The Orchid Affair Read Online Free PDF Page B

He thrust what looked to her untutored eyes like a substantial sum in her direction.
    “An advance,” he said impatiently, when Laura looked at him uncomprehending. “On your wages.”
    Laura’s back stiffened. “My own funds are more than adequate to settle my current obligations.”
    He looked at her curiously, then shrugged, returning the coins to his pocket. “Will you bite my head off if I offer you the use of the carriage?”
    He cocked an eyebrow, waiting for her reply. There it was again, that glimmer of what might be humor.
    “There is no need, sir,” Laura said coolly. “My lodgings are not far and I am more than accustomed to managing for myself.”
    Jaouen eyed her speculatively, his glasses glinting in the light of the carriage lamps. “I can see that.” And then he ruined it by adding, “I wouldn’t hire you if I thought it were otherwise. My occupation is a demanding one. I have no time for domestic squabbles.”
    That had put her in her place. Between fear and relief, she felt almost giddy. “Squelching squabbles is one of my particular specialties.”
    Jaouen forbore to comment. With the air of someone getting done with a bad job, he continued, “You may be troubled from time to time by my wife’s cousin, who persists under the unfortunate delusion that my home is his own. Ignore him.”
    Ah, one of those, was he? Once, she might have claimed that she wasn’t the sort of governess to inflame a young man’s lusts. But she had learned the hard way that, after a certain degree of inebriation, all it took was being female, and sometimes not even that. She had also learned that employers seldom took kindly to their elder sons, nephews, or houseguests being hit over the head with a warming pan, candlestick, or chamber pot. Laura appreciated both the warning and the implicit authorization to do whatever she needed to do.
    It was comforting to know that the intimidating M. Jaouen had an Achilles’ heel, even if that Achilles’ heel was only a cousin by marriage. It made him more human, somehow. And human meant fallible. Fallible was good, especially for her purposes.
    “I will. Sir.”
    Jaouen nodded brusquely, her message received and accepted. Hat in one hand, cane in the other, he started for the carriage. At the last moment, just beyond the protective cover of the awning, Jaouen jerked his head back over his shoulder. Laura shot to attention.
    “Why did you leave your last position?” he asked abruptly.
    “My pupil married.” If he had hoped to shock her into an admission, he would be disappointed. Her pupil had married in June, leaving her once more without a situation. The family had been kind; they had kept her on through the wedding, but there was a limit to the charity she was willing to accept. “She had no need for a governess anymore.”
    But the Pink Carnation had had need of an agent.
    Rain pocked Jaouen’s glasses as he treated her to another long, thoughtful look. He held his hat in one hand but didn’t bother to put it on, despite the rivulets of rain that silvered his hair and dampened his coat. “An occupational hazard?”
    Laura permitted herself a grim smile. “One of the most hazardous.”
    She had never thought much of matrimony herself—her parents had set no favorable example—but it had been distinctly unsettling to make a place for oneself only to be flung out into the world again. And again and again. Some of them, the sentimental ones, sent letters for a time, but those generally tailed off within the first year, as the daily demands of the domestic state outweighed sentimental recollections of the schoolroom.
    “You shan’t have to worry about that with Gabrielle. Yet.”
    She wouldn’t be around long enough to worry about that.
    “Indeed,” she agreed. Noncommittal replies were always best in dealing with employers. Yes, sir; no, sir; indeed, sir. It came out by rote.
    Jaouen clapped his hat onto his head. “Tomorrow morning,” he said. “The