought him a good model of rational behavior that she ought to reflect in her own behavior, albeit she might reflect a more feminine version. Now she wondered at her own perceptions and impressions. Added to her unprecedented reaction to Mr. Pierce over the past few days, she wondered if she understood the world at all. Or herself.

  Or her place in it.

  Her mind drifted back to her one, great misstep. The one she made when she was young, filled with too much desperation and almost no true understanding of the world.

  She had taken the only job she believed she was experienced for, serving drinks in a tavern. It was one of the better taverns on the wharf and she’d felt safer about that.

  On her first night, she and a group of other barmaids, some older, some very young like herself, had been taken to a backroom, an elegant parlor, decorated in lush red tones, where five gentlemen were lounging about smoking and laughing.

  One of the gentlemen was more intoxicated than the others and he hooked a hand into her bodice. The backs of his rough, icy fingers scrapped the tender flesh of her breast. She gasped then gagged against the bile that rose in her throat and she pushed, hard against his hold. But she couldn’t match his strength and he tugged hard; the loud rip had sent her heart pounding. The way his eyes lit with arousal and the men around him cheered with approval made her throat as dry as cotton.

  Panicked, she screamed and screamed as she continued to attempt to push away but his grip was like iron, his breath hot on her neck. She’d been raised in a settlement full of God-fearing, hardworking people in Ohio. She’d never been attacked. Never been in this kind of danger before. Even in the slum, people had feared her stepfather’s physical prowess, his willingness to put up his fists or his pistols to answer any sort of offense to himself or his family, real or imagined. She’d always been protected. She had never had to fight anyone in her life. Violence appalled her.

  The man was touching her breasts, nibbling at her neck. Sheer fear outweighed the revulsion and she screamed and fought all the harder, clawing, pushing, twisting.

  “Can’t keep a hold of her?” One of the others said.

  “I’ll show you how to handle a filly like that!”

  “Knee ‘em!” Cried one of the older barmaids, her voice full of vulgar hilarity. “Knee ‘em in the ballocks!”

  Abigail obeyed and, on the second try, hit her mark. The man cried out and released her.

  Tears streaming down her face, she bolted from the chamber and ran down the corridor.

  “Stop! Damn you, little gutter slut …stop!”

  She glanced over her shoulder and saw both the outraged man and the owner coming for her.

  “Damn you little bedraggled little whore! Don’t you dare defy me! I already paid you!”

  But they were middle-aged, portly men, perhaps used to sitting around the tables drinking and playing cards. And she was used to daily labor; lean and strong and young, she ran faster.

  She laid her hands on the rear exit door and found it chained closed. She put her back to the door as the owner rounded on her, catching up now. She prepared to fight tooth and nail if she must.

  “I’ll have the watch on you!” the owner cried.

  Knowing better now how to protect herself, she kicked his groin. His cry of pain rang in her ears as she flew back down the corridor towards the public areas. The common room was crowded. With no clear path to the front door, she ran this way and that, colliding with man after man.

  They jeered at her. Made crude remarks about her person. Grabbed her in places no one should. But no one tried to detain her. Tears continued to stream down her face. Her hand grew numb from holding her torn bodice to herself.

  “I’ll get the watch on you!” The owner’s voice carried above the others.

  Laughter rumbled through the room.

  Somehow, he had made it to the door before her and stood there waiting for her. She cried out, turned around and scrambled around the packed chamber, desperately seeking some other exit and ran down another corridor.

  The owner was gaining on her again and, desperate for escape, she turned to the nearest door and jerked it open. Three gentlemen sat around a table strewn with newspapers, some in foreign languages. She took in all the sights, her mind sharper than ever. From fear? She didn’t know, but every detail of those moments burned itself into her mind.