She tossed back the blankets and climbed out of the bed, sliding her spectacles over her bleary eyes. After Gabriel had sent her away, she had spent the rest of the night huddled in a miserable knot, convinced she had been a fool to leave him in that state. She had finally drifted into a dreamless sleep near dawn, the victim of sheer exhaustion.
Slipping into her dressing gown, she opened the door a crack.
Although Beckwith looked as if he, too, had spent a restless night, his bloodshot eyes were twinkling with good humor. “Forgive me for disturbing you, miss, but the master wishes to see you in the library. At your convenience, of course.”
Samantha arched a skeptical eyebrow. Her convenience certainly wasn’t something Gabriel had ever troubled himself about before. “Very well, Beckwith. Tell him I’ll be down shortly.”
She washed and dressed with more care than usual, pawing through her limited wardrobe for something that wasn’t gray, black, or brown. She was finally forced to settle for a high-waisted morning gown cut from somber blue velvet. She painstakingly wove a matching ribbon through the tight coil of her chignon. It wasn’t until she caught herself leaning over to peer into the dressing table mirror so she could spit-curl a loose tendril of hair around her finger that she realized how ridiculous she was being. After all, it wasn’t as if Gabriel could appreciate her efforts.
Shaking her head at her reflection, she hurried to the door. Only to rush back to the dressing table five seconds later to dab some lemon verbena behind each ear and in the hollow of her throat.
Samantha hesitated outside the library door, her stomach beset by a most curious fluttering. It took her a minute to identify the foreign emotion as shyness. She was being ridiculous, she told herself. She and Gabriel had shared a drunken kiss, nothing more. It wasn’t as if every time she looked at his mouth, she would be remembering the way it had felt on hers—the commanding way his lips had molded hers beneath them, the smoky heat of his tongue plundering…
The clock on the landing began to chime ten o’clock, jerking her out of her reverie. Smoothing her skirt, Samantha gave the door a forceful knock.
“Enter.”
Obeying the curt command, she opened the door to find Gabriel sitting behind the desk, just as he had been the night before. But this time, there was no empty glass, no bottle of scotch, and mercifully, no weapon more lethal than a letter opener.
“Good morning, my lord,” she said, slipping into the room. “I’m gratified to see that you’re still among the living.”
Gabriel rubbed his brow with the heel of his hand. “I wish to God that I wasn’t. Then at least this infernal pounding in my head would cease.”
Closer inspection revealed that he hadn’t escaped the events of the night unscathed. Although he’d changed into fresh garments, dark gold stubble shaded his jaw. The skin around his scar looked pinched and white and the shadows beneath his eyes deeper than usual.
His laconic grace of last night had vanished, leaving in its place a rigid posture, which seemed to owe less to formality than to the obvious discomfort he was suffering every time he moved his head.
“Please sit.” As she seated herself, he said, “I’m sorry to have summoned you so abruptly. I realize I must have interrupted your packing.”
Puzzled, she opened her mouth, but before she could get anything out, he continued, his long fingers toying with the brass handle of the letter opener. “I can’t blame you for leaving, of course. My behavior last night was reprehensible. I’d like to blame it on the liquor, but I’m afraid my ill temper and bad judgement must bear equal responsibility. However it might have appeared, I can assure you that I’m not in the habit of forcing my attentions on the female servants of my household.”
Samantha felt a curious pang in the vicinity of her heart. She had almost allowed herself to forget that was all she was to him—a servant. “Are you entirely certain about that, my lord? I do believe I’ve heard Mrs. Philpot mention an incident with a certain young chambermaid on the back stairs…”
Gabriel whipped his head toward her, wincing as he did so. “I was barely fourteen when that happened! And as I recall, Musette was the one who cornered me…” He trailed off, his eyes narrowing as he realized she had deliberately provoked him.
“You can put your conscience at ease, my lord,” she assured him, adjusting her spectacles. “I’m not some love-starved spinster who believes every man she meets is out to ravish her. Nor am I some moonstruck debutante swooning over a stolen kiss.”
Although Gabriel’s expression sharpened, he held his tongue.
“As far as I’m concerned,” she said with an airiness she was far from feeling, “we can both pretend your little indiscretion never happened. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” she said, rising from the chair. “Unless you’ve found some other reason to send me packing, I have several—”
“I want you to stay,” he blurted out.
“Pardon me?”
“I want you to stay,” he repeated. “You claim you used to be a governess. Well, I want you to teach me.”
“Teach you what, my lord? Although your manners might lack a certain polish, as far as I can tell, you’re quite proficient in your letters and your numbers.”
“I want you to teach me how to go on living like this.” He lifted both hands, palms upward, revealing their faint tremble. “I want you to teach me how to be blind.”
Samantha sank back down in the chair. Gabriel Fairchild was not a man to beg. Yet he’d just bared both his pride and his soul to her. For a long moment, she couldn’t speak at all.
Mistaking her hesitation for skepticism, he said, “I can’t promise to be the most agreeable of students, but I’ll strive to be the most able.” His hands curled into fists. “Given my recent conduct, I realize I have no right to ask this of you, but—”
“I’ll do it,” she said softly.
“You will?”
“I will. But I should warn you that I can be a very stern taskmaster. If you don’t cooperate, you can expect a sound scolding.”
A ghost of a smile skirted his lips. “What, no caning?”
“Only if you’re impertinent.” She rose again. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some lessons to plan.”
She was almost to the door when Gabriel spoke again, his voice gruff. “About last night?”
She turned, almost grateful that he couldn’t see the spark of hope in her eyes. “Yes?”
His ravaged countenance was as devoid of mockery as she had ever seen it. “I promise you such a regrettable lapse in judgment will never happen again.”
Although Samantha felt her treacherous stomach dive toward her shoes, she struggled to inject a lighthearted smile into her voice. “Very good, my lord. I’m sure Mrs. Philpot and all of the maids will sleep more soundly in their beds tonight.”
That afternoon it was Samantha’s turn to summon Gabriel. She deliberately chose the sunny drawing room for their first lesson, believing its spacious open areas would best suit her plans. A beaming Beckwith ushered Gabriel into the room, then backed toward the door, bowing all the way. As he drew the doors closed, Samantha would have almost sworn the butler winked at her, although she knew that if pressed, he would swear he simply had a speck of soot in his eye.
“Good afternoon, my lord. I thought we’d begin our lessons with this.” Stepping forward, Samantha pressed the object she was holding into Gabriel’s hand.
“What is it?” He held the object gingerly between two fingers, as if she just might be inclined to hand him a garden snake.
“It’s one of your old walking sticks. And a very elegant one, I should say.”
As Gabriel’s graceful fingers explored the handsome lion’s head carved into the cane’s ivory handle, his suspicious scowl deepened. “What good is a walking stick when I can’t see where I’m walking?”
“That’s precisely my point. It has occurred to me that if you ever hope to stop blundering about the house like a waltzing bear, you need to k
now what’s infront of you before you crash into it.”
His expression growing more thoughtful, Gabriel lifted the cane and swept it in a wide arc. Samantha ducked as it whistled past her ear. “Not like that! This isn’t a sword fight!”
“If it was, I might stand a sporting chance.”
“Only if your opponent was also blind.” Sighing with exasperation, Samantha moved behind him. Reaching around, she closed her fingers over his until they were both firmly gripping the cane’s carved head. She lowered its tip to floor level, then began to guide his arm into a gentle arc. “That’s it. Just swing it slowly. Back and forth. To and fro.”
Lulled by her hypnotic, singsong tone, their bodies swayed in time as if to the rhythm of some primitive dance. Samantha was seized by an absurd notion to press her cheek to the back of his shirt. He smelled so warm and deliciously male, like a glade of sun-warmed pines on a lazy summer afternoon.
“Um…Miss Wickersham?”
“Hmmmm?” she responded, still lost in her dreamy reverie.
Gabriel’s voice shook with barely suppressed amusement. “If this is a walking stick, shouldn’t we be walking?”
“Oh! Of course we should!” Jerking away from him, she smoothed a strand of hair away from her burning cheek. “I mean, of course you should. If you’ll step right over here to the corner, I’ve devised a set of paths and obstacles where you can practice your skills.”
Without thinking, she seized him by the forearm. Gabriel stiffened, resistance coiled in every muscle. She tugged, but his boots showed no sign of budging. Samantha realized it was the first time she’d ever tried to lead him anywhere. Even when Beckwith escorted him around the house, the butler never actually dared to touch him unless it was to briefly point him toward his desired direction.
She waited for him to shake away her hand, to bark that he wouldn’t tolerate being led about like some sort of helpless child. But after a moment, she felt the tension begin to melt away beneath her firm, but gentle, grip. Although his reluctance was still palpable, when she moved, he moved with her.
With Peter and Phillip’s help, she had arranged a pair of Grecian sofas, three chairs, and two ottomans into a grouping that closely approximated a cluttered parlor. Interspersed throughout that grouping were two or three occasional tables and twin Doric pedestals bearing the marble likenesses of Athena, the goddess of wisdom, and Diana, the goddess of the hunt. Samantha had even arranged a few china figurines and other breakables on the tables, believing that Gabriel needed to learn to navigate his way around small obstacles as well as large ones.
She positioned him at the mouth of her design. “This is really quite simple. All you have to do is use the walking stick to make your way to the other side of the drawing room.”
He scowled straight ahead. “If I don’t succeed, are you going to cane me with it?”
“Only if you don’t keep a civil tongue in your head.”
Although Samantha forced herself to step away from him, she could not stop her hands from making helpless little fluttering motions around his shoulders.
Instead of sweeping, Gabriel thrust the walking stick forward in more of a poking motion. As the cane glanced off the first pedestal, the smirking bust atop it began to teeter. Samantha rushed forward, catching Diana before she could go crashing to the floor.
Staggering beneath the bust’s weight, she said, “That was a fine first effort! But you might try just a tad bit more subtlety. Try to think of it as one of the topiary mazes at Vauxhall,” she urged, referring to the legendary pleasure gardens in London. “You wouldn’t just go stabbing your way through one of those, would you?”
“Usually when a gentleman is successful in navigating a maze, there’s some sort of reward waiting for him at its center.”
Samantha laughed. “Theseus found only the Minotaur waiting for him.”
“Ah, but the young warrior’s boldness and courage in defeating the beast won Princess Ariadne’s heart.”
“He never would have dared to be so bold if the clever girl hadn’t given him an enchanted sword and a ball of thread he could follow to the exit,” she reminded him. “If you were Theseus, just what sort of reward would you fancy?”
A kiss.
The answer rose unbidden to Gabriel’s lips, setting his nerves even more on edge. He was already beginning to regret the noble promise he had made that morning. If only his nurse’s husky courtesan’s laugh wasn’t so at odds with her prim demeanor…
Perhaps it was just as well he couldn’t see. If he could see her lips, he would constantly be thinking of how sweet they had tasted beneath his.
He had already wasted an inordinate amount of his morning wondering what color they were. Were they a tender pink, like the inside of some delicate seashell half buried in the sugary sand? Were they the dusky rose of a bloom growing wild on a windswept moor? Or were they the lush coral of some exotic island fruit that made your tongue and your senses sing with pleasure? And what difference did their hue make when he already knew they were deliciously plump— perfectly fashioned for the pleasures of kissing?
“I know what your reward will be!” she exclaimed when he made no reply. “If you practice with enough diligence, you’ll soon be so proficient you’ll no longer have any need of me.”
Although Gabriel acknowledged her jest with a grudging smile, he was beginning to wonder if that day would ever come.
Samantha came to him in the night. He no longer required light or color, only sensation: the lemony sweetness of her fragrance, the sleek tumble of her unbound hair gliding like raw silk over his naked chest, her throaty whimper as she nestled the softness of her body against him.
He groaned as she nuzzled his ear, boldly touched her tongue to his lips, the curve of his jaw…the tip of his nose. Her warm breath tickled his face, smelling of musty earth, overripe beef, and moldy stockings hung over a fire to dry
“What the—” Springing awake, Gabriel shoved the furry muzzle away from his face.
He sat up, scrubbing desperately at his lips with the back of his hand. It took his desire-and-sleep-fogged brain several seconds to absorb the fact that it wasn’t night, but morning, and the exuberant creature frolicking in his bed was most definitely not his nurse.
“Why, look at that!” Samantha exclaimed from somewhere near the foot of the bed, her voice brimming with pride. “The two of you have barely been introduced and he’s already taken a liking to you!”
“What in the devil is it?” Gabriel demanded, trying to get a grip on the thing. “A kangaroo?” He let out a muffled oomph as the interloper bounced across his aching groin.
Samantha laughed. “Don’t be silly! He’s a charming little collie. I was walking past your gamekeeper’s cottage yesterday evening when he came trotting out to greet me. I decided he’d be just perfect.”
“For what?” Gabriel said darkly, struggling to keep the squirming creature at arm’s length. “Sunday luncheon?”
“I should say not!” Samantha whisked the beast away from him. From the crooning that ensued, he gathered that she was actually cuddling the little monster in her arms. “Him is no wuncheon, is he? Not our pwecious wittle fewwow.”
Collapsing against the pillows, Gabriel shook his head in disbelief. Who would have thought his nurse’s acid-tipped tongue was capable of spouting such drivel? At least he didn’t have to watch her stroke the creature’s squirming belly or, worse yet, rub noses with it. The emotion seething through him was so foreign it took him a minute to identify it. He was jealous! Jealous of some mangy mongrel with coarse fur and the breath of a three-day-old corpse.
“Careful there,” Gabriel warned as the clucking and kissing noises continued. “He might give you fleas. Or the French pox,” he muttered under his breath.
“You needn’t worry about fleas. I had Peter and Phillip bathe him in one of Meg’s old wash-tubs out in the yard.”
“Which is where he should have stayed, as far as I’m concerned.”
&nbs
p; “But then you would have been deprived of his company. When I was a little girl, we once lived next door to an old gentleman who had lost his sight. He kept this small terrier who was his constant companion. When his footmen escorted him on a stroll, the terrier would always trot ahead on his jeweled leash and lead him around the uneven bricks and the mud puddles. If a hot coal tumbled out of the hearth and onto the rug, the dog would bark to alert the servants.” As if on cue, the pup in her arms let out a shrill bark.
Gabriel winced. “How devilishly clever. Although I think burning to death in one’s bed might have been preferable. Did the poor gent end up deaf as well as blind?”
“I’ll have you know that dog was a loyal friend to him, a boon companion until the day the old man died. His underfootman told our upstairs maid that after they interred the old fellow, the poor dog spent days sitting outside of the family crypt, waiting for his beloved master to return.” Her voice was muffled for a minute, as if she’d buried that luscious mouth of hers in the dog’s fur. “Isn’t that the most touching story you’ve ever heard?”
Gabriel was more intrigued by the fact that Samantha’s family had been wealthy enough to engage the services of an upstairs maid. But when he heard her sniff and fumble in the pocket of her skirt for a handkerchief, he knew he was lost. He had absolutely no defenses whenever his sensible nurse waxed sentimental.
He sighed. “If you insist that I have a dog, can’t it at least be a real one? An Irish wolfhound or a mastiff, perhaps?”
“Too unwieldy. This little fellow can follow you anywhere. And everywhere,” she added, proving her point by dumping the creature back into Gabriel’s lap.
He sniffed at the lemony sweetness of its fur, confirming his suspicion that the footmen had bathed the dog in Samantha’s favorite fragrance. The animal wriggled free and bounded to the foot of the bed. Growling deep in its throat, it began to gnaw on Gabriel’s toes through the eider-down quilt. Gabriel bared his teeth, growling back at him.