She crept down the hallway and would have started up the stairs except she spotted Mr. Wraxall in the vestibule. She’d wanted to forget about him. She knew who he was as soon as he introduced himself. She’d never met him, but as she’d said, her father and his father had been friends for a long time. She knew about Kensington’s bastard son. She’d only met the legitimate sons, of course, though the marquess claimed his bastard and had paid for him to be reared and educated.
Wraxall didn’t look at all like his father and brothers, who were pale and slightly plump and who had inherited the crooked front teeth that were the hallmarks of the marquesses of Kensington from time immemorial. Wraxall must have taken after his mother, for he was not pale, not plump, and his teeth were white and straight.
She’d looked just a little too long at his mouth to pretend she didn’t remember his teeth. Or his lips, which looked soft and yielding.
Except for his lips, everything about him was straight and proper and sober. He’d undoubtedly made a good soldier, because when he turned his gaze on her now, she almost felt as though she should stand at attention. She resisted the silly urge and then, because he made her nervous, she latched on to the first item she saw—other than his quite kissable lips. It was a small notebook and pencil he held in his hands. “What is that?”
He glanced down at the notebook as though just remembering he held it. “I’m taking notes, my lady.”
“Notes, Mr. Wraxall? About the front door?”
He turned back a page. “I’ve already finished my notes on the dormitories. I didn’t want to barge into unfamiliar rooms, and since I haven’t been given a tour of the premises yet, I thought the front door seemed a good place to continue.”
“Continue making notes?”
“As you see.”
“Is there very much to note about the door, other than it is rectangular, wooden, and sorely in need of paint?” Come to think of it, hadn’t she asked Mr. Goring to paint it last week?
“It is all of those things, my lady, but I am also noting that the lock does not work.”
“What?” She moved closer. “I lock it every night.”
“I have no doubt of that, but the mechanism has been rigged so the bolt does not slide into place fully.” He pushed the bolt into place, and then he tugged on the door and it came open easily.
“But how—”
“Here.” He showed her the way the wood had been smoothed down in the casement so that it took only a little pressure to free the bolt from its mooring.
“Oh dear. I shall have to have that repaired.” Once again she glanced about for the elusive Mr. Goring. She hadn’t seen him since he’d shown Wraxall in.
“Did I imagine you had a servant earlier?”
Ah, then she wasn’t the only one who hadn’t seen him.
“I do.”
“Just the one servant?”
“Could you show me the door again?” she said, hoping to distract him.
“What about a companion or a lady’s maid?”
Curses. If word reached her father that she was here without a chaperone, all her plans would go to waste. “So the lock on the door is not working?” She bent to peer at it.
He pushed it closed. “Forget the door. Is there a female servant in residence?”
She had never been a good liar, but she did know how to dance and how to sidestep. “By ‘in residence,’ do you mean on the premises?”
His eyes seemed to turn a darker shade of blue. “That is the usual meaning.”
“Mrs. Fleming is here.”
“The lady lives here?”
“She is in the classroom.” She ought to play chess. That was a narrow escape.
“Mrs. Fleming is an instructor?”
“Yes.” Distraction was the key, and Julia was already starting up the stairs, making her way around the boards that were weak and rotting.
“And where is this classroom?” He followed her, seeming not to have realized she hadn’t answered his question. He trailed her closely, stepping where she did as though he too had seen the rotted wood.
She gestured to the top of the stairs. “In what was formerly the drawing room.”
“Are you certain?”
“Of course I’m certain. See for yourself.” She opened the drawing room doors and stared at the empty room. She looked right and then left.
No pupils. No teacher.
Wraxall leaned on the door beside her. “Impressive,” he drawled.
She would have told him to shut up, but she was too angry to speak. She knew it had been too quiet. She had no idea where either the boys or their teacher had gone. That was if Mrs. Fleming had even come to work. The boys were not exactly well behaved, and Julia would hardly blame the woman if she sought employment elsewhere.
Then she heard it.
She hoped she imagined it, but when she looked at Mr. Wraxall, he too was looking at the front windows. With a sigh, Julia crossed to the windows looking out onto the street and parted the curtains. As the shouts and hoots of laughter she’d heard had indicated, there were the boys. It would have been bad enough to see them loitering in front of the orphanage and harassing passersby, but it was even worse to see them playing keep-away with Mrs. Fleming’s reticule and books. The items were tossed from one boy to the next, just in front of Mrs. Fleming, but continually out of her reach. For her part, Mrs. Fleming stood with her hands on her bony hips, her square chin jutted out, and her eyes narrowed under her ugly hat.
First, her cook; now, her teacher. Julia was aware she should run downstairs, stomp outside, and end the nonsense below with all possible haste. But it wasn’t even noon, and she had no more energy. Perhaps if she rested her forehead on the cool glass for a moment and gathered her strength…
She hadn’t realized Mr. Wraxall had come to stand behind her until she felt the warmth of his body. She almost turned, but then his arm brushed against hers as he further parted the curtains she held. Her skin tingled beneath the silk of her gown, and she had the wanton impulse to rub against him again. She refrained, but she was not so angelic as to move to put some distance between them. She wanted him to touch her again. More than that, it was lovely to imagine, just for a moment, that she was not alone in all of this. His form felt solid and steady, and he smelled lightly of baked bread and coffee—smells, she imagined, that lingered from his earlier quest to find the boys food. She wanted to turn her head into his waistcoat and breathe him in.
Julia couldn’t imagine where the idea had come from. Then her belly rumbled and she remembered she had not eaten at all today. That was it. She must have been half-mad from hunger.
She lifted her head, and her hand inadvertently slid down to where his rested on the edge of the curtain. At the feel of his bare skin against hers, she pulled away quickly, but not as quickly as he did.
“I’m terribly sorry,” she sputtered.
“It was my fault.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, presumably to keep them from ever touching her again. Clearly, she was the only one imagining his arms around her. And how could she blame him? She looked a fright and had acted like a shrew. Their gazes met, and his jerked quickly to the window. He couldn’t even look at her.
“The woman is your teacher?”
“Yes. I had better go and save her.” She was eager to be away. She didn’t need to see him flinch away from her a second time. “And accept her resignation.”
“You can’t allow her to resign.”
She raised her brows. “I don’t see how I can prevent her.”
“But the cook already resigned today.”
“Yes, thank you for reminding me. I’d quite forgotten what a wretched day this has been.”
He seemed to ignore the barb. “And we can’t find your manservant anywhere.”
Her brows lowered to a glower. “Yes, and my lock does not work, and the kitchen is a catastrophe, and I haven’t eaten anything since supper at the ball last night. Make note of all of it in your little book and be sure to tell my father, will you?” It seemed the logical end to this horrendous day.
She started away, and he matched her stride. “I have no intention of telling your father.”
She thought she heard a silent yet at the end of that sentence, and she didn’t allow herself to feel relief.
“Then what do you intend?”
He seemed to falter, as though not quite certain himself, but then he was by her side again as she descended the stairway in the same careful way she had ascended it. “We divide and conquer,” he said.