Mistress - Amanda Quick [19]
“An excellent question. Certainly not a ghost.” Marcus reached down and scooped up the white plume. He held it out to Iphiginia. “I shall enjoy helping you answer the question in greater detail, Mrs. Bright. But as it grows late and the mood of the evening has been dispelled by the events of the last few minutes, I believe I shall take my leave.”
“Yes, of course, my lord.” Iphiginia snatched the plume from his hand. “But you did mean it when you said that you would allow me to continue to masquerade as your paramour, did you not?”
“I meant every word, my dear Mrs. Bright.” Marcus’s eyes gleamed in the lamplight. “I shall do everything in my power to help you create a deception that is so true to life that one cannot distinguish it from the real thing.”
“That is very kind of you, sir.” Iphiginia felt a rush of gratitude. “Is it your intellectual curiosity that persuades you to indulge me, my lord, or your natural gallantry?”
“I strongly suspect that it is not gallantry which persuades me to assist you, madam.”
“Then it must be your intellectual nature,” she said complacently.
He gave her an amused glance as he made his way toward the door. “You know me so well.”
“She should.” Amelia glowered at him. “She has made an extremely thorough study of you, my lord.”
“I am honored.” Marcus walked out into the hall. He paused, his eyes resting thoughtfully on Iphiginia. “Be sure to lock your door after I leave.”
Iphiginia smiled. “Of course, my lord.”
Marcus stepped out into the night and closed the door very quietly behind him.
There was a short, taut silence in the library. A moment later the wheels of the earl’s black carriage rumbled on the paving stones.
Amelia swung around to face Iphiginia. She had herself under control, but her soft brown eyes were still haunted with traces of the old fear.
She was twenty-six years old, a year younger than Iphiginia. In many ways she was far prettier, with her finely wrought features, glossy dark brown hair, and excellent eyes. But there was a starkly remote quality to her that made her seem austere and unapproachable.
“I thought he was forcing himself on you,” Amelia whispered.
“I know you did. I understand your concern. But, in truth, he merely kissed me, Amelia.”
Iphiginia was the only person in whom Amelia had ever confided the details of the hellish experience that she had endured eight years earlier as an eighteen-year-old governess.
Amelia’s mother had died giving birth to her daughter. Amelia had been raised by her scholarly but poor father, who had given her the one thing he had in abundance, an education. When he had died, the small stipend on which he and Amelia had depended abruptly ceased.
Faced with the task of making her own way in the world, Amelia had done what countless other young women possessed of a good background but no funds did: She had applied for a post as a governess.
She had been raped by her employer’s houseguest, a man named Dodgson.
The lady of the house had walked in on the scene only moments after Dodgson had finished the assault. The woman had been scandalized. Her immediate response had been to dismiss Amelia.
The rape had not only cost the penniless Amelia her much-needed position, it had made it impossible for her to secure another one. The agency which had sent her into the household where she had been attacked had refused to find her another post.
The head of the agency had informed her that she was no longer sufficiently respectable to work for a firm which prided itself on its exclusive clients and the unblemished character of the governesses and companions it supplied to the best families.
Iphiginia knew that deep inside Amelia the deep scars of that terrible night had faded but had never entirely healed.
“You allowed him to kiss you?” Amelia shook her head in wonder. “But he is a stranger. Indeed, by rights, he is supposed to be a dead stranger.”
“I know.” Iphiginia sank down slowly onto a Roman-style chair. She gazed at the plume in her hand. “But he does not feel as though he were a