Chapter One

The Return of the Disgraced Young Master

 

Young Edward's stomach felt as empty and hard as a dark round-smoothed stone in the bed of some cold, rushing mountain stream as he stood before the great polished door of his governess. Blankly he watched the footmen carry his trunk and bags down the red-wallpapered hall back toward his own rooms. How he wished he could slink after that baggage and hide himself away! Yet he could not. The inescapable flow that sprang from his previous actions, cool and lonely and wet, surrounded him, crushed him, drowned him. There was no escape from his shame and his humiliation. He let out his breath, thinking for the hundredth time that day that his predicament simply could not grow any worse. Sent home from school! And now-now he must face his governess. Oh, what would old Mrs. Jeffers say? Swallowing, he knocked timidly at the imposing portal.

"Come," sounded a commanding voice from within.

Edward reached for the brass knob, then stopped. Though the door muffled the sound, the voice still did not seem that of the affable old Mrs. Jeffers. He would have done almost anything to avoid having to confess to her what had happened-yet what if there was another lady in there with her as well? How mortifying! His shame scarcely could be uttered. His face burned as he stood there hesitating.

"Come!" snapped the distant voice again.

Trembling, he turned the knob, pushed the heavy door open, and stepped cautiously inside. He froze with a start. These were not Mrs. Jeffers' rooms, he realized, blinking around in surprise. Upon the intricately knotted Oriental rugs brooded the hulking forms of unfamiliar furniture of dark cherry and black walnut. All of it was highly polished and intricately carved, and all the chairs and couches and ottomans were adorned with cushions of rich red velvet. Unfamiliar paintings hung upon the high walls-Classical scenes, apparently, with diaphanously clad and sometimes even undraped maidens frolicking, walking hand in hand, reclining together in secret groves...

Edward looked away quickly, and his eyes fell upon a stern black-haired young lady seated cool and silent upon a throne-like chair. Why, that certainly was not his old governess!

"I-I-I- I'm sorry, Miss," he stammered. "I thought- I thought these were Mrs. Jeffers' rooms. I-"

"They were," replied the young lady blandly. Her voice was measured and calm, yet somehow he almost sensed a faint smirk in her husky tones. "Now they are mine, Master Edward. I am your governess from henceforth."

Edward gulped. Belatedly he bowed. "Pleased to meet you, Miss-" He stopped, blinking. "M-Miss..."

Now she actually did smile-a rather condescending, self-possessed smile. Her eyes were dark in a pale face framed by flowing waves of sable pulled back to sway about her slender neck. And yet her lips were so vividly red, almost as if their color were accentuated by some cosmetic. That, of course, could not be, however. "You may address me as Miss Violetta."

"I am pleased to meet you, Miss Violetta," gasped Edward, grateful at least to be able to call this imposing lady by some name.

"We shall see," Miss Violetta said crookedly, with a faint arching of one eyebrow.

Edward swallowed, suddenly reminded of his shame at being expelled from school. And now he had to confess his unspeakable transgression not merely to Mrs. Jeffers, but to this new governess! His heart felt leaden.

And underlying it all, he was struck, as always, by the disheartening difference between the Edward of school and the Edward of home. His dear, doting mother-may she sleep with the angels-had kept him back from public school a year or two longer than was customary, until his grumbling father finally had put his gouty old foot down. The sensitive Edward had taken some time to adjust to the boisterousness of boarding school, its clannishness, its regimentation. After a time, though, he finally came to enjoy the experience.

Other boys his age were often already at university, whereas Edward, still in sixth form, instead was the oldest and tallest pupil at his school. His size gave him some status in those halls, as did the supposed maturity of his age. He was a figure for respect, even some awe. Indeed, many of the younger fellows came to look up to him, and often even approached him as something of an unofficial uncle-figure in the resolution of disputes and the adjudication of the strictly forbidden but nevertheless commonplace wagers. Often chaps did chores for him like carrying his books or polishing his shoes or- guiltily he stopped in mid-thought. Well, some of them could be persuaded to perform other favors, too... Uncomfortably he swallowed.

Yet at home...well, despite his age, he still felt like a little boy, and the attitudes of his distant, moribund father only made matters worse. Edward already might have reached the age of legal majority, but as he had been told countless times, in the event of his father's death, he still would not inherit until age twenty-six. Controlled first by his clinging, nervous mother, then by the aloof oversight of his taciturn old father, later by the suave solicitors who would administer his father's substantial holdings in coal, Malayan rubber, and silks, indigo, and tea from India, poor Edward sometimes despaired of ever reaching true adulthood. Why, he still had a governess as if he were twelve, for pity's sake! Habitually, though, he stifled his unvoiced protest, scowling inwardly, for of course no resentment could be revealed. He had long believed himself to be possessed of discernments rather different from those deemed common in polite society, and he was well used to hiding his true self. Until now, that is...

As Edward stood biting his lip, the governess looked the shrinking boy slowly up and down, making him feel like some insect pinned upon a card. His various shortcomings-the ones that everyone else could see, that is-came flooding into his mind. His face felt warm and would look flushed, he was sure. His left shoe was scuffed, he saw now, and although he realized, too, that his tie and jacket were awry, he did not dare move to adjust them. He felt too petrified to speak.

He averted his eyes and glanced with a furtive curiosity about the room. Soon, however, his gaze chanced again upon those Classical paintings. In one picture beautiful maidens ran laughing from a satyr, half-bare as their flowing silks blew and swirled from their rounded white limbs. Another scene showed girls bathing together in a stream, unconcerned, unashamed. In one smaller picture, a haughty nude Venus commanded a group of young men and women to kiss her feet. In the companion painting, Venus then watched over the group as they danced and kissed and cast themselves to the ground, intimately entwined... Red-faced, Edward looked away.

Miss Violetta's searching gaze had left his face, he found, so he tried then to sneak a peek at this commanding new figure. She was dressed all in black, of course, very proper, from her high collar and puffy shoulders, to her narrowly cinched jet corset and the rustling flare of her midnight skirts, to the polished ebon leather of the pointed tips of her many-buttoned boots. Yet whereas upon the plump and elderly Mrs. Jeffers similar dress had seemed almost motherly, upon this sleek and distant young lady such a costume seemed at once both forbidding and somehow mesmerizing.

Yes, upon this lady such clothing seemed to emphasize her youthful femininity in a rather distracting fashion-the whiteness of the throat above her collar, the delicate bosom protected and yet perhaps somehow displayed in its close-fitting temple of glossy black, the swell of her hips from that firmly corseted waist. For a brief moment his poor body felt a wild surge of unreasoning desire for this distant and impossibly beautiful creature. Grimacing inwardly, however, he tried to quell his unwanted emotions.

Surely, he reflected with a twinge of shame, his notice of such features was only the result of his own peculiarly sensual predilections. This lovely young lady was no "actress" posing dishabille on one of those French postcards one sometimes saw passed around at school-she was a proper Englishwoman, one whose moral standing was by definition beyond reproach. The desired effect of her costume, he was sure, was to inspire respect and obedience, and despite the stray thoughts which he tried to banish from his mind, he indeed did feel an almost frightening reverence for this stern young new governess.

Even Miss Violetta's face was severe and impassive. Her nose was narrow and straight, except where it curved up slightly at the tip, almost but not quite giving her face a lingering hint of girlishness. Her skin was smooth like heavy cream, set off by glossy raven hair held back from her ears, a bit incongruously, by a polished comb of shining red carnelian that caught his wondering eye as surely as some tropical carnivorous plant snares a hapless fly. What a strange, beautiful, almost animalistically rich flash of color that was...

Still she examined his clothing critically, but as long as her eyes had not returned to his face, he let his gaze stray to her visage. Her sooty eyebrows were elegant and yet curiously emotionless, while the dark orbs above which they arched gleamed mysteriously. Her lashes, he could not help but notice, were dense and curling, very luxuriant, but she did not use them to soften her expression, as he had seen some other ladies do. Her pursed red lips struck him as sly, somehow, and her dainty little chin seemed very determined.

Poor Edward could not guess the lady's age. He stared helplessly at the smooth, unlined skin of that serenely commanding face. She might have seen close to twice his years, or she might have been but a few seasons older than he. Were he to guess, he could only have hazarded somewhere between perhaps nineteen or twenty years and some thirty.

Even the lower estimate still seemed something of a formidable age to young Master Edward, of course. After all, her power stemmed not merely from mere seniority of years but from her unquestioned position of authority. Her dress and her demeanor made Miss Violetta more formidable still, and her very status as his governess sealed her power. This lady, he knew all at once within his trembling frame, would brook no slight or disobedience, however minor. She was so young and beautiful, so coolly commanding-

"Yes?" said the lady very suddenly.

"M-Miss?" gasped Edward, finding his gaze suddenly locked with hers.

"You were looking at me, Master Edward," intoned his governess gravely. Her fathomless eyes narrowed ever so slightly. "Can you explain?"

"I- I-" Edward's mouth worked, but for a moment no sound came. "Miss Violetta," he attempted, "I meant no disrespect. I had been expecting Mrs. Jeffers, I suppose, and I, I..." He trailed off helplessly.

"Mm," she said without moving those glossy red lips. Then the corners of her mouth curved up in faint amusement. "Perhaps I begin to see some of the propensities which led to your expulsion from school."

Edward's breath stopped in his throat. His pulse suddenly seemed to shake his whole frame, and his face went scarlet. For a moment he could not speak. "M-Miss Violetta," he stammered at last, "I-I-I-"

"Oh, there's no need to deny it, staring little Master Edward," she said archly, showing a bleak smile at his discomfiture. "Surely you don't imagine that when a chronic masturbator is sent home from school, the headmaster has not already sent ahead to London an elliptically worded letter in the early post?"

He gaped at her shocking bluntness, wide-eyed, his heart fluttering distantly within his frozen chest. His whole body felt shrunken and shriveled and small before this all-knowing, faintly smirking lady. "B-b-but, Miss V-Violetta-" he attempted.

"I said not to deny it!" she snapped, suddenly springing to her feet so that her heavy skirts now swayed and rustled from the elegant swell below the delicate hand span of her waist. There was a spot of color now in the pale cream of each cheek. She was very fair in complexion but not thin-skinned, he saw, and the realization that he had made the color come into that previously self-possessed face terrified him.

"I'm sorry, Miss!" he gasped. "I only meant-"

Miss Violetta resumed her seat slowly, her jaw firm. Her nostrils flared, but her voice was deliberate. "Lower your trousers, Master Edward."

"B-beg pardon, Miss Violetta?" he squeaked.

Her dark eyes fixed him helpless before her. She moistened her lips, and then continued softly, "When your governess gives a command, young sir, it had best be obeyed."

"Yes, Miss," said Edward faintly. "Of course, Miss." Hesitantly he began to unhook his braces.