Netherby Halls

“Mr. Lutterel will see to Miss Delleson. She is none of my concern, but you are!” He waved his hand for her to go before him and then took a moment to don his outer garments.

Sassy was stunned by his statement and thrown into a state of confusion. At her back, Percy and Sophy were making mewling sounds to one another, and she, therefore, made no objection as the marquis rushed her outside to his waiting team and carriage.

As he helped her up, she turned and looked at him feeling very shy but needing to mention, “I … ah … my portmanteau is in the Delleson curricle.”

This elicited another oath before he sent the lackey to fetch it from the coach house. During this short delay he did not glance her way, and she kept her gaze averted in the uncomfortable silence of the moment. She felt like a child. Here she was, on her own, a tutor—supposed to set a good example—and what had she done? Oh, but she could not believe it. After all, she was one and twenty! A veritable ‘old maid’ who should not have romantic notions and allow one’s friend to talk her into something she knew at the outset was wrong.

The marquis hoisted her up onto the seat of his neat vehicle. He dismissed his waiting tiger and jumped expertly up to take a seat beside her, moving the phaeton in the direction of the main road, while Sassy wondered mildly whither they were bound.

He was in a temper, something she had not really experienced from him before. Perhaps the best thing to do under the circumstances was to sit very still and not offer his wrath any further fuel. However,

she asked herself, why he should be so angry with her? After all, what had this to do with him?

“I could wring that little fool’s neck!” he exclaimed suddenly. “How she managed to convince you, with your normally level head, to fall in with her wild scheme has me fairly baffled. I thought you did not have a want of sense, ma’am!”

“I have also never thought I wanted sense,” she agreed, trying to maintain an even temper. “Do people with sense never err?”

He pulled on the strings and the horses slowed to a stop. Turning to face her, he sighed, put out his gloved hand, and took her chin to lift her face to his. Their eyes met, and she thought in that moment she was going to err again and fling herself into his arms. She loved him. With all her heart, she loved him, and the sudden admission to herself was as though a rosebud inside her had burst open all at once.

“Freely, you admit your mistake? You are a marvel, Miss Winthrop for I do not think I have ever encountered a woman who would do so.” He shook his head, but clearly his temper had abated as he said softly, “Tell me, do … just what did you think you were doing—furthering the course of true love? A very silly notion, my sweet. You must certainly never do such a thing again.”

She was in love with a rake, a libertine, a man who went from woman to woman, a marquis whose station was quite above that of a tutor—a vicar’s daughter. These thoughts, not his words, occupied her mind as he spoke. Somehow, though, his meaning filtered through, and she said, “Er … yes … you are quite right. I shan’t do such a thing again, but you are being very solicitous, my lord.”

He hurriedly stuck in, giving her a naughty grin she found irresistible, “Am I? Yes, to be sure I am.”

“But you have insinuated that I might agree to be your … your … to …”

“What are you trying to say?”

“’Tis a contradiction to protect me from gossip and yet try and set me up as your … light o’love.” There, she thought, she had said it.

He picked up the reins and urged his horses forward, throwing her a sideways glance as he said quietly, “Perhaps, my sweet Sassy, perhaps my intentions toward you have undergone an alteration, and that is not what I wish at all.”

His words silenced Sassy; her mind went into a stupor. She stared at his handsome profile, completely confounded by this calculated and meaningful statement. She had nothing to offer in response and felt herself blush.

The sound of a lone rider’s clopping over the hard earth brought her head up. An odd-looking man rode towards them on a dark roan. He was bearded and wore his old, weathered tri-cornered hat at an angle. Sassy stared at him, for it hit her, that feeling of having seen him somewhere. She shrugged it off; perhaps it was just his style—could be someone from the docks of Bristol.

The marquis’s eyes flickered from her to the man when the rider nodded as he passed them. “Are you acquainted with that particular gentleman?” he asked with an accompanying frown.

“Why do you ask?” Sassy answered, still mulling the problem over in her mind.

“The way you stared at him. I thought you were looking at someone you knew.”

“Nooo,” said Sassy evasively. “Yet … I seem to recall—” She stopped herself at once as dawning lit in her brain. She knew where she had seen the stranger before.

She saw that the marquis was waiting for her to finish her sentence, and she had a sudden urge to confide in him. She wanted to tell him what she had witnessed at Netherby late the other night. She wanted to tell him that the headmistress had received this man and two others in secret, but … could she trust him?

Her fear that she could not trust him kept her reticent, so she said, “I-I don’t know him but, he looked familiar … nothing more.”

The marquis’s blue eyes flickered, and his lips moved into a hard line. “I see.”

The school was reached moments afterward, and Sassy wondered if the bearded man had been visiting the headmistress in broad daylight. The marquis nimbly jumped to the ground, assisted her to do the same, and carried her portmanteau as he walked her to the school doors, seeing her in before he bowed and took his leave.

“Good day to you, Sassy. Perhaps this time you have averted a scandal—you may not be so lucky again. Are we clear?”

“You are not my father,” she said, chafed that he would not let it go.

“No, I am not. Fortunately that is not the position I mean to have in your life.” So saying, he turned his back and was off.