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to
the piano which was in the salon adjoining the drawing room.
     
    “Now you are upset,” said Mr. Oakley.
“Why?”
     
    “Xander? You promised to turn the
pages,” Mrs. Somerson called from the adjoining room.
     
    “I think Mrs. Somerson wants you,” said
Catherine.
     
    ***
     
    Xander had trouble concentrating on
turning the pages, wondering what on earth had got into Catherine. Everything
had been fine until Phoebe had come along. Then it began to dawn on him. But it
couldn’t be true and if it was, he would have to nip it in the bud. He was
nearly thirty years old, Catherine was only nineteen. What’s more he was her
legal guardian and responsible for her welfare. But he’d have been a fool if he
hadn’t noticed how her initial coolness with him had turned to admiration.
Clearly she was building him up in her mind as some sort of hero because he’d
helped her and Alyssa and because of the story he’d told at dinner the night
before.  He hadn’t considered how impressionable young girls could be, having
spent most of his time in the company of either men or older women.
     
    No, he’d definitely have to find some
way to get down off the pedestal on which Catherine had clearly placed him. Her
admiration was a complication he couldn’t afford, especially if he was going to
encourage her to marry someone else. At that thought he felt himself getting
angry. What if he chose the wrong man for her? What if she ended up living a
miserable life with a husband who treated her badly? Or to a man who didn’t
understand that, rare amongst women, she liked to discuss topics other than her
pretty new bonnet? His duty would only last until the day she married, yet part
of him felt that it went beyond that.  It then struck him like a flash of
lightning that the idea of her being married to anyone else but him was
anathema to him. That came with the knowledge that she was very young, and if
he approached her in a romantic way, she might even see it as a betrayal of the
trust she’d put in him. He’d be guilty of taking advantage of a vulnerable
young woman who, in the past two years had lost both her father and her
brother, leaving her without a stabilizing male influence in her life.
     
    No matter how much she might think she
admired him, it could only be puppy love. He had to be the sensible one, though
he had to admit that he didn’t feel very sensible at that moment. It took every
ounce of his self-control not to go and find her and tell her how he felt.
     
    The age difference and her vulnerability
wasn’t the only reason. The life he lived, as the Captain, was a dangerous one.
It also meant a lot of time travelling that, as a single man, he might be able
to explain away to outsiders, but would find much harder to explain to a wife
waiting at home for him. It might also put her in peril if anyone ever found
out the truth about him. The thought of her being used to get at him was horrifying.
     
    The more he thought about it, the more
insurmountable the problem of Catherine and his feelings for her seemed. There
were too many reasons not to tell her he loved her, fighting against his heart
which told him that reasons didn’t matter as long as she didn’t marry someone
else.
     
    “Xander, for goodness sake,” said Phoebe.
“You are absent-minded tonight.”
     
    “I’m sorry,” he said, turning the page,
and realizing that everyone had been waiting for him.
     
    “I’ve rather a lot on my mind.”
     
    “Fairy stories, I suppose,” Phoebe
hissed as she played. She smiled at the assembled guests before muttering under
her breath.  “The sooner you get these little girls off your hands, the better.
Fatherhood doesn’t suit you.”
     
    At that harsh reminder of the age
difference that had been worrying him, Xander flicked the page over again,
knowing full well that Phoebe hadn’t yet reached that point in the music, and
was not talented enough to remember what the rest should be.
     
    Later