What Happens in Piccadilly

by Bowlin, Chasity

  “Then they should attempt to be as entertaining as my news sheets,” he replied with a snap to his voice.

  “I was blowing bubbles,” Charlotte offered helpfully.

  He smirked at Callie then. “So you were. I shall endeavor to pay more attention.”

  “Finish your breakfast, children. Then we shall walk,” Callie instructed.

  “What if we don’t wish to walk?” Claudia asked.

  “Then you may remain here with the servants while I take William and Charlotte. Or if they do not wish to go, then I shall go alone, I suppose.”

  “But you’re our governess! You’re supposed to spend time with us!” Claudia stated, all but stamping her feet.

  “I think the real issue here, Claudia, is not that you don’t wish to go for a walk… it’s that you don’t wish to do what another person has suggested. You may stay here if that’s what you wish, but I’d rather hate to see you cut off your nose to spite your face, dear. I think being outdoors would be good for all of us. We’re having rather fine weather at the moment. Certainly more fine than we’ll likely see again for some time. So if you wish to remain in the house, you are certainly welcome to do so. But I, for one, mean to take advantage of the little bit of sunshine we have and walk in the park. I thought we might gather some leaves and some flowers and attempt to identify plants. It’s important for you to know the native flora and fauna of England, since you’ve been abroad so very much.”

  “I thought you were going to teach us to read and to write our names,” William protested.

  “And I shall. You’re bright capable children. I daresay you can learn more than one thing in a day, can’t you?” Callie challenged.

  William puffed his skinny chest out with pride. “I can learn anything. I’m very smart.”

  “I’m certain you are and you will have ample opportunity to prove it. But if you’re done eating, you should go upstairs and get your coats. The sun is shining but it is still chilly,” she admonished lightly.

  The children filed out of the room, even Claudia, and went to do as they’d been bid. She could feel the earl looking at her.

  “How do you do that?”

  “Do what, my lord?” she questioned.

  “Make them do what you’ve asked them to do. Even when they challenge you, you simply roll right along as if it bothers you not at all!”

  “Well, it doesn’t,” she said with a smile. “Those children do not know me well enough for me to be offended at all by anything they might say or do. They are looking for boundaries. Children need structure and rules in order to flourish, with just enough room to figure a few things out for themselves. I provide that. And I talk to them like they understand the language and aren’t wild, feral creatures whom one must fear.”

  He grinned. “Is that what I do? Do I act like I’m afraid of them?”

  “No. But you don’t act like you’re very interested in them either. These are children who have lost everything. Surely given you’re own recent losses, you can empathize with their difficult position?”

  He grimaced. “My father had been ill for some time. His death was not unexpected in the least. I daresay, given his failing health, it could almost be looked at as a relief for him… an end to his suffering. It’s hardly the same!”

  “No. It isn’t the same at all. They’ve lost both their parents and all that they knew. But you’ve lost your father and your brother and had your life turned upside down. Perhaps, my lord, if you could use that common ground of having your life altered so drastically as a way of bonding with the children—”

  “Miss St. James, I will spend time with the children. I will endeavor to be more interested and attentive to them. I will not throw myself prostrate on the floor and weep with grief while inviting them to do the same!”

  Callie’s lips firmed into a thin, disapproving line. “You are intentionally misconstruing my words, my lord, in order to avoid having to discuss something so very bourgeois as one’s feelings. These children need to feel safe with you and that can only happen if they know their tender feelings will not be mocked or met with derision!”

  “I would never do that!” he snapped. “They are children, after all. One could hardly expect them to be in control of their emotions as an adult would.”

  “Then you must provide an opening for them to express themselves! They have lost everything. They don’t even have the comfort of familiar surroundings, my lord. And I know that you care for them, but I think it more important that they know it. You show them that by taking an interest in them, talking to them, by hugging and kissing them, letting them know that their presence isn’t just welcome here but desired,” Callie stated. “I realize it isn’t fashionable, but you do not strike me as one who is a slave to such things.”

  “What you describe is unheard of except among the serving class!”

  Callie shrugged. “And do they often not look happier for it? I’ve no doubt that you often slipped down to the kitchens as a boy to wheedle some treat from the cook, did you not?”

  He grinned. “Of course, I did!”

  “And did those treats often come with an embrace or some sign of affection?”

  His grin faded and he regarded her thoughtfully for a moment. “Always.”

  “Which of those things—the treats or those simple demonstrations of affection—do you recall most fondly now?” she demanded.

  *

  Winn stared at the girl before him. She wasn’t a girl, precisely, but it was better for both of them if he could think of her as one. Calliope St. James was ridiculously beautiful, ridiculously appealing and was currently in the process of reducing him to a sentimental, calf-eyed fool. She was demanding, far more assertive than he would have ever imagined given her appearance, and was pushing him into dangerous territory, toward things he wasn’t ready to address. But it was quite obvious to him that, ready or not, for the sake of the children, he might have to forgo his own comfort to some degree. “Your point is well taken, Miss St. James. I shall endeavor to be more openly affectionate with them. But I’m not entirely certain it will be well received. The children seem to be resistant to such things… or anything that hints at civility and domestication. They are lovely but quite feral, I’m afraid.”

  She smiled, that sort of knowing half-smile, half-smirk that all females seemed to have perfected from the cradle. It was maddening and alluring all at once. “Of course, they are. All children are feral, my lord. Some are just domesticated earlier in life than others. As for their hesitation over matters of affection, well, children are always resistant to things that are good for them… eating their vegetables, washing behind their ears, going to sleep at reasonable hours. Why, if we were to allow children to refuse everything they are resistant to, the world would descend into chaos.”

  Winn looked about his house. Dusty floors, dusty furnishings, fireplaces that had not been cleared of ash, a footman turned butler and no housekeeper in sight yet—they’d already descended into chaos. “We wouldn’t want that, would we?” he posed caustically.

  “It could be worse.”

  “How?” he demanded.

  A slight smirk played about her perfectly formed lips. “Bed wetting, bodily injury, one of the children could have an affection for amphibious creatures found out of doors and best to remain outdoors. Really, the possibilities for how that could occur are endless, my lord. Best not to tempt fate anymore by discussing it. And I have children to take for a walk.”

  “What’s the real reason you’re taking them for a walk before beginning lessons? And don’t tell me that it’s to reward them. We’re both smarter than that,” he observed. Miss St. James—seductive, beautiful, innocent, forbidden—was also a master tactician.

  That half-smile transformed into a full-blown grin, satisfied, a bit smug, and blindingly beautiful. “Children, by nature, are active creatures. They long to run and play. In order to properly engage their minds, all that energy must be expended first so that they migh
t sit quietly and take in what is being taught. Is it terrible to let them think it’s a reward?”

  “No. And I don’t see any reason why it can’t be both,” he replied. It was a perfectly sensible approach and he frankly couldn’t understand why no one had thought to employ it with them before. “There is much to be admired in your approach, Miss St. James. There is much to be admired about you entirely.”

  Her lips parted in surprise at the compliment. But if it had taken her aback, it had rocked him to his core. It was an inappropriate thing to have said to her. She was the children’s governess, not some pretty miss he would flirt with at a ball. Giving voice to his rather complicated appreciation of her many attributes would only strain the bounds of what had to be—what could only be—a very proper relationship between employer and employee.

  “Forgive me. I spoke out of turn,” he said. “It won’t happen again.”

  “I hope not, my lord. As pretty a compliment as it was, the nature of our arrangement precludes such things.”

  “I am aware, Miss St. James. Despite my lapse in judgment, I can assure you that you are safe here.”

  “If I didn’t believe that, my lord, I would not have taken the position.” There was a moment of silence that stretched between them then before she spoke again. “I think you are not just alone. I think you are lonely. The loss of your family and the arrival of the children into your life has left you on uncertain footing.”

  “Careful, Miss St. James. I am not the only person speaking in a manner that would indicate forgetfulness of our positions,” he warned her.

  “I am out of line. I know that. But that doesn’t make it any less true. For what it is worth, I hope you find the direction you so desperately need and that you allow these children to become something much more important to you than simply the obligation and duty they represent to you now.”

  “And what is that, Miss St. James?”

  “Family, my lord. If you let them, they will become your family. And that is what you need most of all.”

  “You are very free with your opinions on the matter.”

  She smiled then, but it was an expression of bitterness and quite possibly the saddest thing he’d ever seen.

  “I am somewhat of an expert on the matter, my lord… having no family at all, I speak from a wealth of experience when I state that their value is immeasurable.”

  “I will take that under advisement, Miss St. James,” he replied stiffly.

  She nodded, looking away from him as a pretty blush stained her cheeks. With quick, and slightly less than graceful movements, she tidied the items on the table before her. It was an unnecessary task and one obviously undertaken to calm her jangled nerves. “Let me see what’s keeping them.”

  “At some point, Miss St. James, we need some sort of accounting of what the children need. It’s been such chaos since they’ve arrived and I’ve little doubt that their wardrobes, intended for mild Spanish winters, will be ill-suited to one in London.”

  “I’ll see to it, my lord. Now, let me go upstairs and circumvent their mischief.”

  As she rose, Winn did as well, watching her exit the room in a swish of skirts. Yes, Miss Calliope St. James was trouble. The worst kind of trouble. The kind that, for the sake of her honor and his own, was entirely off limits. He’d need to remind himself of that by the hour. Of course, considering just how alarmingly attractive she was, he might need reminders by the minute.

  “Why couldn’t she be homely? Or old? Or a shrew?” he asked aloud, but there was no one in the breakfast room to answer and they were questions that didn’t bear answering at any rate. She was as she was for the same reason everything else had occurred in such a fashion in his life. The good Lord was punishing him for some unknown sin and he’d simply have to grit his teeth and bear it.

  No longer interested in the remnants of his breakfast, Winn left the small breakfast room and bypassed his study to head out via the front doors. He would go to his club and take solace in a space where no females, regardless of their age, were permitted.

  Chapter Four

  Callie had bundled the children into their coats and ushered them out of the house and to the park. It wouldn’t be long before the days were too chilly for such outings and she wanted them to take advantage of it while they could. While the children certainly possessed an abundance of energy, they were not disobedient. It seemed to Callie that what the children had experienced in their lives was a lack of guidance. They weren’t breaking rules because they were bad or wanted to misbehave but because no one had bothered to tell them what the rules were.

  They’d been in the park for almost an hour when Claudia fell in step beside her. The other two children were playing still, with no signs of slowing down, but at Claudia’s age, play was becoming a thing of the past for her. Glancing over at the child, Callie could see the promise of beauty. But she could also see that her hair had not been brushed well and her clothes were not only inappropriate for the coming weather and far too small, they were threadbare as well. That pretty young girl was dressed like a pauper. What sort of living had their father managed to obtain for them in Spain? Had they gone by choice or had he been banished there for his sins, his children paying the price?

  Glancing over at the other two, she considered their garments as well. While their clothing was adequate for the moment, if terribly worn, she knew that the earl had been correct in his assessment that they did not have all that they needed for the coming winter. Further, it showed just how lax their previous governess had been. She should have inventoried what they had and what they needed and presented a list to their guardian upon her arrival. And if the governess could not have done so, then the housekeeper certainly should have. It seemed as if every moment spent in the company of those children was simply another opportunity to discover how the adults in their lives had failed them.

  “What do you think of your uncle, Claudia? The earl?” Callie asked her.

  “He doesn’t like us very much,” Claudia said softly. “He says we’ve turned his world upside down.”

  Callie smiled at that. “I suppose you have, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t like you. I think it rather means he isn’t quite sure what to do with you or what to make of you. He is a bachelor, after all, and children have, for him, always been the province of other people.”

  “I suppose so. But he’s always telling us not to do this, not to do that, not to get in trouble. I’d just like for once, for people to tell us what we can do,” she said rather forlornly. “What we’re supposed to do!”

  Callie placed her arm about the young girl’s shoulders. “I shall endeavor to do that. Every morning, when we begin lessons, I will try to give you a list of all the things we can do during the day.”

  “Like what?”

  Callie grinned, “Like we can race to that tree at the end of the lane, if you want. Or we can sit on that bench just over there. Or we can play in the dirt with your sister.”

  “We can get dirty?” Claudia demanded.

  “Of course we can! People can be cleaned and so can clothes. A little bit of mud or dust never hurt anyone,” Callie answered. “Is that what you want? To get dirty? To have mud under your fingernails and streaked on your face?”

  “No,” Claudia answered. “I don’t really like it. But I like knowing that I could if I wanted to.”

  Curious, Callie found herself asking, “And what sorts of things did you do when you were with your mother in Spain?”

  They walked on in silence for a long moment, circling the small grassy area where the other children played. Finally, Claudia answered, “We tried to be quiet. Our mother didn’t much like us either. She was always taking to her bed to escape us, especially William. She always said her head ached and we made it worse with our noise.”

  The very words seemed to pierce Callie’s heart. She glanced up, her gaze landing unerringly on the boy who was currently having a sword fight with a mighty oak tree. He was sweet, feral,
precious and completely incorrigible. It was a combination that she wasn’t certain anyone who actually liked children would be able to resist. “That must have hurt your feelings terribly… and William’s.”

  Claudia looked at her in a way that belied her years. In that moment, she looked impossibly grown up despite her braids and her pinafore. She wasn’t really a little girl, at all, Callie realized. Oh, certainly she was a child still, but she hovered on that terrible precipice between being a girl and being a young lady. Dolls no longer held her interest, but neither did embroidery, watercolors and all the things that would make her an accomplished young woman when she entered the marriage mart. So while William climbed trees and Charlotte spun in circles until she was dizzy and laughing, Claudia walked beside her and confided to her as she would have done if they were friends rather governess and charge.

  “She had her reasons, I suppose,” Claudia murmured.

  Realizing that simply denying the girl’s claim was an insult to her intelligence and also to the pain she had clearly experienced, Callie asked, “And what do you think those were… her reasons?”

  The little girl sighed heavily. “I think it’s because he reminded her of our father who was always gone, or going away, or just coming back from being away. And whenever he was there, he was always in a foul mood because he’d lost money gaming… money we didn’t really have. He and Mother would argue terribly, about his gambling and about other women that he spent time with… it would go on for days until he got tired of it and went away once more. But William is not like him. Not really. He only looks like him a little.”

  Callie nodded. Claudia needed to talk. She needed to let out all the awful things she’d been holding inside and it seemed very much as if no one, in all the time she’d been there, had bothered to offer her the opportunity. “I see. And in what ways is he different?”