The Governess's Convenient Marriage

‘Yes, I know. She’s always very elegant. But I don’t look much like her. Would her style suit me?’

He studied her carefully, from her disarranged hair to the tips of her kid walking boots, and Alex had to look away. To will her heart to beat slower. ‘Your colouring is different from the Princess, of course, but you have the same delicacy. The same—distance.’

Alex didn’t feel ‘distant’ from him at all. She felt much, much too close. ‘Distance?’

His icy eyes narrowed. ‘Like you’re not of this world. My old nanna, my grandmother, would have said you were a fairy queen of winter.’

‘Of winter?’ Alex asked, intrigued.

‘Aye. All pale and delicate outside, full of icy storms, curses and danger inside.’

She laughed. ‘I think I’m the least dangerous person there is.’

He shook his head. ‘I shouldn’t contradict a female—but I think you’re wrong. You’re definitely of the winter fairy folk.’

She didn’t know how to admit that sitting here with him on this bench was by far the bravest thing she had ever done. She rather liked imagining being of the fairy folk, able to do as she liked when she liked. Just as she enjoyed thinking of him as a god of the Norse country. It all took her out of her dutiful life, the life where she was never quite right, never quite enough, for a moment. It took her out of the ordinary day, out of being Lady Alexandra.

‘I will have to buy a new hat immediately, then,’ she said. ‘A winter fairy can’t go around being dowdy. What would you suggest? Something like that? She looks in the stylish way.’ She gestured at a passing lady, who wore a gown of purple-and-cream-striped silk that was improbably close-fitting and an enormous cartwheel of a hat laden with fruit.

He didn’t even glance at her, just kept watching Alex, something seeming to sharpen in his eyes. He didn’t move closer, but it suddenly felt as if he had, as if his heat and strength surrounded her. ‘I could buy you the most fashionable hat you’ve ever seen, if you would have supper with me tonight at the Criterion.’

And the light-hearted moment shifted, like a grey cloud shifting in front of the sun. Alex sat up straighter, shivering. Even she knew about the Criterion. It was luxurious, all satin-wrapped and filled with French champagne, with private dining rooms where gentlemen took their actress and opera-dancer friends. She heard whispers about it all at balls and teas, quickly quieted when she came near. This gorgeous man thought she was an—an actress?

She felt outraged and wanted to laugh, all at the same time.

‘You—you think…’ she gasped.

She could see immediately that he realised his mistake. Once again, he did not seem to physically move, yet he was very far away from her. He took off his hat and ran his hand through his amber hair. ‘Forgive me. I should never have assumed…’

‘You assumed because I was alone for a moment, I am a woman of—loose morals?’ she whispered, still unsure what she was feeling. Embarrassment, yes, burning hot, but also filled with a strange, hysterical mirth. And disappointment, that her brief dream with this handsome man was gone so quickly. ‘I assure you I am not. I didn’t realise your kindness was based on such a notion.’ She quickly rose to her feet, glad she was steady now.

He stood up beside her and she instinctively stepped back. ‘Of course not,’ he said, his accent even heavier. ‘It is just that you’re so—so…’

‘So?’ So bold, so outrageous, so—not herself?

‘Beautiful,’ he blurted out.

Alex felt her face turn even hotter. He thought her beautiful? Just her, Alex, not the Duke’s daughter? ‘I must go!’

‘Let me help you find your friends.’

‘No!’ she cried. She was tempted to stay right there, standing with him, so she knew she had to run. She spun around and dashed away, not daring to look back. She lost herself in the crowd, hearing the brassy strains of music, of the laughter in the air. It all made her feel even more as if she was caught in a dream, where nothing in her real life existed any longer.

It was only when she heard Chris calling her name that she realised she had dropped her hat. She glanced back, hoping to see her rescuer, no matter how improper he was. And that was when it struck her, where she had seen him before. Not in her dreams. Oh, she was such a fool not have known him immediately!

He was Malcolm, her Malcolm. The sweet, handsome boy who had once taught her to fish. Yet there was no trace of that lad in him any more. Now he was the owner of Gordston’s Department Store, he had become arrogant, so sure everything belonged to him, just like the beautiful women he was with in the newspapers.

She thought she would drown in memories, the humiliation she felt when they parted. How had she ever considered him her friend? He never had been and he truly was not now. They were worlds apart.

But she still wanted to cry when she remembered the sweetness of what once was, even if it was all just a girlish dream.

* * *

‘Dobber!’ Malcolm Gordston muttered as he watched the winter fairy disappear into the crowd. He sat back heavily on the bench, wishing he could slap himself. He had indeed been a first-class fool. Anyone with eyes should have seen right away that she was a lady. Probably even one with a capital L. Her refinement, her voice, her clothes, so finely made and yet subtle, her gentleness—aye, it all said lady, loud and clear.

And yet the moment he had touched her, he had been overcome by a wave of longing like he had never known before. A need for her softness, her sweetness. It wasn’t like him at all, the tough offspring of a crofter on the Duke of Waverton’s Scottish shooting estate, longing for a delicate fairy. He had worked his way up from a ghillie’s muddy son to being one of the richest men in England and not by giving in to any longing for softness and refinement.

Nor had he done it by being ignorant of human nature. He’d learned how to read every nuance of people, to know what they desired before even they could see it and then provide it—for a price. Men and women, they were far more transparent in their wants, needs and deepest fears than they realised. It was his key to never going back to his miserable childhood, where one man was ruined at the mere whim of another.

It was his most invaluable tool in his professional life and in his limited personal time, as well. He liked women, liked the way their minds worked in such subtle, slippery, fascinating ways, so much more complex than most men, shrewder, sharper. Like him, they had to make their way up in a world not designed for them, through back doors. And in return, they seemed to like him, too. Female company was not hard to find.

But all his judgement seemed to have fled when he looked into a pair of heather-coloured eyes. Fairy eyes indeed, so large in her pale, pointed fey face, changeable blue-purple-green, set off by feathery, sooty lashes. He had never seen anyone quite like her. So small and delicate, pale curls escaping from that terrible hat, the silvery, unexpected sound of her sudden laughter. The way she felt under his touch, so light and frail, trembling as if she would sprout sparkling wings and fly away at any moment.

He was enchanted, in a fairy-story sense of the word, taken out of himself. And fairies were dangerous creatures. Always flying away as soon as you touched them. Always putting a curse on your home.

When he was a wee lad, after his mother died and his father went off drinking every night, his nanna would make him supper and tell him tales of the fairies, the winter and summer folk. When he held the lady’s hand in his, smelled her light, pale green lily-of-the-valley perfume, he whimsically wondered if he was seeing the pale winter queen set down in Hyde Park.

And he was never a man to be whimsical. He had learned that from his childhood. Never leave your heart open. Never be helpless.

It had made him take a foolish misstep, a rare misjudgement of a person. He had wanted her so much, he made himself believe she was available when she so clearly was not. He had a solid rule in romance—never dabble with an innocent. There was only pain and confusion in that for everyone involved. He stayed with women like himself, who knew the rules of engagement. He had built his life up by hard work to exactly where he wanted it. He wouldn’t let anything tear it down now. And he knew very well a woman like that was not for the likes of a Gordston.

But, just for a moment, as he sat beside her and watched her smile, he almost would have been willing to watch his kingdom burn down.

Surely it was a lucky thing she had run away. It just didn’t feel so lucky yet.

Malcolm laughed again and put his hat back on before he made his way through the crowd towards the park gates. As usual, because of his height and the long, quick stride he needed to get where he was going fast, the knots of people unravelled before him. He rarely noticed it any longer; his mind was always on the next task, the next new idea. Yet today, he scanned the bright crowd, looking for a pale woman in blue. She wasn’t there, of course, yet he couldn’t seem to stop himself.

At last he left the park and being on the clatter of the streets was like waking up to himself. There was work to be done. There was always work to be done.

* * *

Gordston’s Department Store was busy, as usual. Malcolm dashed up the marble front steps and through the gleam of the revolving doors into the lobby. Black-and-white stone floors were waiting, the gleam of glass counters, displaying every temptation from kid gloves to crystal perfume bottles to Belgian chocolates, beckoned. The salespeople greeted him with smiles, the customers with curious glances, but he saw none of it today.

He took his own lift straight to the offices on the top floor. It was a different world from the shimmer and perfume of the sales floors, still luxurious with dark-panelled walls and thick Persian carpets underfoot, but with the buzz of low voices and tap of typewriters rather than laughter and the murmur of fountains. The air smelled of paper and ink instead of rose scent and violet powder. The buzz of efficiency and commerce, his forte.

He went to his own office at the end of the corridor and had only a moment to drape his coat and hat on the rack before his secretary, Miss Mersey, appeared. Like everyone else on the top floor, she was efficiency itself in her white shirtwaist and black skirt, her greying hair pinned atop her head, her spectacles in place on her stern nose. She had been with him almost since he opened the store and he could not do without her.

‘Good morning, Mr Gordston,’ she said, snapping open her notebook. ‘Mr Jones has yesterday’s sales figures almost ready for you from the accounting office.’

‘Almost?’ Malcolm said as he sat down behind his desk. It was all in order, the stacks of reports where they were meant to be, his gold pen and blotter lined up.

‘It seems there was a small discrepancy with the glove counter, which is being sorted out. I have the travel arrangements finished for Paris, as well. The repairs to the yacht will be finished by Friday, so everything is quite on schedule. The latest reports from Monsieur Jerome’s architecture office are on your desk, as you see. The store will be finished on time and you will be able to depart for the grand opening as planned.’

‘You mean we will be able to depart.’

For once, a tiny gleam of interest pierced Miss Mersey’s admirably steely exterior. ‘We, Mr Gordston?’

‘Of course. I could never manage my business in Paris without you.’