The Wicked Governess (Blackhaven Brides Book 6)(58)

“What is it?” he asked, going to her at once.

For answer, she seized his hand and tugged him out of his chamber in the direction of the schoolroom. Happy enough to oblige—for it was time, past time, that he spoke to Caroline like an adult—he walked into the schoolroom.

Caroline was not there. However, the connecting door to her bedchamber was open, and Rosa dragged him toward it. Now at last, he pulled back.

“Rosa,” he objected. “No. Is Miss Grey ill?”

Impatiently, she pulled free of his hand and ran into the bedchamber, waving her arms around to show him that it was empty.

“She’ll be in the kitchen, eating breakfast and waiting for you,” he said. “Go and find her.”

Rosa shook her head vehemently, pointing at her eyes and then downward to show she’d already looked for her governess downstairs. Then she walked to Miss Grey’s wardrobe and opened the door. Only the peach evening gown hung there. Of the other gowns he’d seen her wear, there was no sign. However, it felt quite wrong to be in the room like this, and despite a twinge of definite unease, Javan refused to go through her possessions, or allow Rosa to do so.

He pulled her out of the room. “You mustn’t pry into her things,” he said severely. “Perhaps she’s gone for a walk. Tiny was barking earlier, so she might have taken him. Is your aunt up yet?”

Marjorie was discovered in the drawing room, staring at a sheet of paper which she held in front of her.

Slowly, she raised her eyes to Javan’s and held the paper out to him. He strode forward and twitched it from his sister’s fingers. A note from Caroline—brief, impersonal, and apologetic.

His ears began to sing. “Scotland…”

“She went with Richard,” Marjorie said with difficulty. “I saw them from my window.”

Javan gripped the letter so tightly that it began to tear. He sank onto the arm of the nearest chair. “What have I done?” he whispered.

He’d driven her away, made life impossible for her. She could have been his. He’d seen it in her eyes, gloried in it, and yet chosen to punish her for his own lack of confidence. He should have claimed her the night in the library. Instead, he’d let Richard be the gentleman. He knew instinctively she did not love Richard. So how had he let it get to this? He was destroying himself and everyone he loved all over again.

And God help me, I do love her…

Without a word, he walked out of the room and downstairs to his study. Tiny, lying in front of the fire, lifted his head hopefully, but Javan only closed the door and walked to his desk like some clumsy automaton.

I can live without her. I can live with this grief, too…

Only, why should he? Why should Rosa? Why should Caroline? She belonged to him and his family, and he would never be complete without her. But what propelled him into sudden action was the knowledge that neither would she be whole without him. A hundred tiny looks and smiles and blushes had told him that. The way she trembled at his touch and gasped at his nearness. He’d soaked them up like water to a drowning man and never realized how much he valued them. How much she had given him, how much she had risked because she couldn’t help this love any more than he could.

With an oath, he strode out of the room, yelling for Williams and his horse.

“Rosa!” he called up the staircase. “I’m going to bring her back! Stay with your aunt and be good!”

*

When Richard had gone, Marjorie sat down by the drawing-room fire with Rosa at her feet. They both gazed into the flames, each thinking, no doubt, much the same thoughts about the same people.

To Marjorie, there had always been something not quite right about Richard’s engagement to Miss Grey. Not that the girl wasn’t pretty, cultured, charming, and well-mannered in the quietly-spoken way Marjorie most admired, but it had seemed to her that any tendre Miss Grey might harbor beneath her severe and civil exterior, was for Javan. Not that she suspected the governess of inveigling him into marriage, as it was rumored she had tried with the Earl of Braithwaite.

Although that had been Marjorie’s first fear, the day Miss Grey had arrived and she had thrown the cake… She’d known if it had missed Javan it was liable to hit the governess. Marjorie cast the troubled memory aside. That had been a bad day, but she’d recovered, and observed Rosa’s growing brightness, and Javan’s. Particularly Javan’s. And she had discovered the new governess to be a kind and sensible young woman.

Somehow, Caroline Grey had got under all their skins. She was a comfortable companion, interesting to converse with, witty when she chose to be, and had enough fun in her ill-dressed person to appeal to Rosa. Marjorie was aware that theirs was an odd household full of damaged people, but Miss Grey had never appeared to judge. She accepted them all and quietly went about making things better.

Until this odd engagement to the mischievous Richard. Marjorie liked Richard, and she was aware he thought the world of Javan. Could he not see that his betrothal hurt Javan?

Marjorie sat up straighter. Of course he could see it. Richard was no fool. Was that his game? Was he trying to force Javan into action? After all, with his first, utterly disastrous marriage under his belt, Javan was understandably skittish about marriage and highly cynical of women on the so-called marriage mart. He might well need to be forced, although where on earth the rush was when Miss Grey hadn’t been here a month…