A Teacher of Love Read online

  “The sea has been exceedingly rough and his yacht has been delayed in the English Channel.”

  “Then we have got all dressed up for nothing!”

  Tasia realised that the boys were disappointed.

  “There is always tomorrow, but I do think it would be a big mistake to waste the delicious dinner cook has so diligently prepared for your father.”

  The boys readily agreed with Tasia.

  They went into the dining room at nine o’clock and enjoyed four superb courses, but there was still no sign of the Earl when they had finished.

  Finally as they were beginning to look tired, Tasia suggested they went upstairs to bed.

  She joined the boys and talked to them while they were preparing for bed, amusing them with tales about the pictures and statues they had seen in the British Museum.

  Just as they were saying goodnight, they heard some voices in the distance.

  “That’s Papa!” exclaimed Peter.

  He pulled on his dressing gown and ran towards the door and Simon followed his example.

  They ran off down the passage and now they could hear Mr. Seymour’s voice in the hall.

  At the top of the stairs Peter and Simon stopped.

  Coming through the front door was an elderly man supported by two footmen.

  It was no one they had ever seen before.

  Peter had intended to rush down the stairs, but now he and Simon crouched in their dressing gowns behind the elaborate balustrade on the landing.

  Tasia realised that the two boys could see but not be seen and because she had no wish for his Lordship to notice her, she did the same.

  As the ceiling of the hall was high, there would be no reason for anyone coming in through the front door to look up and see them.

  The elderly man was almost carried by the footmen into the drawing room.

  Following him was a very pretty lady.

  She did not look English and was smartly dressed.

  She was wearing a hat with feathers that fluttered as she walked and a fulsome fur cape, which encircled her from her shoulders to her feet.

  The best-looking man Tasia had ever seen followed her closely.

  In fact he was so handsome that for a moment she could hardly believe that it was indeed the Earl.

  She had expected him to be a good-looking man, but certainly not as handsome as a Greek God.

  Mr. Seymour and the butler were showing the two visitors into the drawing room.

  Tasia was aware that there would be champagne, as well as every other sort of drink and pâté sandwiches.

  Mr. Seymour had already told the staff that, as the Earl was travelling in his special coach, he would have had dinner on the train.

  When they passed into the drawing room and the butler closed the door, the boys stood up.

  “I would never have expected Papa to come home with friends,” muttered Peter.

  “I think,” Simon put in, “she looks exactly like a pussy cat. She should join those in the kitchen with cook!”

  Both boys laughed and Tasia knew that they were referring to the three little kittens that had been born the previous week by the cook’s much-loved cat.

  Both Peter and Simon visited soon after they were born and went back every day to see how they were faring.

  The cook had welcomed them and spoilt them with special gingerbread fingers or some other titbit.

  Tasia had often accompanied them as she thought it was very good for them to learn to be friends with the staff.

  She had soon learnt that their previous Tutors had forbidden them ever to go into the kitchen.

  Simon had found an animal at the zoo that he felt resembled cook, and now Tasia could understand that with her furry coat the lady who had just arrived reminded him of one of the kittens.

  She started to walk back to their end of the corridor and as Peter and Simon joined her, she suggested,

  “It will be no use trying to see your father tonight. As he has friends with him, he may stay up very late and I want you to be at your best tomorrow.”

  “I wonder who those people are?” Peter wanted to know. “I have never seen them before.”

  “It will be a big shame if Papa wants to talk to them and not to us,” Simon sighed, “when we have so much to tell him.”

  Tasia thought the same, but felt it would be unwise for her to say so.

  She merely helped both the boys into their beds and kissed them goodnight.

  “I am sorry your party could not take place tonight, but I am sure you will be able to have it tomorrow.”

  “Not if those two people are there with Papa,” Peter grumbled.

  “Perhaps they are only staying for one night,” Tasia suggested cheerfully.

  She said her usual farewells and blessing and then she blew out the lights and waved to them from the door.

  As she reached her own room, she was thinking how annoying it was that the boys should be so disappointed.

  She had reckoned it would be a delightful surprise for the Earl to find the boys looking so smartly dressed and with presents for him they had made themselves.

  It had never occurred to her that the Earl would not be alone – nor had Mr. Seymour indicated that there was any likelihood of guests.

  In her room she realised it was still comparatively early for her to go to sleep. She had found that it was more comfortable to read a book in bed than in the sitting room.

  She put on one of her prettiest nightgowns and was about to climb into bed when she heard voices.

  She realised that someone was coming up the stairs and she guessed it would be the old gentleman.

  She could hear that when he and those helping him reached the top of the staircase, they turned right towards the State bedrooms.

  Then there was silence, so Tasia opened her book and started to read.

  *

  Downstairs the Comtesse was saying to the Earl,

  “Your house is entrancing, Leopold, and you must show me all of it tomorrow.”

  Because the Earl had no wish for his guests to stay longer than one night, he responded quickly,

  “I expect to be leaving for the country fairly early tomorrow. There will be so much for me to see to on my estate as I have been away for so long.”

  The Comtesse gave a little cry.

  “But, mon cher, when shall I see you again?”

  “Oh, I will be coming up and down frequently from the country and of course we will meet.”

  She looked at him from under her dark eyelashes.

  “You know I want more than that – ”

  She put out her hand towards him as she spoke and the Earl kissed it.

  “You have been so adorable, but now we must go back to our normal lives and I am inevitably a busy man.”

  The Comtesse pouted her beautiful lips, but as he walked to the door, she knew there was nothing she could say.

  “We have had a long journey,” remarked the Earl, “and I am sure you are as tired as I am. Let me show you the way upstairs.”

  It was impossible for her to protest.

  There were two footmen in the hall with the butler awaiting instructions.

  “I will have breakfast,” the Earl told the butler, “at eight-thirty. Find out in the morning what time Madame la Comtesse requires a carriage to take her and her husband to the Foreign Office.”

  “Very good, my Lord.”

  The Comtesse was walking slowly up the stairs as the Earl joined her and, when they reached the landing, Mrs. Donaldson was waiting patiently at the door of the Rose Room – where the most distinguished female guests were always accommodated.

  “This is my housekeeper,” he said as they reached Mrs. Donaldson. “I am quite certain that she will find you everything you need and you will spend a very comfortable night.”

  “You are most kind,” the Comtesse murmured and quietly added in French, “but I will undoubtedly be very lonely in a strange room.”

  The Earl d
id not respond as she hoped.

  He merely bowed to her in the French fashion and then walked towards his own room.

  The Comtesse pressed her lips together tightly and then forced herself to reply pleasantly to the questions that Mrs. Donaldson was asking her.

  *

  In her bed Tasia had almost finished the book she had brought upstairs from the library.

  It was one she had found most interesting, as it was an account of various Eastern religions, some of which she had never heard of before.

  A traveller who had discovered strange religious rites in obscure parts of the world had written the book and, she thought, these would interest her father.

  She had a sudden longing for him and his clever, intelligent conversation.

  Then she wondered if he was still determined that she should marry Lord Hazelbury.

  It was too soon for her to return home, as having run away, she would have to be completely sure that her father had given up his plans before she reappeared.

  ‘Perhaps in another month’s time,’ she mused, ‘it will be safe.’

  She wanted to be certain before she took any risks.

  When she put down her book, she was aware that it was rather stuffy in her bedroom and the housemaids had obviously not left the window open as wide as it would go.

  Tasia climbed out of her bed and pulling back the curtains found the window was only half open.

  It was a very warm night without a breath of wind, so she opened up the window and was pulling the curtains back when she heard a scream.

  For a moment she thought she must be mistaken.

  Then it was repeated.

  She thought perhaps it came from the boys and ran to the door, hurriedly picking up her dressing gown.

  She opened the door and looked right towards the boy’s room.

  The screams were now increasing in intensity and seemed to be coming from the other end of the corridor.

  She looked and saw that the door of the Rose Room was wide open and a small woman dressed in a nightgown stood howling hysterically in the passage.

  Next moment, the Earl appeared from the Master suite in a long dark robe that made him seem very tall.

  He hurried towards the screaming woman.

  To Tasia’s surprise something small and furry ran out of the Rose Room and fled along the corridor.

  There were only a few candles alight on that part of the landing and it was impossible to see what it was.

  Then just as it turned at the top of the stairs, Tasia could make out that it was one of the kitchen kittens.

  It disappeared out of sight and then she could see that the Earl was at the Comtesse’s side.

  “What’s happened? What’s upset you?” he asked.

  “An animal – a wild creature – a rat – in my bed!”

  “I cannot believe it. Let me look.”

  “It has gone. It has gone,” the Comtesse managed to sob. “But it frightened me so and I put my foot on it.”

  She threw herself against the Earl.

  He put her on one side and went to the stairs.

  The night footman was below him.

  “What has just come downstairs, Hopkins?”

  “It be one of them kittens from the kitchen, my Lord.”

  “How did it get upstairs?” the Earl asked harshly.

  “I thinks Master Peter or Simon must have taken it up,” the footman replied. “I sees ’em playing with ’em!”

  The Earl’s lips tightened.

  He returned to the Rose Room where the Comtesse was staring at her dishevelled bed.

  “I was frightened – so very frightened,” she sighed breathlessly in French.

  “It was only a kitten and it has gone. There will be no more animals to frighten you. In fact I will make sure there are not.”

  She put out her hands.

  “Stay with me and I will no longer be afraid,” she begged.

  The Earl shook his head.

  “I am going to make sure that this does not happen again,” he asserted sharply.

  He left the room before the Comtesse could protest any further.

  She pulled back the bedclothes to make certain that nothing else was hidden in the dark depths of the huge bed before climbing nervously into it.

  The Earl, with an exasperated grimace on his face, walked back hurriedly to his own room.

  Watching him from the shadows at the far end of the corridor, Tasia wondered if he really was annoyed.

  She could hardly imagine that the boys would have done anything quite so foolish as to put one of the kittens into the Comtesse’s bed.

  Then she remembered that Simon had been sure she resembled one of the kittens.

  He was therefore really paying her a compliment, but it was certainly one that had not been appreciated!

  She could understand, as they had been so often to the zoo recently, that he was no longer afraid of animals – he looked on them in the same way as he did people.

  She was just turning to go back into her own room, when she saw the Earl come out of his bedroom again.

  He was carrying in his hand something that looked to Tasia even from a distance like a dog-whip.

  She drew in her breath, as she watched him walk to the top of the stairs.

  Then he came towards the corridor where she and the boys were now sleeping, but when he reached as far as the staircase that led up to the next floor, he climbed up it.

  Tasia knew he was going to the old schoolroom.

  She stood irresolute until he was out of sight. She heard him open a door and there was the sound of voices.

  It was only then she recalled what Mrs. Donaldson had told her a week or so ago – that she was now using the old schoolroom for the young housemaids.

  Tasia had not been very interested at the time and yet now she remembered Mrs. Donaldson saying,

  “Those maids be overcrowded on the other side of the attic and I’m real glad to have these two rooms at my disposal now you’re no longer needing them.”

  Of course, no one had had time to tell the Earl about the alterations.

  Tasia heard a door closing sharply.

  Whoever was sleeping in what had been Peter’s and Simon’s room would have told him they had been moved to the floor below.

  Instinctively, as if she knew exactly what was about to happen, Tasia ran first into her own room.

  The boudoir was lit only by the moonlight coming through the sides of the curtains.

  She swept through it and into the room where the two boys slept to find them both fast asleep.

  She then moved towards the door leading onto the passage, feeling her way so as not to fall over anything.

  She turned the key in the lock and then she slipped into the sitting room.

  Again she locked the door and next she returned to her own bedroom.

  She had been so quick that the Earl coming slowly down the other staircase had only just reached the bottom.

  She hoped and prayed that he would go back to his own room, but as she expected, he turned left.

  As he reached her lighted doorway, he stopped.

  Tasia walked resolutely towards the Earl.

  “Good evening, my Lord, I think perhaps you are looking for your sons?”

  The Earl stared at her.

  Her golden hair was perfectly haloed by the light of the candles behind her.

  She was, he thought, extremely pretty, but unexpected in his own house.

  “Who are you?” he demanded curtly.

  “I am the new Tutor to Peter and Simon.”

  “The Tutor!” he exclaimed. “Are you joking?”

  “No, I am definitely their Tutor, my Lord. Whilst you were away, three Tutors walked out, refusing to try any more to teach them. As there was no other man available, I took their place.”

  The Earl drew in his breath.

  “Then all I can say,” he snarled, “is that you have done your job exceedingly badly! Now, as my s
ons have insulted my guest, I intend to punish them.”

  “You must do nothing of the sort, my Lord, for the simple reason that it is my fault that they put the kitten in your visitor’s bed.”

  “Your fault?”

  “It may be difficult to appreciate, but I have been teaching your boys in a completely different way from the way they have been taught before. What they intended by putting a kitten in the lady’s bed was really a compliment to her attractiveness.”

  “I don’t understand what you are talking about,” the Earl snapped. “It sounds completely incomprehensible to me and I will deal with my sons as I think fit.”

  “It is something you must not do,” insisted Tasia.

  The Earl paid no attention. He merely turned to the door of the sitting room.

  As Tasia had locked the door, it would not open and he then went to the next room, but again the well-built door was firmly locked and it was impossible for him to open it.

  There was a dark and deepening frown between his eyes as he came back to Tasia.

  “I have no idea what is going on here, but, as I wish to speak to my sons, will you kindly open the door that I presume you are responsible for locking.”

  “I have locked it, my Lord, so you will not destroy all I have managed to achieve since I have been here!

  “Ever since I started I have been attempting to help your sons who had refused to have any more lessons and had thought of running away.”

  “Running away!” the Earl exclaimed.

  “They had been bullied, pushed and struck by the last Tutor until they became determined not to stand it any more. As I have said, they were contemplating running away from the home where they were so unhappy.”

  “I find it hard to believe what you are saying, but surely, seeing as how young you are, you can hardly pretend to be a Tutor or have much knowledge of young boys.”

  Tasia paused for a moment.

  Then speaking in her best and most fluent Parisian French, she began,

  “I have discovered that Peter is naturally musical and he is looking forward to showing you how he can play the piano.”

  She drew in her breath and speaking in German she continued,

  “Simon has an excellent aptitude for drawing and painting that should certainly be encouraged.”

  Then in Greek she ended,

  “Both the boys are starved of love, affection and understanding, which I am sorry to say, my Lord, you have not given them.”