by Lenora Bell
Dedication
For my parents, with love.
Thanks for the overflowing bookshelves.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
An Excerpt from For the Duke’s Eyes Only For the Duke’s Eyes Only
About the Author
By Lenora Bell
Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter 1
London
Mrs. Trilby’s Agency for Superior Governesses
“You’re late,” said Mrs. Trilby, staring down her long nose at Mari.
“Only f-fifteen minutes,” gasped Mari, wiping raindrops from her cheeks, her heart still pounding from running the entire distance from the coaching inn.
“Punctuality, Miss Perkins, is the cornerstone of my agency.”
“I’m dreadfully sorry, truly I am. There was a lame girl trying to cross a crowded avenue and I was afraid she’d be crushed. I sprang to her assistance, but while I was helping her several children made off with my trunk. Little ruffians.”
“Humph,” sniffed Mrs. Trilby. “A common enough scheme to rob country folk. You should have been on your guard against trickery.”
“And let the poor girl be trampled to death?”
“Heaven helps those who help themselves, Miss Perkins.”
“Well I’m here now,” Mari said brightly, “and ready to be a credit to your agency.”
“I’m afraid Mrs. Folsom was in no humor to wait. She required a governess immediately and I supplied her with one.” Mrs. Trilby’s gaze flicked over Mari’s wrinkled, travel-stained pelisse. “I have a registry of presentable, punctilious ladies waiting for situations.”
“But I was promised the position. I have your letter right here.” She drew it out of her reticule and presented it as evidence that she’d been offered the position as governess to Mr. Folsom, a mill owner with a brood of eight children.
Not too fine a family, nor too genteel.
Mrs. Trilby folded her hands on top of her desk. “The position has been filled.”
“But—”
“No buts, Miss Perkins. My Superior Governesses must always be scrupulously ahead of schedule. You might seek more suitable employment, perhaps as a scullery maid.”
Mari crumpled the letter in her fist.
She’d spent the last decade studying Latin, geography, and history into the wee hours of the morning, after all her many duties and chores at the Underwood Orphanage and Charity School were finished.
She was not going to become a scullery maid.
A governess would receive a higher salary and precious free days that would allow her to follow the clues she’d recently uncovered about her parentage.
Hope flooded her heart.
To find her kin. To belong somewhere. It was all she’d ever wanted.
She folded her hands together and took a deep breath. “I’m qualified to be a governess to a tradesperson’s family. Is there another position, perhaps? I can’t afford to be particular. I’ll accept anything, no matter how difficult or insalubrious the conditions. Give me a dozen children and you’ll not hear me complain.”
“A post for a girl of your circumstances does not simply materialize out of thin air, you understand.”
Mari swallowed a sharp retort.
A girl of her circumstances.
An orphan raised in a charity school. Unwanted and burdensome.
She’d learned the hard way that no one wanted a girl like her to exhibit any backbone.
She’d learned to bite her tongue. Bide her time.
Hide her true emotions with a smile and a proverb.
“I’ll wait then,” she said with a decisive nod. Though she couldn’t afford to stay in London very long.
“A waste of your time,” said Mrs. Trilby. “I only offered you the Folsom post because you studied under my dear schoolmate, Mrs. Crowley. God rest her soul.”
Mrs. Crowley. Even her name made Mari’s belly lurch. The headmistress at Underwood had made her childhood a misery.
She could well imagine the two women had been bosom friends, as they shared a similarly glacial and unsympathetic disposition.
“This was your one chance, Miss Perkins,” said Mrs. Trilby. “Now good day to you.”
Her one chance. The chance to break free from the stifling confines of the charity school. To discover the truth of her birth and make something of her life.
“Mrs. Trilby, I do implore you to reconsider. I’ve no family or friends in London, and nowhere to go. I’ve never even left Derbyshire before now. Besides which, all of my possessions were stolen this morning. I do hope you might find it in your heart to help me find another family.”
“Quite a tale of woe.” Mrs. Trilby rose from her desk, her expression stern and unyielding. “If I had a shilling for every girl who thought it my duty in life to rescue her, I’d be a very rich woman indeed.” Gripping Mari by the elbow, she steered her out of her office, back through the parlor, and toward the entrance hall.
A maid stood at the ready with Mari’s bag and umbrella.
Dread clutched at Mari’s throat. “Please, Mrs. Trilby. You wouldn’t cast me out into—”
“Good day, Miss Perkins.”
The door slammed in her face.
Mari’s shoulders slumped.
Well this was nothing new. Life had been slamming doors on her since birth. Abandoned at the orphanage when she was a babe, she’d known only harsh words and hunger.
Wicked, ungrateful girl. Plain and unpleasing. You’ll never amount to anything.
Where could she go now? There were few options for orphaned girls of no family or fortune.
The pretty charity school girls sometimes married farmers and left in a one-horse cart, with no further need of the education they’d received at Underwood.
Freckled and unfortunately red-haired girls like Mari had to create their own opportunities, or spend their entire lives within the gray stone walls of Underwood.
She would eat her straw bonnet before she returned to that cold, lonely cage.
Heaven helps those who help themselves.
She’d known that no one would hand her anything on a silver platter.
There was nothing for it but to march back inside and find a way to convince Mrs. Trilby to give her another chance. But before she could move, a stout woman in a tall bonnet trimmed with gold braid swept past her and rang the bell.
The door opened. “Miss Dunkirk? We’re not expecting you,” said the maid.
“A word with your mistress, if you please,” said Miss Dunkirk in a loud voice.
Recognizing her opportunity, Mari snuck in behind Miss Dunkirk.
Mrs. Trilby appeared at the door to her offices. �
�Why, whatever is the matter, Miss Dunkirk? Why aren’t you at Grosvenor Square?”
“I’ll never go back to that den of vipers, Mrs. Trilby,” barked Miss Dunkirk. “Not if you shower me with all the jewels in Christendom.”
“But I had such high hopes for your success.” Consternation wrinkled Mrs. Trilby’s brow. “If you can’t make those children behave, then all is lost.”
Something was amiss. Miss Dunkirk had left her post precipitously. Could this be an opportunity for Mari?
“Those little heathens have run away from me for the very last time,” huffed Miss Dunkirk.
Mrs. Trilby caught sight of Mari. “I thought I made myself very clear, Miss Perkins,” she said coldly. “Good day to you.” She motioned Miss Dunkirk to follow her. “Come, Miss Dunkirk, have a spot of tea and tell me all about it.”
Determined to learn more, Mari surreptitiously ripped one of the black grosgrain ribbons from her bonnet.
“Oh dear.” She waved the torn ribbon at the maid. “Have you a needle and thread?”
The maid gave her a sour look. “One moment, miss.”
When she was alone, Mari raced to Mrs. Trilby’s door, knelt down, and flattened her ear to the keyhole.
“I’ve half a mind to retire completely,” she heard Miss Dunkirk say. “My nerves have suffered a severe strain.”
“Please don’t retire, I beseech you!” wailed Mrs. Trilby.
“They don’t want an honest, hard-working governess, Mrs. Trilby. What they want is a ruddy clergyman.”
“A clergyman?”
“To perform an exorcism of demons. Those are not children, Mrs. Trilby. They are Lucifer’s imps in human form! And their father? Well!” Miss Dunkirk gusted an enormous sigh. “He’s the worst sinner of all.”
She lowered her voice so that Mari only caught fragments of her next words.
Stormy . . . changeful . . . Beelzebub himself . . . Babylonish scarlet women.
And something that sounded very much like damned and bastards, though Mari was certain a superior governess would never speak such words aloud.
“Oh. My,” Mrs. Trilby replied faintly. “Sherry in your tea? No? I’ll take just a drop.” There was the clink of china and the sound of liquid being poured. “That makes four governesses in two months. I’m at my wits’ end. I’ve no idea what to do.”
“Do, Mrs. Trilby? Do?” Miss Dunkirk’s voice rose shrilly and her r’s trilled with indignation. “Why, you mustn’t do anything. If you care for decency, if you value propriety, if you prize the unsullied reputation of this agency, you will do nothing at all.”
“You mean I shouldn’t send him a replacement? What a shocking notion.”
“That’s precisely what I mean. Make him suffer for his transgressions, I say. Somebody ought to.”
“There is, of course, the matter of the rather large fee he’s already paid me.”
“Which he must forfeit. It’s not your fault his children are ungovernable.”
There was a pause. The chime of a teacup meeting a saucer. “You know, Miss Dunkirk, I’ve had nothing but trouble from that man and his unholy offspring,” said Mrs. Trilby, a note of defiance creeping into her voice. “I’ve my reputation to consider.”
“Quite right, Mrs. Trilby. Quite right. You mustn’t send him anyone else. Not even if he crawls here on his hands and knees and begs.”
A snort from Mrs. Trilby. “I can’t imagine a duke begging for anything. No doubt Banksford believes highly qualified, morally irreproachable governesses grow on trees and may be plucked at whim like ripe cherries.”
A what? Mari sucked in her breath. A duke?
Mrs. Trilby may as well have said a mysterious sea serpent inhabiting a Scottish highland lake. Or a supernatural monster patched together by a mad scientist and animated through electricity.
The daring plan she’d been forming hadn’t included anything as terrifying and mythical as a duke.
The sound of footsteps sent her running back to the parlor.
The maid handed her a mending basket and Mari refastened her bonnet ribbon with hasty, uneven stitches. She’d heard all she needed to hear.
The Duke of Banksford, of Grosvenor Square, required a governess.
And Mrs. Trilby had washed her hands of him.
She slapped her bonnet over her braids, tied the ribbons tightly, and hoisted her cloth bag and umbrella.
Of course, there was the small problem that she wasn’t even remotely qualified to be governess to a duke’s privileged offspring. But this was no time for timidity.
As she left the agency, the noise and clamor of Old Bond Street assaulted her senses, reminding her that she was, most definitely, not in Derbyshire any more.
The air smelled of horse dung, coal smoke, and wet woolens.
Carriages lurched past, their occupants briefly visible—a crescent of pale cheek, a child’s nose pressed to a window, puffs of breath making a hazy cloud on the glass.
She opened her reticule, squinting at the black silk lining in the vain hope that her funds had multiplied since her last inventory. They had not. She had the grand sum of one pound ten shillings to her name.
A portly gentleman slowed his gait. “Are you, perhaps, in some difficulty, miss?” he asked, with a suggestive look that made her skin crawl.
She closed her reticule and pointedly turned away from him, hoping he would go away.
“Why don’t you come and have a nice hot meal with me?” the man persisted.
Did she have naïve country girl stamped across her forehead? Was everyone going to attempt to take advantage of her?
Lifting her umbrella handle, which was cunningly shaped like a parrot’s head, she brandished it menacingly. “I’ll thank you to move along, sir.”
The man eyed the parrot’s sharp beak and then shrugged and ambled away.
She waited for him to disappear around a corner before consulting her map and setting off toward Grosvenor Square.
Wind howled in her ears. Horses whinnied, plodding through puddles.
Something is about to begin, the raindrops pattered on the paving stones.
If you are brave enough to chase it, the wind whistled back.
A passing cart splashed muddy water onto her skirts. Botheration. Now she was even less superior.
When she reached the square, a maid carrying a market basket informed her that the duke lived at Number Seventeen.
Educating a nobleman’s privileged and pampered children shouldn’t prove too difficult, given that she was accustomed to instructing orphaned girls with troubled souls and bleak outlooks.
It wasn’t the children who worried her—it was the father. He would probably take one look at her shabby coat and muddy boots and slam yet another door in her face.
She’d read about aristocrats in the pages of her favorite novels, borrowed from a circulating library, but she had no practical experience with the nobility. On rare occasions, wealthy patronesses had visited Underwood, lifting their snow-white hems daintily to avoid touching anything to do with orphans.
The matrons had delighted in telling the cautionary tale of a girl who had returned in disgrace from a maid’s apprenticeship in a baronet’s household, already showing signs of increasing.
With her slight figure and pernicious freckles, Mari rather doubted the same fate might befall her. Only . . . she paused and hugged her traveling bag to her chest. What if the duke was a roving-fingered lecher who fancied anything in skirts?
Would he attempt to besiege her at the earliest opportunity?
Besieged by the devilish duke.
It sounded like the title of a lurid novel. One where the meek, doe-eyed governess shrank from the advances of her elderly employer, who walked with a limp and had a wife, or two, locked in his attic.
Provident that Mari wasn’t doe-eyed. Or meek. At least not on the inside.
She may have had to adopt a docile façade, but inside she was a seething pit of rebellion.
But a superio
r governess would never seethe. Oh Heavens, no.
The moment she stepped inside his gate she must be the most prim, proper, and unassailable governess in all of London.
Absolutely no betraying of her true emotions, or her less-than-superior background.
She must remain calm. Impassive. Even if he was the stormiest, most arrogant duke ever to darken the streets of London.
And even if his gate was an immense, glowering wrought iron affair with the motto mutare vel timere sperno emblazoned on a gleaming brass placard.
He scorned to change or fear.
Perfect. Even his gate was arrogant.
What was she doing here? Could she deceive a duke? Descended from a long line of dukes, no doubt. All of whom scorned to change, and most likely ate country governesses for breakfast.
Beyond his unyielding gate stretched a daunting mountain of glittering marble stairs.
You don’t belong here.
Before she could lose her nerve, a strong gust of wind caught her umbrella and fairly carried her up the steps, depositing her in front of the red-painted door.
It was a desperate gamble. It was also her best hope at the moment.
She closed her umbrella and straightened her spine.
It was time to seize the day. Or the duke, as it were.
He was merely a man. Fortune favored the bold. And no adventure ever began with a bell un-rung.
“Kindly inform our mother that I don’t need a wife,” said Edgar. “I need a governess. The twins chased away another one today.”
“Not another one,” exclaimed his younger sister, India, from her chair by the fireplace. “How many is that now?”
“Four governesses. Two months. One man at the end of his rope.” Edgar scratched a vehement row of crosshatches on the steam engine plans he was drawing, shading the crankshaft to set it apart from the cylinder.
Perhaps somewhere in the intricate linkage system he would find the peace of mind which eluded him.
Fatigue and frustration scratched at his mind like the pen nib scoring the page. Why couldn’t he identify the missing piece to the puzzle? The engine was still so heavy and cumbersome. They’d need three horses to draw the blasted thing.
“Maybe Mama is right,” said India. “A wife would oversee your household, including the hiring of governesses.”