Free Karen Harbaugh by The Marriage Scheme Page B

steel into her softly smiling voice. I laughed.
    “Wasn’t trying to make you forget anything—not that it wouldn’t have been a good thing! Can’t cut an acquaintance, after all! Bad ton!” he protested indignantly.
    “Lucas!”
    “Oh, dash it all!” He sighed. “Pretty governesses ain’t hired because it’d cause trouble. Especially if there are male members of the family around.”
    Samantha’s brow furrowed. “But I don’t see—”
    “I do,” I said. Lucas was staring out above the horses’ ears, apparently concentrating on squeezing between a phaeton and a wagon, but his cheeks had grown a bit pink. “You’re saying that a man of the family might fall in love—or worse— with the governess if she were pretty. And it isn’t proper that such a thing should happen.” I had read of this in some of the novels Mama borrowed from the circulating library—but it had come out all right in the end. Perhaps it was different in real life.
    “Well, if that isn’t the most unjust thing I have ever heard!” Samantha exclaimed.
    Her brother shrugged his shoulders. “Not saying it isn’t, but think: If you were hiring someone and thought her presence might cause some trouble, and things would be nice and calm if you simply did not hire her, wouldn’t you take that road? Simple as can be. Wouldn’t have to watch things every minute, rely on a plain woman’s looks to keep the air cool, teach your children at the same time.” Samantha looked troubled, but again, I had to admit he was right.
    “It still isn’t just!” cried Samantha, not wanting to give up.
    “Wish there were something I could do about it, but it can’t be helped.” Lucas snapped the whip just above the horses’ ears, and we slid past the wagon. “Just the way things are.”
    “Perhaps I could become a schoolmistress, if not a governess,” I pursued hopefully. “I wouldn’t encounter many men in a young ladies’ academy like Miss Angstead’s, I am sure.”
    “If,” replied Lucas dampingly, “there isn’t a painting master or one of those dancing masters about. Might fall head over heels for you, and then what will you do? Can’t have that sort of thing happening in a school, I imagine.”
    I thought of the dancing master at Miss Angstead’s and doubted that this would ever occur. Signore Trapelli, contrary to my preferred image of Italians, was a dour, sallow, spindle-shanked little man; he could dance elegantly to the most liveliest music and never change his basset-hound countenance to anything more cheerful than a brief grimace of teeth. I could not imagine Signore Trapelli falling head over heels for anyone. I shrugged and cast a skeptical glance at Lucas. Catching it, he said: “That is, if there’s a position available for you at all. Seems like there’s any number of females looking for a position like that all the time.”
    That sent me to point non plus as none of his other arguments did. I well knew the number of young women who applied at Miss Angstead’s Seminary for Young Ladies and how many were turned away, for it was seldom that a position became vacant, and when it did, it was not for long. I had always assumed that I would take a position as a governess or schoolmistress when I came of age, for I did not want to be a burden to Mama. I had not considered other options, for my love of scholarship was really the one thing that occupied my mind and my time. I felt at quite a loss.
    Samantha saw my crestfallen face and tried to help. “Well, how about millinery?” she said tentatively.
    “I don’t know anything about making hats,” I said, “unless I could paint them. I suppose I could design some dresses, but I can hardly sew a straight seam, much less know how one could make a living designing dresses.”
    We rode in silence for a while, when suddenly Lucas spoke up. “Dash it all, don’t see why we have to make a big thing of it! Thing is, don’t see why you think you have to have an