“Er…” He pulled his watch from his pocket, flicking it open with his thumb. “Not quite eleven o’clock. You’ve been up here for several hours.”

  “Well, then.” She moved to step around him, keeping her head down so she wouldn’t look at him, wouldn’t even breathe in the scent of him if she could avoid doing so. “I should be off to my own room. Th-thank you for waking me. Um… goodnight.”

  It was the wine, she would think later. She caught her foot on the bottom of the nightstand, jostling it and setting the lamp to wobbling. Mr. Halberd reached out and placed his hand on her arm to steady her, but she recoiled from his touch before she could stop herself.

  “My apologies.” He held his free hand up between them, as broad as a white flag. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “Goodnight,” she said again, cutting him off. But she didn’t move. The candle he held guttered from the movement of their mingled breath, and she watched the light of it shine in the darkness of his eyes like a living thing.

  The wine, she tried to tell herself. Only it wasn’t the wine, not at all. Her thoughts were as sharp as the air on a clear winter’s day. She knew very well what she was about as she stepped up to him, as she rose onto the balls of her feet, as she placed her hand on his cheek and brought his mouth down to hers.

  He tasted of whisky and a hint of the cherry tobacco she so often smelled on him. She wanted to savor him, like the wine she had drunk at dinner, the flavor of him flowing over her tongue until she was intoxicated by it. Her thumb traced the line of his jaw, the prickle of unshaven hair there. And his lips…

  It was such a hesitant kiss, and she didn’t want to be hesitant. She had spent all of her life being hesitant, holding back. So she pulled him closer, her fingers sliding into his hair at the nape of his neck, her teeth nipping at his bottom lip before he opened his mouth to her, before she touched her tongue to his.

  A moan came from the back of his throat, and Julia heard it like the sounding of an alarm bell. She broke away from him, swallowing, gasping for a proper breath. “I’m…” She shook her head, putting her hand over her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. The wine…” she lied, and rushed out of the room.

  She couldn’t return to her own room fast enough. She shut the door behind her and immediately paced away from it, needing as much space between Mr. Halberd and herself as the bedroom could provide. She stopped at the windows, pushing back the curtains so that she could peer out into the darkness, at the rain-streaked windows that faintly rattled in their frames.

  “Damn.” The curse slipped out of her, and she would say it another thousand times if it worked to rid herself of the guilt and embarrassment that threatened to overwhelm her.

  She had kissed him.

  Why had she kissed him?

  Oh, but she knew the answer to that. Because she had wanted to. Because she had wanted to for the last dozen years. Since the day she had met him and he had looked at her as though she was a person in her own right and not merely the wife of the new vicar, quiet and subservient and nothing more.

  She stood with her arms crossed over her chest, hands gripping her shoulders. When she trusted herself to breathe again, she slid her hands down over her breasts, down and down towards that persistent ache in her lower abdomen.

  What had she thought she would achieve in coming here, to Langford? Yes, she had wanted to help Zora. Yes, her earnings would help to finance the running of the school and provide the poorer village girls with better materials for their education. But she had always known, deep down, that she had also come here to be near him. As though she was an infatuated fifteen-year-old and not a graying, barren widow in her fifth decade.

  She undressed slowly, her fingers still trembling as she fought with buttons and ties and the last of the pins still clinging to her hair. Her bed was cold, but she tossed and turned until the sheets were warm beneath her legs. She ended up on her side, her feet drawn up beneath the hem of her nightgown, her hands tugging at the corner of her pillow while she watched the shifting glow of the dying coals in the fireplace.

  If she slept at all, it would be a miracle. And so her thoughts drifted to Mr. Halberd — not particularly difficult, as they had hardly taken a moment to abandon him — wondering if he was still awake or if he had already gone to bed, if he had been able to dismiss her aberrant behavior from his mind without any difficulty.

  But what if…

  What if he sent her away? What if he had been offended by her misstep and told her to leave? To go back to Mrs. Cochran’s, back to her former life, or the faint shadow of a life it had been. She could claim she had drunk too much wine at dinner, that she’d been disoriented when he’d woken her up suddenly in the nursery. But he might not take to keeping someone in his employ who took to kissing him in the same room in which his child slumbered.

  No, she would not sleep. Her fate seemed to be dangling over her, a sword tethered to the ceiling while Mr. Halberd’s hands gripped the shears.

  In the morning, when she saw him — if she saw him — she would apologize. Perhaps he would be lenient with her. Perhaps he saw her as nothing more than a silly woman, sad and alone and…

  But he hadn’t pushed her away.

  When she had kissed him, he’d given no sign of offense. He had not reared back or cried out, appalled at her advance. And she could still hear his soft moan, the way it had vibrated through her, down to her very core.

  Julia closed her eyes. Her hands released their grip on the pillow and moved inward, towards her breasts. She paused there, wondering if she should. Her husband had been adamant that to touch oneself in pursuit of pleasure was a sin. Even when they had lain together, when he had been on top of her, inside of her, she had done nothing to help herself towards satisfaction. Neither did he, for that matter.

  Her fingers danced over her nipples, light brushes through the plain cotton of her nightgown. And then a bolder touch, her thumb sliding over and over again until first one nipple tightened and then the other. She relaxed her legs, letting them stretch down towards the foot of the bed while her other hand gathered up her hem, while she sought out the pulsing heat between her thighs.

  It was Mr. Halberd she thought of, as her fingertips slid through the wetness there.

  Alexander…

  Because like this, in the quiet of her own room, she could use his Christian name, pretend they were familiar enough with one another for her to do so. And so it became his hands weighing the heaviness of her breasts, his fingers slipping inside her. First one, then two…

  It didn’t take long. She cried out, burying her face in the pillow as she did so, as her hips jolted beneath her touch. The shame over what she had done would come soon enough. It always did, no matter that Frederick had been gone for five years, that she had never believed an act that could bring people pleasure without harming anyone else could be wrong. But first, she would allow herself to enjoy the ripples of pleasure as they moved through her. Before she fully came back to herself and remembered that she was alone in her bed, and that she had been alone in her bed every night since her husband had died.

  “I’m not sorry,” she said, her voice a quiet thing beneath the sounds of the wind and the rain continuing their battle outside.

  Chapter Eight

  * * *

  Julia did not see Mr. Halberd the next morning. Mrs. Holland informed them before breakfast that a tree had fallen during the storm, landing on the roof of one of his tenant’s farmhouses. Mr. Halberd had ridden out at dawn to help with the removal and subsequent repair. The housekeeper claimed no knowledge of when he might return, and conveyed this lack of knowledge in tones that worked as a warning to Julia that the comings and goings of Mr. Halberd were no concern of a mere governess.

  After breakfast, Julia and Zora attended church. Julia went every week, shuffling into one of the rear pews, hardly speaking to anyone beyond a few rote pleasantries and a handful of nods. She went because it was expected of her, because she was the widow of the former vicar and so it would have been more remarkable for her to absent herself than to do her shuffling and mumbled ‘how-do-you-dos’ every week without any real intention behind them.

  But today, Julia could not succeed in hiding herself with her very presence. She had made no great announcement of her removal from Mrs. Cochran’s to Langford, but Barrow-in-Ashton was a small town, and so word traveled with more speed than if she had put the news in a passel of letters and sent them out to everyone she knew.

  She was aware of the glances as she walked up the main aisle with Zora beside her, the whispers poorly hidden behind gloves and bonnets and handkerchiefs. It had been some time since she’d last found herself a popular topic of gossip in the town. Her years of failed attempts at motherhood, of keeping to herself inside the vicarage and all of the talk it produced had already inured her against most of what anyone could say. Yet here she was, introducing herself as a new topic to be run like grist through the mill. The former vicar’s wife, brought down in the world by her husband’s untimely death, now lowered further to the status of paid employee in order to survive in this world.

  A world designed for her failure, Julia thought, with no small amount of bitterness, and followed Zora into the Halberd’s pew at the front of the church.

  The service was fine if immemorable. Julia had few dealings with the new vicar and his family (though it seemed a bit of a disservice to refer to him as new when he had been in residence at the vicarage since only a short while after Frederick had died) and felt him to be more self-serving and pedantic than she cared for. In other words, very much like most men who dedicated themselves to the Church of England whom she had come across in her lifetime.

  As soon as the last words of the closing prayer were sent heavenwards, the congregation let out a collective sigh of relief and made their way out of the church and into the middling wind and drizzle that lingered in the wake of the previous night’s storm. Julia took Zora home, set her up in the nursery with a small meal and a seat beside the basket that held her kitten, newly-dubbed Ellen, now that the furry creature had been fully weaned from its mother.

  Julia gathered up her things — paper, paints, brushes, and several other items — and left for the schoolhouse while Isadora plied her new darling with minced bites of chicken and warm saucers of cream. She chose to walk to school as the rain had stopped and slivers of clear sky were visible between the rows of clouds marching from one end of the sky to the other. The girls wouldn’t be along for another hour, and so Julia spent the quiet time building up a small fire in the stove and sweeping away any cobwebs that had collected in the corners while she’d been away.

  Today, they would create art. She set up a bowl of flowers to paint or sketch as they wished, bright blooms taken from the hothouse at Langford. No doubt she should have asked permission before helping herself to Mr. Halberd’s flowers, but she’d had no desire to speak with Mrs. Holland about it. Julia suspected the housekeeper wouldn’t want to go out of her way to help the poor girls of the town with their education. And as for asking Mr. Halberd himself…

  She would see him tonight, she supposed. Possibly at dinner or afterwards. And she would have to speak to him, or wait for him to speak to her, as she didn’t doubt he would have something to say.

  She tried not to think about what a fool she’d been the previous night, allowing her physical attraction to him to rule her behavior. Perhaps if she was a couple of decades younger she could have excused herself as impassioned. But she was older now, with a husband dead and buried. There wasn’t supposed to be any passion left for people her age. Especially not for poor widows, or insignificant governesses.

  For the rest of the afternoon she was able to distract herself from her thoughts with teaching. The girls arrived, straggling in one or two at a time, excited as they always were to be out and away from their families, to have this brief moment of attention set aside just for them.

  The art and the flowers were a surprise, and Julia took the time to relish their appreciation of the blooms as she didn’t know if there would ever be a repetition of such an event. The girls settled down with barely-constrained chatter, pleased with the fine paper and paints and charcoal already arranged for them.

  To begin with, Julia gave them no further instructions than to paint. To draw. To bring to life, to the best of their abilities, the bowl of flowers set out in the shifting daylight that poured through the small windows. As they worked, she paced around the room, observing their progress and doling out little tips and tricks to better show color, shadow, and perspective.

  The results were… expected. Julia had not anticipated much in the way of skill, if she was to be honest. These were not girls who spent their days decorating bonnets or learning the steps of a quadrille. Their young hands already bore the calluses of hard work, their skin red and raw from the harsh soap used for cleaning and laundry, dirt beneath their fingernails and scrapes on their knuckles from planting and digging and cooking. There would be little more expected from them than to marry, bear children, and continue to wash and to scrub and to cook until the end of their lives.

  But Julia wanted them to have these moments of magic, to try to capture them and hold them in their memories. Life would be hard for them, no doubt for their future husbands and children, too. But it couldn’t be all darkness and toil and suffering. Julia learned that, after the loss of her first child. Her grief had dragged her to such depths she thought she might never see the light again. It was then she began seeking out shards of beauty among the mundanities. The warmth of sunlight on her back. The smell of woodsmoke curling up from a freshly-built fire. An act of kindness from another person, given to her without anticipation of anything in return. Little jewels of survival.

  At the end of the lesson, Julia allowed the girls to take their work home with them if they wished. Some eagerly agreed, while others quietly admitted they had no desire to see anything to happen to it, what with siblings and animals and limited space at home. Instead, they offered their art as a present to their teacher, and took a flower with them, tucked into their hair or pinched between their fingers.

  Julia gathered up the mess of paints and brushes and pencils while the fire died down. Any and every little chore to delay her return to Langford and the possibility of seeing Mr. Halberd again.

  Of course, she would have to see him again at some point. Unless he went so far as to dismiss her from her position by letter or through a message delivered — with no small amount of exultation — by Mrs. Holland. To pack up her things, to return to Mrs. Cochran’s house, to abandon her attempt of reaching for something more after less than a week instilled in his house as a governess.

  She could try somewhere else, she reasoned. Advertise for a position in another household, somewhere away from Langford, away from Barrow-in-Ashton, away from the gossip and the shadow of her former life tainting every corner of her current existence. But she feared she was already too old to begin again. She still suspected the offer of employment from Mr. Halberd had only come about due to pity and their shared history, rather than because he truly thought her the best candidate for the job. Another such offer would be difficult to obtain. And so it would be Mrs. Cochran’s again, or belittling herself further and begging for home and assistance from one of her sisters. No doubt at least one of them would offer to take her in; and then what would she be? The poor relation, tucked into a spare room, brought out for various holidays and fetes like a stiff, musty cap worn only on special occasions.

  She finished packing things into her basket and took her bonnet down from its peg on the wall. Would she see Mr. Halberd when she returned to Langford? It was the waiting that was nearly unbearable, accompanied by the loss of control over her own future. Not that she had ever possessed much authority over her own fate. Even choosing to marry her husband had not really been a choice at all, but rather an acceptance of her loss of options.

  She had been nearly thirty years old, with her younger sisters all married and moved away before her. Her father had been close to seventy at the time, and had nursed a weak heart for the previous decade. If he died, when he died, there would have been no place for Julia. Their mother was already gone, so it was either marry Mr. Frederick Benton or cast herself upon a relative like some piece of forgotten baggage.

  Her bonnet tied tight beneath her chin, her shawl wrapped around her shoulders, she stepped out of the schoolhouse and into the waning afternoon light. She locked the door behind her, her basket jostling against her side before she turned and—

  She didn’t stumble. She was proud of herself for that much, at least.

  Mr. Halberd walked towards her, his own steps slowing when he saw her. But he continued on as though it had been his intention to seek her out — and maybe it had — and so her heart decided to give her the stumble her feet could not.

  “Mrs. Benton.” He raised his hand to his hat as he approached her. He appeared to be all that was calm and composed, and not at all like someone who was about to tell her that she would have to leave Langford and seek out a position elsewhere. “I had wondered if I would run into you on your way home.”

  Home. She clung to that word. Your home. As though she belonged at Langford, as though he was not about to expel her from it.

  “Um, good afternoon.” She spoke a beat too late. She tried meeting his eyes, but her gaze flitted away too quick. There was warmth in her face, crawling up her neck until she thought her head might burst into flames if she didn’t find a cold stream or an ice house in which to take up residence. “The fallen tree, on your tenant’s home? Has it already been cleared away?”

  “Yes.” He sounded distracted. “And without as much damage to the roof as we feared.”