A Governess Should Never... Tempt a Prizefighter Read online

During dinner last night, Seth had revealed that for all Mr Finlay’s unrufflable nature and roguish winks, a sadness lurked, eternally in grief for his beloved wife, how he’d never so much as looked at another woman with either intrigue or lust.

  Rather a shame for females of the species, as Matilda thought him such an agreeable man.

  “What a pleasure, Mr Finlay,” she called over the incessant din of hammers, shouts and whistles from a building with no roof. He swished towards her in a voluminous greatcoat of deepest black and, as at the prizefight, a sharp ebony feather was tucked in his hatband – what peculiar plumage. “But what are you doing here? Have you a fancy for Shakespeare also?”

  Mr Finlay’s soulful eyes creased as he chuckled. “Good afternoon, Miss Griffin. I’m not averse to a play but reading’s not my passion. I’m here as a…precaution.”

  “Oh. How thoughtful. Well, I am grateful. Although I’m sure it won’t be necessary. Are you well versed in walloping also?”

  “Och, not at all, but I make do with a few wee bits and pieces should the need arise.” He unbuttoned his capacious greatcoat and tugged, revealing one side to her gaze.

  A cornucopia of knives and silvered objects confronted her. She blinked. Small and sharp, large and sharper, all attached to the interior of his coat with little sewn-on hooks.

  “Gosh, Mr Finlay, and I thought you such an agreeable man.”

  “Yer should see what I’ve got tucked in the other side.”

  “I’d imagine you have to walk rather gingerly.”

  A grin and he tipped his hat. “Yer a fine lass, Miss Griffin.”

  “Kian!” barked Seth, tapping cane to cobbles. “Stop dallying with my governess and take care up there. We’ll see you in…” He twisted to Matilda. “Two hours?”

  “Usually, yes,” she replied. “Though we can go on a bit. Where will you be, Mr Finlay?”

  “The roof.” And he winked before striding off, the three capes of his greatcoat lifting in the breeze.

  The roof? Matilda frowned and turned. “Is that a cant expression?”

  “No. He’ll be keeping an eye out for anything untoward from the rooftops.” Seth slipped a hand to her waist as they crossed the road. “As a lad, Kian was a sweep and is happier up there clambering amongst the chimney pots than down here in the streets. I keep telling him he’s no longer a fledgling and he’ll fall if he doesn’t take care…” His brow puckered as they stepped to the pavement. “But I worry he truly doesn’t care some days. That’s the problem.”

  Matilda patted his arm, the most propriety allowed in a hectic Marylebone thoroughfare, and they paused outside No. 16. A brick terraced house, it had wrought-iron railings with the latest gaslights and four stone steps led to a blue-painted door.

  The three o’clock stagecoach turned into the street, mud splattering and horns blaring, and so with all haste, they hurried up the steps and rattled the brass door knocker.

  On occasion, Seth had felt envious picturing the swells and their salons – places of literature and learning, with like-minded souls quoting poetry to each other, laughing in accordance upon luxurious chaises of silk.

  And he’d been right to be envious because this literary event was splendid, those chaises of silk strewn with vibrant cushions, manuscripts and pallid poets. A table in the corner held a cornucopia of food – pigeon pie, lobster patties and sweetbreads, with every type of liquor at hand. The poets gulped absinthe, the women sipped champagne and all before the chime of four.

  Admittance of one’s prejudice was a difficult task, yet Seth could acknowledge he’d hitherto misjudged such gatherings, believing he’d be snubbed for his status. At this salon, however, restless merchants mixed with indolent lords, a doctor lectured a naval man upon scurvy and a plump marquess chatted with a hawk-nosed young poet who appeared not to have eaten for a week. Seth felt quite at home within this mishmash of accents and wealth, most attendees having been nothing but cordial, and a few fellows had even shown interest in Academy membership.

  The sole gentleman to be rather disdainful was a baronet, but then Seth had often found the lowest titled gentry to be more conceited and pretentious than a ninth-generation duke.

  “I hope you are enjoying our gathering, Mr Hawkins?”

  He twisted to the hostess, a Mrs Ashby, as she proffered a fresh glass of claret. Pretty, she appeared similar in age to himself, with auburn hair and light-green eyes.

  Taking the glass, he dipped his head with a short bow. “Indeed I am, Mrs Ashby.”

  “I’m so glad. And it is a pleasure to meet you as my brother is a member of the Fancy. I believe he saw you at Chepstow in 1810. The only fighter to ever defeat Invincible Ivan, whom, I have to confess, my brother had fifty guineas on to win.”

  “Ah. Well, my apologies to your brother but it was a lucky day for me, Mrs Ashby.”

  “And you are a modest man, Mr Hawkins. Our dear Matilda told me she is your daughter’s governess now? I hope she is…safe within your Academy. She is a treasure which not all appreciate. After the tragedy of her parents’ passing, I do so worry for her.”

  “Miss Griffin is under my protection,” he assured, “and is treated as the lady she is. A perfect governess.”

  Although… Perhaps a governess should not tempt a prizefighter with offers of a clandestine kiss in a midnight carriage or attend fights dressed as a nefarious footpad on the prowl.

  But that was what made her so very perfect.

  “Excellent.” She fiddled with her necklace. “Now, I must initiate our formal discussion before my guests get too sloshed. Do excuse me.”

  With a shallow bow, Seth’s eyes caught on the saffron skirts of Matilda, who’d been trapped by the belligerent baronet at the punch bowl, and he could tell every muscle in her body was readied for flight, yet etiquette prevented her from telling him to go to the bloody devil.

  Miss Matilda Griffin was such a dichotomy. Bold and brave in nature but in turn hesitant and restrained by nurture.

  Clenching his wine glass, Seth glowered as the baronet leaned too close, murmured something and then distinctly sniffed her hair.

  Coxcomb.

  But his bold and brave lady abruptly peered at the baronet as though he were a beetle exhibit in a museum, drew herself to her full height, muttered something back, grabbed her punch glass and stomped across the room to where Seth stood.

  “Did that baronet cause you offence? I could set Chloe on him?”

  Matilda smirked. “He suggested that women could never write a book that would still be read in one hundred years – that we lack depth.”

  “I’ll definitely set Chloe on him.”

  She shook her head. “I did not wish to be a smart-boots, but I reminded him of the book we will reading next month by Mrs Behn from 1688.” Her rosy lips twitched. “And do not worry, he came on the coat-tails of a cousin and is not a regular attendee.”

  Seth wished to seize her hand and bring it to his lips, nip her palm and tell her how very clever she was, but the hostess tinged a glass with a spoon to gain the guests’ attention, so he made do with a wink.

  “Now,” declared Mrs Ashby from the centre of the elegant drawing room, “may we commence discussing this week’s choice, which is the Shakespeare sonnet, number thirty-three.”

  Therein followed a lively debate, but Seth kept his thoughts to himself amongst this canny lot who talked of vicarious experience, metaphysics and artistic alchemy.

  They cheerfully chattered upon phrasing, pentameter and alluring alliteration, and he was quite certain that each one of their observations was correct, but for himself, the sonnet’s appeal was simply the exquisite use of imagery and the aching sense of loss it conveyed.

  “The young could do with reading more words of this calibre,” stated the baronet, “and less of that romantic novel drivel which proliferates nowadays.”

  “And you’ve read these novels, have you?” asked their hostess, with a curved eyebrow and narrowed eye. “In order to form your
opinion?”

  “Merely curious as to their popularity amongst the…middle classes. I happened to glance through that work apropos of…prejudice and pride or somesuch, and found it to be the creation of a no doubt flighty unseasoned person – replete with undeveloped characters, trite emotion and magniloquent wordage.”

  Arsewit, thought Seth.

  Frowning, he noted Miss Griffin likewise scrunch her brow, mutter to herself, then lift her head.

  “I’m afraid I completely disagree, Sir Henry. I adored Pride and Prejudice and thought it portrayed true emotion and timeless struggle, especially for those of my own gender.” Her chin tilted. “Perhaps you could do with reading more of that author’s work, to appreciate the truth of a woman’s plight in this day and age – reliant upon family or the apparition of a husband, threatened with ruin should she wish for more.”

  Mrs Ashby lightly applauded.

  “You must be keeping the wrong company, Miss Griffin.” The baronet sniffed with a glance in Seth’s direction. “The boorish type that believes we can be more than we should be. That all women and even the working man can enjoy words, when most of them can barely read a song sheet.”

  Seth could remain silent no longer. “If one finds pleasure in reading a song sheet, then why naysay them? It should not matter what words bring you joy – be they Shakespeare, pig breeding, biblical or romance – but the fact they do bring joy to the beholder. On occasion, words are the sole pleasure to be found within this oft chaotic world.”

  “I daresay that is the common man’s view,” the baronet twittered. “But you mentioned the Bard, and after all, we are a literary salon. Perhaps you would care to share your favourite sonnet? Or are you merely acquainted with song sheets?”

  Matilda glowered.

  What an odious, intolerant sneaksby, but by the hostess’s scowl, Matilda knew he’d never be invited back.

  It angered her so – that the baronet sought to belittle a man such as Seth Hawkins, a knowledgeable and courageous gentleman who had built his life from naught rather than inherited it, fought hand to hand for a place in this world; she thought to tell the baronet so, straightened her shoulders and–

  A broad palm slid to her waist and she glanced up at Seth, who bestowed upon her that tender lopsided smile before placing his claret glass to the table.

  He gave the assembled company a short bow before striding to the centre of their circle, and with merely a pause and that Herculean stance, his magnificence stole everyone’s breath.

  The striped waistcoat of mustard and black with a honeycomb design and brass buttons accorded him sophistication, but the scarred eyebrow and calloused hands reminded all that this was no ordinary gentleman.

  She recalled Mr Finlay’s words – how Seth never did anything he did not wish to, how he hid a will of iron beneath that amenable poise.

  Now she witnessed it.

  The room stilled, recognising a master showman of the ring.

  “This afternoon you discussed a sonnet of loss and pain, but these lines will remind us of another emotion. One which eases life’s burdens and should forever be written of and cherished.”

  And so he began…

  “‘Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

  Within his bending sickle’s compass come;

  Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

  But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

  If this be error and upon me proved,

  I never writ, nor no man ever loved.’”

  Mrs Ashby sighed with a hand to heart, the slender hawk-nosed poet fell to the chaise in rapture and the baronet grouched.

  “And on that beautiful note,” called their hostess, “I declare our salon concluded. We are to be at Mrs Tenby’s next month. Mr Keats?” She patted the young poet as he recuperated upon the green chaise. “I’ll make you up a food bag, dear.”

  Seth strode back to Matilda’s side, a wicked tilt to his lips.

  But she waggled a reproving finger. “I recall at my interview how you declared you’d little time for literature? You, Mr Seth Hawkins, have honeyed lying lips.”

  “I used to badger the charity school teacher for spare books, and later, I swept the floors of a circulating library in return for borrowing them, but I only ever had snatched moments to read. And even now, I rarely get more than an hour. So ’tis true, I have little time for literature, but…” He leaned close. “I never said I didn’t enjoy it.”

  “Semantics,” she whispered as their hostess approached.

  Mrs Ashby held out her hands to them. “Well, Mr Hawkins, please accept my thanks for such a moving sonnet.” She slanted a brow. “And next month, will we be seeing you…both?”

  “In all probability, Mrs Ashby. And my thanks also,” Seth replied whilst a heat crawled to Matilda’s cheeks.

  The hostess smiled, bidding them farewell, and the guests all made their rounds in the drawing room, gentlemen shaking hands, ladies bussing one another’s cheeks in the French style. Matilda listened as Seth chatted with ease to both lawyer and countess – indeed his innate composure caused others to seek his company.

  They all drifted to the hallway, where a butler and maid stood readied with their outdoor attire, assisting with flapping greatcoats and the many-buttoned pelisses.

  Seth straightened Matilda’s bonnet ribbons and she handed him his ebony cane.

  The butler held open the door with the grave solemnity of an undertaker, and no wonder, as Matilda scrunched her nose from the top step.

  For a fine drizzle greeted them, not that this year had brought much else. Leaden grey clouds pulled mocking faces overhead and she clutched Seth’s arm tight, the four steps slick with moisture. In the street, hawkers still yelled their wares but now from beneath makeshift cloth-covered stands, while the monotonous clatter of hammers from the building with no roof continued in earnest, the labourers bawling and whistling loud.

  Seth tipped his hat low and tugged his collar high as they descended to the pavement, and the groom brought their carriage to a halt across the road.

  “A daisy fer the pretty lady, Sir?”

  They turned to a woebegone flower girl, her straw bonnet sagging in tandem with her fulsome bucket of unsold daisies.

  “I believe,” said Seth with a wink, “that this lady deserves more than one.” And he turned to rummage for coin.

  Matilda smiled, thoughts shifting with the gusting wet wind.

  Within their hostess’s drawing room, as Seth had reached that sonnet’s end, such a feeling of contentment had swathed Matilda. She had felt…part of him, had basked in his subtle confidence and magnificent bearing.

  For all his lowly fighting background, he was a true gentleman.

  A gentleman who had commanded all those present with his recitation, and yet…yet his sparkling gaze had never strayed from her as he’d delivered Shakespeare’s timeless words of life and love.

  That gaze had seeped into her very bones, her heart pounding with that same life, could not mista–

  “Miss Griffin! No!”

  She glanced in the direction of the loud yell, but the clang of hammers and thunder of hooves disorientated her, and she spun to… Wild eyes of an immense chestnut horse. Frothed lather spraying and muscular breast rippling so close. The rider swung sideways, thrust out a fist and she screame–

  Sheer bulk barrelled into her, tumbling her to the cobbles, the scream still upon her lips.

  Shoulders stung as she lay, striving for air, a hefty weight pinning her and she fought to open her gritted eyes.

  Through misted, crooked glasses, she found Seth lying atop, his lids closed then lifting with a hiss of breath, a broad palm cushioning the back of her head, their legs enmeshed.

  “W-what happened?”

  He slumped for a moment. “I heard Kian’s shout. Saw a rider gallop from the side street heading straight for you, all so fast. You were daydreaming.”

  “I never daydream,” she counter
ed, hauling breath to her lungs. “I couldn’t hear anything… The hammers…”

  “Hell, Matilda, you could have–” A trembling hand caressed her cheek. “I–”

  Boots and hems surrounded them, the salon guests gasping their concern. Outstretched hands aided Seth to his feet, the abrupt lack of his warmth shivering Matilda’s bones. Then she too was hauled from the grimy cobbles by their wool-clad fingers and leather-gloved palms, the guests now tutting of reckless horsemanship and how the cloaked fellow had not even bothered to stop.

  Mr Keats placed a steadying hand to her elbow, staring intently into her eyes as a shudder took her, violent and swift.

  “Have you pain, Miss Griffin? Can you see me clearly?”

  “I-I can see you, Mr Keats. It’s my back that hurts.”

  “Hmm. Can you describe the pain?”

  Placing a palm to her forehead, she endeavoured to concentrate but an odd light-headedness had taken hold, wilting her limbs and muddling her thoughts. “It’s a…a dulled pain.”

  Mr Keats nodded but stayed his hand as she brushed her muddied skirts with fingers that refused to cease their tremor.

  The street had quietened, hammering ceased as the labourers all squinted over at the commotion, hawkers shaking their heads.

  Retrieving Seth’s muddied hat and cane, the baronet then wiped them with a handkerchief whilst the countess gathered the strewn daisies.

  Matilda noted Seth’s lips were tight, his habitually straight shoulders hunched as he thanked the baronet for the return of his possessions and fervently assured them all that he was unhurt.

  Drizzle had coated each one of them in sparkles of silver, hair tipped with sudden age, and a bitter cold suffused Matilda – icy fingers clawing their way to her soul.

  Her bedraggled reticule appeared before her. “Matilda dear,” whispered Mrs Ashby. “You must both come in from the rain. For some tea. You can change into dry clothes.”

  That curious weakness amplified, a sensation that her sodden skirts were towing her down, all too weighty, and she could barely summon the resolve to reply.

  But a firm palm clasped her waist and she glanced up, took strength from Seth’s touch and patient hazel eyes. For all their hostess’s goodwill and kindness, Matilda just wished to be alone with Seth. To go home.