Page 23 of Indecently Employed
The crackling of the fire filled the next few minutes, and Mr. Sedley wandered over to the chair he’d been in the night she’d first arrived. So much had transpired in just a handful of days.
“Her wedding is only two days off,” he said.
She looked at him, waiting.
“I bought you a gown.” He watched her from his slouched position in the armchair, his eyes heavy, until he suddenly jerked forward. “Charlotte, I mean. Charlotte selected a gown for you.”
Her skin prickled; no one had ever done something like that for her before, and she wasn’t sure what to say. “Sir, I do appreciate your consideration. However, I did express my feeling that—”
“I know, I know. You abhor the thought of yourself in something that becomes you.” He waved his hand, flippantly batting away her legitimate concern.
“That is not true.” She set her jaw, hands folded in her lap. “I take care and consideration with my appearance, just as we all do.” Her voice shook. His offhand comment stung her more than she thought it should. Under normal circumstances, she would smile patiently and gently explain herself. That was her way. But tonight she felt a strange wildness in her breast, that he would write her and her worries off so easily. That he thought shewishedto present herself in this manner.
All of the sudden his face closed off and his brows lowered, a seriousness about them that recalled the look he wore as she left him after dinner last night.
Her heart thudded in her chest, and she stood.
He set his glass on a side table, and slowly rose as well.
“It is not proper for me, a governess, to attend a wedding in… in…” she stuttered, trying to recall the shade he’d said would suit her above all others. “Warm gold,” she finished, raising her chin. “And as my charge has lost her mother, only months ago. What would that say to others about me?”
He stepped forward, moving in slow, languid strides. “Who the devil cares what it would say?” his voice rumbled, low and thick.
She gasped at his oath. “I do. I care, Mr. Sedley, because propriety is my livelihood.”
He halted mere steps away from her, so close that she might reach out and grasp his lapels if she wished. She did not. Did she? From this distance she could smell the liquor coming off him, and she realized he was far more stewed than she’d first supposed.
He stared at her, so intent and determined. She swallowed.
“A beauty like you…” he murmured, as if he were sorting out a private thought as he spoke. “How? Why must you need to earn an income?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she whispered, matching his tone. Her body thrummed with excitement. Or was it shock? He’d called her a beauty. Whatever it was, she felt taut, her thoughts a tangle, desperate for something to be born of this, though she didn’t quite know what.
His eyes drifted down, settling on her bosom for such a sustained period that Susanna clasped her missalette against it as a paltry defense.
“Shouldn’t you have a young man? Shouldn’t he be shepherding you around your village, chest puffed out in pride, with a gaggle of children in tow?” He looked back up to her face, almost accusingly.
She stepped backward, confused about his words and the tightening anticipation in her middle.
He closed his eyes and swallowed. “It defies logic.”
She waited, wanting so desperately for him to close the distance between them, and yet so terrified of what that would mean. For shedidhave to make her own way; she desperately needed her income. She couldn’t afford a dalliance with another employer.
He didn’t come any closer.
Instead he turned, stalking back to the secret compartment in the bookshelf and yanking the book-lever, this time with frustration.
She looked away, smoothing down the errant curls escaping her coif with a shaking hand.
“My apologies. I’ve had a bit too much to drink, it seems,” he said even as he poured himself another into a second glass, the first having been abandoned on the side table. “Mrs. Prew left it in your room. You’ll see I did take your worries under consideration, in fact.”
She almost opened her mouth to ask for clarification, but then she realized he was speaking of the dress.
He turned, giving her a defeated half-smile. “And I do believe it shall suit you. At least, more so than this.” He gestured toward her with his liquor, then threw it back in one swallow.
In that moment Susanna wanted nothing more than to tear the hateful frock from her body. She moved to leave, then paused, one hand on the doorframe.
“Goodnight, sir.”
