Indecently Employed: A Steamy Victorian Governess Romance (The Sedleys Book 2) by Antonia Falk

Author:Antonia Falk [Falk, Antonia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Make Your Beds
Published: 2023-09-13T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

She looked fully relaxed, settled back in a winged armchair done in orange silk damask, when her eyes drifted up from the Charles Reade novel she was perusing.

“We must stop meeting like this,” Ajax joked, unable to keep the hopeful strain from his voice. “What will the servants think?”

Miss Abbotts set the book aside and straightened up before he halted her with a shake of his head. “No, no… don’t get up on my account. Sit, please. Relax. Enjoy your brief respite from Charlotte’s gruesome dirges and equally gruesome questions.”

She sat back down and laced her fingers together in her lap, appearing a bit tentative. “Despite her tastes, her skill at the organ is remarkable for a girl her age,” she said. “And it extends to other instruments; she claims familiarity with the piano as well as the viola and the violoncello.”

Ajax wandered over to the shelf nearest Miss Abbotts, and allowed his gaze to run along the rows of books, always a soothing exercise. But it did little to settle him now. He’d waited weeks, hoping the feelings would pass. Or, though he felt guilty about it, hoping that Miss Abbotts would decide for her own sake to leave, despite the excellent work she was doing with Charlotte. But she’d stayed, and still he wanted her. Every look, every word that passed between them was heavy with the implication that sooner or later it would come to pass, that he would go to her. And what’s more, despite the physical torture of deprivation, these weeks had felt… pleasant. She had stayed, and did not outwardly appear to be regretting it. It made him think, or at least wonder, if perhaps he wasn’t so abhorrent after all.

It was that new hope that felt all twisted inside him. He didn’t want it to disappear.

“Naturally. Theater people.” He mindlessly pulled a book back with one finger, then slid it back in. He repeated the action with the book next to it, and then its neighbor, and so on. Terrible for their spines. But they were his bloody books in his bloody house.

“Mr. Faine mentioned he comes from a theatrical background as well,” Miss Abbotts said, her voice a little lighter. “I wonder whether he is musical.”

Ajax stopped fiddling with the books and turned to glower at her, but half of her face was obscured by the wing of the armchair. “Oh, he told you that, did he?”

She leaned forward so she might look him in the eye. Her cheeks were red, which he found alluring. “Yes, he did. He’s been very kind to me.”

This was ridiculous, envying Gideon for the time he’d spent with her. Especially when Ajax could’ve squired her about at any time, or even had her on her back weeks ago, were he not too cowardly to take a chance on whatever domestically stable kind of life that could potentially lead to.

The pause in conversation stretched out far too long, for Ajax didn’t want to talk about his estate manager right then.

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