Page 59 of Indecently Employed
Susanna gave a breathy, uneasy laugh as she glanced back to Ajax, and he felt struck. He’d never asked her that himself; he’d just assumed she was fine with her situation as it was. In fact, what had he known about her people, her history? Next to damn nothing.Parson’s an Abbott, hell and tarnation. She had a sister of some sort. She would desire her father’s presence at her nuptials. That was the lot of what he knew. Too late he realized he must have been frowning, for Susanna looked away, fiddling with the stem of her goblet.
“Not as often as they would like, I confess,” she answered.
“Oh, dear,” Harmonia jumped in, tutting. She put on an exaggerated look of pity, shaking her head enough that her delicate sapphire and diamond earrings swung back and forth. Then her gaze hardened, and she pinned Ajax with a self-satisfied smirk. “Uncle, how could you be so cruel?”
“Suddenly so caught up with justice for governesses, Harmonia? What, has our resident sentimental fool Marcus been converting you to his cause? No doubt you’ll soon be expostulating at speakers’ corners in the park.” Ajax leaned forward, lacing his fingers together. What the devil were these two up to?
He shot a glance Rickard’s way. His assigned part apparently over with, the new head of Sedley Manufacturing was leaning back in his seat, nursing a glass of wine with a disinterested look as he watched the proceedings. In what suddenly felt like uncomfortably close proximity, Bess was preoccupied with hand-feeding Walter bites of pheasant.
Charlotte set her silverware down on her plate with a clink. “Her half-day is tomorrow. She didn’t have one last week; we went to the sea that day instead.”
“Uncle!” Harmonia gasped.
At the same moment, Susanna warned, “Miss Sedley!”
“Well, as the resident ‘sentimental fool,’ would anyone like to hear my proposition?” Marcus said.
“No,” Ajax and Rickard groaned over Harmonia and Charlotte’s emphatic “Yes!”
Ajax gave Rickard a grateful look before turning back to Susanna, who had bowed her head, horrified at the focus on her. Her cheeks were pink, her eyes shuttered. He nearly stood up from the table to escort her out, away from here and all this tosh. But he couldn’t. She wouldn’t want that; she would want him to go about everything with respectability, with proper decorum. Not the Sedley way, which was fully on display here, with Harmonia and Marcus’s outlandish meddling. So he set his jaw and clenched his fists in his lap, under the table and out of view.
“May I suggest,” Marcus sat up, pleased with everyone’s rapt attention, “that Miss Abbotts be allowed leave for a brief visit.”He tapped at the table with one finger, punctuating his words. “Fear not, uncle—only for a week or so. Seeing as they live close by—at least, much closer to here than to Yorkshire—it would seem cruel to keep her from her family, especially as we have convened ours during this sad time.”
Ajax blinked.Fuck. He briefly considered acting on his original inclination, and bursting out of the dining room with one arm around Susanna like some gallivanting adventurer off to take her to safety. But then Walter began barking—an awful, shrill sound—and Ajax abandoned the idea, instead forcing himself to smile as if he didn’t care.
He did care. Far too much. The false smile fell away.
Chapter Twenty-One
Susanna felt completely atsea. Not only had she nearly exposed her heart to her employer, but her pupil had discovered them together, practicallyin flagrante delicto. She’d rushed to dinner, praying that the rigid constraints of the meal and the grammar of conduct would allow her some protection, some relief from this disaster. This disaster she’d created with him, whom she desired more than anything she had ever wanted before. More than that lushly illustrated book of herbaceous plants one of her father’s friends had owned. More than the emerald velvet bonnet she’d spied in the hatmaker’s window when she’d first come to London. More than even the touches and kisses he’d already lavished upon her. She wanted all of him, wholly and completely.
But how could she even fathom asking for such a thing? She dared not think what it would mean. In fact, being discovered had almost been a relief, for Susanna knew it just could not be. Charlotte had not betrayed anything in the space of time since they’d come down to dinner, but that did not mean it would stay that way.
“My family?” she choked out in response to Mr. Hartley’s suggestion. Chasing after the Sedleys’ conversation was like trying to keep up with a prized Thoroughbred on foot. For all her academic knowledge and skill, Susanna lamented, she could not seem to shake her plain speech and countrified naïveté.
“How rotten, to keep you from your parents. I can only imagine what it must feel like.” Mrs. Rickard leaned forward, a smile on her face even as she seemed to be scolding Ajax.
“My dear niece,” Ajax interjected, his voice cutting. “You overstep. Miss Abbotts is a grown woman; if she has thoughts on the matter, kindly allow her to express them herself, without presupposition, if she so chooses.”
Mrs. Rickard raised her brows, hesitating a moment before speaking. “Fair enough, uncle.”
Mr. Hartley, seated next to Susanna, had pivoted in his seat, displaying real concern on his face as he spoke to her in a lower tone. “Forgive me for prying, Miss Abbotts, but… you’re not in any sort of trouble, are you?”
She must have looked taken aback, for he hastily added, “Not that you should be expecting any; from what I understand, your position is secure, and…” His eyes darted across the table, in his uncle’s direction. “It’s only that, if youwerein some sort of a, uh, uncomfortable situation, know that you are not without friends here.”
Susanna shifted uncomfortably, realizing what he meant. Oh, how she wished a hole would open up in the floor and just swallow her whole. Was this her punishment? Retribution from God for suspending her piety and indulging her carnal desires? She’d thought herself beyond such small thinking, but was now finding it difficult to avoid the black-and-white mindset of her childhood, complete with the literal, incontrovertible nature of the word of the Lord.
She gathered herself enough to smile politely at Mr. Hartley. “I am fine, thank you.”
She was far from fine. The entire room of Sedleys seemed attuned to what had transpired between her and Ajax. She fought hard to keep her bearings, to resist running upstairs in a fit of tears like she had earlier. But how would she manage anything from this point on? She wanted to look at him, beseech him for his aid, but reason won over. What aid could he render her right now? He was enduring as much scrutiny as she was, and even more judgment.
A deep, resigned sorrow came over her. So this was it. She clenched her napkin in her lap. If she left, she might never return; Ajax’s family seemed intent on shaming him out of keeping her on. She might never see him, or Charlotte, ever again. Why should this happen now? She’d only wanted to know the freedom she had deprived herself of for so long—to live life, to taste pleasure. For the first time ever, she’d been brave enough to take what she desired.
Now she would be sent packing. With nowhere to go but back to her family, where she had vowed never to live again. Stuck between her mother and her sister, with her father dispassionately excusing himself from whatever petty dramas the other two engaged in.
The room had gone quiet, and Susanna realized they were all waiting on her to respond to Marcus’s proposal. She felt powerless to turn him down.
“If that’s what you think best,” she said, then looked over to Ajax, bracing herself. It nearly took her breath from her, the glower on his handsome face, his hands clasped loosely in front of his mouth. But she continued, her voice subdued. “Sir, if you prefer to spare me, I’ll gladly accept the offer.”
