Octavius and the Perfect Governess: Pryor Cousins #1

by Emily Larkin

  She dropped the book and pressed her hands to her mouth. “Oh, my goodness.”

  Lord Octavius pressed his hands to his mouth, too. His eyes were watering. “Ow,” he said.

  “I’m so sorry!” Pip said. “I thought you were Mr. Donald.” She dug out her handkerchief with fingers that trembled stupidly. “Here.”

  Lord Octavius cautiously lowered his hands. His upper lip was swelling. Blood trickled from his nose.

  “Did I break your nose?” Pip asked, her voice hushed with horror.

  “No.”

  “It’s bleeding.”

  Lord Octavius carefully fingered his nose, winced, and said, “It’s not broken.” He took her handkerchief and dabbed at the trickle of blood.

  “I’m so sorry,” Pip said again. She felt sick to the pit of her belly. She’d hit him. She’d hurt him.

  “My fault,” Lord Octavius said. “Shouldn’t have tried to sneak up on you.” He grinned. “Excellent job, by the way.”

  “Excellent?” Pip repeated dumbly.

  “First rate, in fact. Rumpole would be in full flight.”

  “I met Mr. Donald on the stairs,” Pip told him. “Only a few minutes ago.”

  Lord Octavius lost his grin. “You did?”

  Pip nodded.

  “What did he do?”

  “He was perfectly polite, but he made certain his arm touched mine when I passed.” Pip bent to pick up the book. “I thought you were him.”

  “Mr. Donald would be in retreat now, too,” Lord Octavius said. He folded the handkerchief and dabbed at his nose again.

  Pip clutched the book to her chest. “Do you think so?”

  “I might have surprised you first, but you surprised me harder.” He smiled at her. “Well done.”

  Pip didn’t smile back. Part of her was aware that she’d acquitted herself well, but the rest of her was appalled that she’d actually hit someone. That she’d drawn blood.

  Lord Octavius’s lessons had been almost a game. This had been real. Real fear when his arms had come around her. Real blood when she’d hit him.

  “Miss Toogood? Are you all right?”

  “I’ve never hurt anyone before,” Pip said, clutching The Naturalist’s and Traveller’s Companion tightly.

  “This? It’s nothing. Look, it’s stopped bleeding already.”

  Pip looked, and saw that he was correct.

  “You want this back? No?” Lord Octavius tucked the crumpled, bloodstained handkerchief into his pocket, then he took the book from her hands and put it to one side. His arms came around her. This time it wasn’t shocking or frightening. It was comforting.

  Pip let herself relax against his chest. “I’m sorry I hurt you,” she whispered into one of his lapels.

  “I’m sorry I scared you,” he whispered back. “And I want you to know that I’m very proud of you.” He pressed a light kiss to her hair. “I hope you’re proud of yourself?”

  Pip considered this question for a moment, and then said, “I’m relieved.” Relieved that she hadn’t frozen in fear, relieved that she’d known how to fight back, relieved that she’d practiced often enough that she could defend herself without hesitation. “Thank you for the lessons.”

  “I’m glad they worked . . . despite finding myself on the receiving end of your skills.” He chuckled.

  “I’m sorry—”

  “No, the fault was mine. I shouldn’t have sneaked up on you. It’s the sort of child’s trick my cousin Ned would play—except you’d have heard him coming. He sounds like a stampeding elephant.” He paused, and then said, “I told him about you. I told them all about you.”

  Pip pulled back slightly and looked at his face. “Even your parents?”

  He nodded.

  Apprehensiveness tightened her chest. “What did they say?”

  “My parents are very much looking forward to meeting you.”

  Pip eyed him dubiously. “Did you tell them I’m only a governess?”

  “I did, but they don’t give a fig about that. No one does.”

  Pip rather doubted the accuracy of that statement. His parents must have been horrified to learn that he intended to marry a governess. His brother would have been horrified, too, and his formidable grandfather, when he found out, would be appalled—

  Lord Octavius gave her a gentle shake. “Whatever you’re thinking, stop it.”

  Could he read her thoughts on her face?

  Apparently he could, for he said, “You think you’ll not be welcome in my family? That you’ll cause a breach between my parents and me? Well, you’re wrong. Everyone will love you.” He smiled down at her. “I told my parents that the luckiest day of my life was the day I met you.”

  Pip didn’t know how his parents had felt when they’d heard that, but she knew how she felt. Sudden tears stung her eyes.

  “I can’t wait for you to meet my grandparents,” Lord Octavius continued cheerfully. “I think you and Grandfather will get along splendidly.”

  Pip managed to blink back the foolish tears. “You do? Why?”

  “For a start, he’s going to love your hair.”

  Pip opened her mouth to tell him that even if the duke’s wife had once had red hair that was no reason for the duke to like her, when he continued: “But most of all he’s going to like your character.”

  “My character?”

  “Your character,” Lord Octavius repeated.

  The admiration in his voice and the warmth in his eyes brought a hot blush to Pip’s cheeks. She hid her head against his chest.

  He put his arms around her again. “Philippa . . . may I call you Philippa?”

  “I prefer Pip,” Pip said, into his lapel.

  “Pip,” he said. “I like it. It suits you. It sounds exactly like someone who climbs trees and flies kites and picks flowers in meadows.”

  The comment gave Pip a warm feeling in her chest.

  “And you must call me Octavius, or Otto if you wish. Whichever you like best.”

  Pip rather thought she liked Octavius best. It had a quaint, archaic formality to it.

  She closed her eyes. Lord Octavius smelled of linen and soap and warm wool and something else, something that was purely him, something masculine, a little bit woodsy, a little bit citrussy, and wholly delicious. “You’re back earlier than I expected.”

  “I left London before dawn,” Lord Octavius said, and then he said, “I have something to show you.” He released her and dug in his pocket and handed her a piece of paper.

  Pip had known that he’d intended to get a special license in London, but knowing it and seeing it were apparently two different things. All the air left her lungs. For a moment she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak—and then she forced herself to do both those things: “The girls . . . I can’t leave until—”

  “The license is valid for three months,” Lord Octavius said. “But I don’t think we’ll need that long. I have a cunning plan.”

  “You do?”

  “It’s my mother’s cunning plan, actually, but I think it will work.” He paused dramatically, and then said, “Rumpole’s going to give Newingham guardianship of the girls.”

  Pip raised her eyebrows. “He is?”

  Lord Octavius nodded. “Yes. Because Amelia Rumpole’s ghost is going to insist upon it. Quite vehemently.”

  “You’re right: that is cunning.” She folded up the special license and handed it back.

  “I have the whole speech worked out,” Lord Octavius said. “She’s going to call him a loathsome molester of women and a vile debaucher and the basest, most contemptible worm to ever crawl upon this earth. Would you like to hear it?”

  “Very much,” said Pip. “But not now. I must get back to the shrubbery. Everyone’s waiting for me.”

  “Tonight, then,” Lord Octavius said. “After dinner. I’ll practice my performance.” He picked up The Naturalist’s and Traveller’s Companion. “Do you need this?”

  “And the Catalogue of British I
nsects,” Pip said.

  Lord Octavius picked that up, too, and headed for the door—and halted on the threshold. “Have I blood on my face?”

  Pip examined him. His upper lip was a little swollen, but that was the only sign that she’d struck him. “No blood,” she confirmed.

  “My neckcloth?” He gave himself a double chin trying to peer down at it.

  Pip scrutinized the snowy folds. “No blood,” she said again.

  “Good.” He grinned at her and leaned close to drop a light kiss on her lips, and Pip wished that four people weren’t waiting in the shrubbery for her to return.

  The girls spent half an hour identifying the insects they’d found. When their enthusiasm waned, Lord Octavius said, “I’ve been in a carriage for hours. I need to stretch my legs. Let’s go for a ramble!”

  And so, they rambled. Along lanes and over stiles, through orchards and across meadows. The girls hunted for flowers, scampering here and there, trying to find as many different colors as possible. Lord Newingham scampered with them. After a few minutes Mr. Pryor abandoned his saunter and joined the hunt. “I’m going to find more colors than anyone else,” he announced in a top-lofty manner.

  Newingham and the girls began to scamper even faster.

  “Miss Toogood,” Lord Octavius said, and Pip thought he was going to suggest they start looking for flowers, too, but instead he said, “Do you think there are any advantages to being born female?”

  The question was so unexpected and so very odd that Pip halted.

  Lord Octavius halted, too. “Or do you think that there are none?”

  Pip opened her mouth, and then closed it again.

  “Because I’ve been thinking about it, and I can’t think of one single advantage to being born female, and that’s . . . well, frankly, it bothers me.”

  He appeared to be telling the truth. There was a crease between his eyebrows and his lips were compressed.

  “Are there meant to be advantages?” Pip asked.

  “There ought to be, don’t you think? I mean, there are a lot of advantages to being male, so there ought to be some advantages to being female. It’s only fair.”

  Pip was startled into a laugh. “I don’t think it’s something that’s fair; it simply is.”

  Lord Octavius didn’t return her laugh. His frown deepened. “Are you happy being female? Would you not prefer to be a man?”

  Pip blinked. And blinked again. “I can truthfully tell you that I’ve never considered it before.”

  Lord Octavius didn’t say anything, he simply continued looking at her, a frown on his face, and after a moment she realized that he was waiting for her to answer his question.

  Would she prefer to be a man?

  Pip glanced away from him. The girls were wading through ankle-high grass in their quest for flowers. Newingham was on hands and knees under a hedgerow, the tails of his coat flapping, and Mr. Pryor was battling his way through a bramble patch.

  Was she happy being female?

  Would she be happier if she were a man?

  Pip pondered those questions for a long moment, and then said, “I’m happy to be who I am.”

  The crease between Lord Octavius eyebrows deepened. “You are?”

  “You think I shouldn’t be?”

  He hesitated, and then said, “I wouldn’t, if I were a female.”

  “That’s because you’re thinking of the things you’d lose if that were to happen, not the things you’d gain.”

  His frown became slightly quizzical. “I’d gain something?”

  “Of course.”

  Pip resumed strolling. Lord Octavius fell into step with her. “What would I gain?” he asked.

  “The ability to have children, for one. As a man, you’ll never feel a child growing inside you and that’s . . .” She pursed her lips, trying to articulate how she felt. Was pity too strong a word? “I feel sorry for you,” she said finally. “That you’ll never experience it.”

  “Sorry for me?” Lord Octavius said, a faint note of surprise in his voice.

  “Yes.”

  He said nothing to that. Pip glanced sideways and caught an expression on his face that was close to a grimace. “What?” she asked.

  Lord Octavius shrugged awkwardly. “I’m not sure I’d want to be pregnant. It looks dashed uncomfortable.”

  Pip laughed at the frankness of his response. “I believe it is uncomfortable, and painful, and sometimes dangerous, but don’t you think the end result is worth it?”

  He shrugged again, with his face as well as his shoulders. “Maybe?”

  “It is,” Pip said with certainty. “And for that reason alone I’m glad to be female, but there are other reasons, too.”

  “Such as?”

  Pip strolled in silence for almost half a minute, trying to find the words to verbalize something that was hazy and nebulous. “I think . . . the world I inhabit is a gentler and safer place than the one you inhabit. Women encounter less violence in their lives than men do. We’re not expected to fight, we can’t be press-ganged or sent off to war, and perhaps you like fighting, but I don’t, so that’s another reason I’m glad I’m a woman.”

  Lord Octavius considered this for a moment, his expression thoughtful, and then he nodded. “Men are more aggressive than women. In general.”

  “In general,” Pip agreed.

  “Perhaps that could be a benefit to being female,” he said, but he didn’t sound entirely convinced.

  “There’s no ‘perhaps’ about it,” Pip said. “It is a benefit. A very large benefit. As is being able to have children.”

  He made a movement that was half shrug, half nod. “If you say so.”

  “I do.”

  They strolled in silence for several paces.

  “So that’s two,” Lord Octavius said, and then clarified: “Benefits to being female. In your opinion.”

  “Yes.”

  “Are there any others?”

  “Well, I think women are generally less competitive than men.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “You do?”

  Pip nodded. “Yes. It seems to me that men are often striving to get ahead of one another, whereas women tend to help each other.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” Lord Octavius said, looking rather nonplussed.

  “And I think women see more beauty in the world. I think we add more beauty to it. And I like that. I like seeing the beauty and adding to it.”

  “You mean . . . like arranging flowers and such?”

  Pip laughed. “Flowers, yes, but all sorts of other things. I think women’s eyes are more open to beauty than men’s are.”

  Lord Octavius looked even more nonplussed. “So . . . the world is a more beautiful place to you than it is to me?”

  “Yes.”

  They strolled another dozen paces, then Lord Octavius said, “So, do you think those benefits outweigh all the drawbacks? Because there are a great many drawbacks, as far as I can see.”

  “Such as?” Pip asked, curious to know what he thought were the disadvantages of being female.

  “Lack of freedom,” Lord Octavius said. “Lack of independence. Lack of choices.”

  “What sort of choices?”

  “Most choices! You can’t go to university. You can’t vote. Most professions are closed to you. Your world might be a lot safer than mine, but it’s a damned sight smaller.”

  “The majority of men in England can’t vote,” Pip pointed out.

  Lord Octavius frowned, and then shrugged and said, “True. But women get to make fewer decisions about their lives than men do. First their fathers decide things for them, and then their husbands do. And that’s another thing! Did you know that you’ll become my property when you marry me?”

  “I did,” Pip said.

  “Why should you become my property? It’s not right!”

  His indignation made her smile. “Perhaps it’s not right, but it’s the way things are and I’m not going to rant and rail over
it. It wouldn’t achieve anything, except to make me unhappy.”

  This reply appeared to disconcert Lord Octavius. He stopped looking indignant and instead looked taken aback.

  “I’m a woman,” Pip told him. “I can’t change that, and I don’t want to be upset about the things that I don’t have; I want to live my life being glad for all the things that I do have. I want to be happy I’m me.” She thought about that last sentence, and rephrased it: “I am happy I’m me.”

  Lord Octavius came to a halt in the lane.

  Pip halted, too. Was he annoyed at her for voicing her opinion?

  “Have I told you yet how madly in love with you I am?” Lord Octavius said.

  Pip felt herself blush hotly. She shook her head and fastened her gaze on his waistcoat.

  “Because I am. Madly.” He reached out and took both her hands in his. “You are a very wise person, Pip Toogood.”

  Pip shook her head again. “I’m not wise. I’m just . . . pragmatic.”

  “I like pragmatic women,” Lord Octavius said. There was a smile in his voice, and when Pip risked a glance at his face, she saw a smile there, too. “In fact, I love pragmatic women. Will you marry me?”

  “I’ve already said yes,” Pip reminded him.

  “I know, but I wanted to ask you again, because I love you even more madly today than I did yesterday.”

  His words, the warmth in his gaze, the affection in his smile, gave Pip a funny feeling in her chest, as if her heart had expanded several sizes. She rather thought that she loved Lord Octavius more today, too. He had an interesting mind and an extremely unconventional way of looking at things. “You are a singular man,” she told him.

  “Me?” His eyebrows lifted. “I’m quite ordinary. Well, except for . . .” He cast a cautious glance over his shoulder and lowered his voice: “The magic.”

  Pip had a small moment of epiphany. Lord Octavius’s magic was what made him interesting and unconventional, but not in the way he imagined. Because of his magical ability he’d looked at the world through other people’s eyes and touched it through other people’s skin—and those experiences had altered him. They’d altered the way that he thought.

  She wondered whether he was aware of it. Had he noticed that he didn’t think like most other Englishmen? Had his parents noticed? His grandfather?