by Regina Scott
“I was informed my mother already agreed on salary and half day off,” he told the formidable Miss Thorn, fighting the impulse to rub the belly the cat had offered him. “We have a suitable room prepared, as you requested. What more do you require?” That purr was infectious. He wanted to smile along with it.
Miss Thorn leaned forward. Mrs. Kimball was watching her as if she wasn’t sure what the woman would do next. Alaric shared her concerns.
“Mrs. Kimball will be caring for your daughters,” Miss Thorn said. “She will assess the situation and bring you a plan for their curriculum.”
Mrs. Kimball started. Had she never devised a curriculum before? She seemed young for a widow, perhaps a few years his junior. Had her husband been a great deal older or died in some accident? Not that it was any of his business.
“Furthermore,” Miss Thorn continued as if his silence meant acquiescence, “she will report your daughter’s progress each evening before retiring.”
A logical suggestion. His daughters seemed to change each time he saw them. He was kept apprised of every other area of his responsibility, by his steward, land agents, solicitor in London, the directors of the charities he supported, the prime minister. Why not his children? His mother could relay anything of import.
“I’m certain Her Grace would agree with that,” he said.
Miss Thorn’s purple-blue eyes pinned him in place. “She will report directly to you. She will take her direction from you. Anything else leads to anarchy.”
Mrs. Kimball blinked as if surprised by this revelation as well. Had the two women even discussed this situation? He had assumed an employment agency screened its clients closely. Perhaps he should be the one asking the questions.
He returned Miss Thorn’s forthright gaze. There was something vaguely familiar about the woman, yet he did not recall dealing with the Fortune Employment Agency before. Most of the castle’s staff came from the island, and his mother or Parsons, their butler, saw to the hiring. He wasn’t entirely sure why his mother had placed her trust in Miss Thorn.
“And what about Mrs. Kimball’s qualifications or experience makes it important that she deal directly with me?” he asked.
“I’d as soon deal with your master of horse,” Mrs. Kimball put in helpfully. “But I doubt he’d know much about your daughters.”
He sat back. He was used to determining the course of action, issuing orders, and seeing his will carried out. What was it about these women that so disarmed him? The cat slipped down into his lap and cuddled against his chest.
Of course, Mrs. Kimball might well have reported to his master of horse. Very likely Mr. Quayle learned a great deal about the workings inside the great house from other members of the staff. Alaric did not like thinking how little he knew about his daughters. Each birth had seemed a miracle; the baby a fragile, precious life entrusted to his care. Evangeline had been adamant about his role.
“Fathers groom sons,” his late wife had said, pretty mouth drawn up. “Mothers mold daughters. The nursery is my domain, just as the estates are yours. I’m sure you wouldn’t appreciate me interfering with the tenants, dealing with the flooding.”
That he had not been able to argue. His father had been preparing him for this role since the day Alaric had been born. But when Evangeline had died attempting to bear him a son and heir, taking the baby with her, he had had no idea how to deal with the daughters she’d left behind.
Did Mrs. Kimball?
He was petting the cat. He wasn’t sure when that had started, but the movement of his hand and the purr rumbling out of her made his shoulders come down.
Mrs. Kimball smiled at him, the look bringing out her cheekbones, the light in her eyes. “Hard to resist, isn’t she?”
He pulled back his hand and leveled his gaze on Miss Thorn. “If you tell me the only way Mrs. Kimball will accept the position is if she deals directly with me, then I must question the role you see her playing in this household.”
Mrs. Kimball’s smile faded, and he almost called back his words.
“You are entrusting her with the lives of the three people who must be most precious to you in all the world,” Miss Thorn pointed out. “Inquisitive young ladies who have somehow managed to drive away every governess since their dear mother passed on. I know what I am asking may seem unusual, Your Grace, but if you continue doing what you have been doing, you will continue to see the same results.”
She had him there. This constant upheaval wasn’t good for the girls, his mother, or the orderly household Parsons demanded. Why not try something different?
“Very well,” he said. “I agree to your terms.”
Mrs. Kimball brightened, until he added, “So long as you win over Her Grace.”
Chapter Two
Meredith Thorn watched from the entry hall as the Duke of Wey and Jane made their way up the graceful curving stairs at the center of the house. Her hand stroked the cat draped along her other arm.
“You like him, it seems,” she murmured. “Despite his father.”
Fortune rubbed her head against Meredith’s wrist.
“Yes, well, you always were a better judge of character. Though I still don’t understand why you chose me of all people. There must have been others more suitable on Bond Street the day you followed me back to that wretched little room I lived in while we waited for the will to be settled.”
Fortune twisted to regard her with her warm eyes.
“Do not look at me like that. I’ve been given a number of reasons to doubt my own worth over the years, and coming back here hasn’t helped.”
Fortune lay her head down with a sigh.
“I’m sure I’m a sad trial to you,” Meredith commiserated. “But then, that is what Lady Winhaven always claimed. Sometimes I feel wicked for being glad she’s gone. She gave me a place to live when I had none, but it was never home. I want something better for Jane.”
The butler was returning. She swirled and focused her attention on the porcelain figurine of a shepherd with his sheep, resting on the half-moon table against the tapestry-hung wall. The peaceful scene hadn’t been there the last time she’d visited, but then neither had the butler. Perhaps things had changed at the castle in the last dozen years. Certainly no one had recognized her yet.
“Would you care to wait in the sitting room, madam?” the butler asked.
Such condescension. It was one thing to have spent half her life as a companion to an elderly lady. She had still been considered a poor relation, a duty, an obligation. She was painfully aware that she had gone into trade now, and, by doing so, forfeited any right to the courtesies due a lady. But then, those rights had been stripped from her ages ago.
“The entry hall is sufficient, thank you,” she said. At least that way, she could escape out the door if anyone in the household remembered her and questioned her reasons for returning now.
~~~
His Grace, the Duke of Wey, strolled along beside Jane, face as pleasant as the butler’s had been shocked when the duke had agreed to Miss Thorn’s outrageous demands. Reporting only to the duke? Developing a curriculum? The closest she’d come had been helping her father lay out a course for study for Bible lessons at the little village church where he’d served as vicar. But then again, her time with the regiment had taught her that the key to survival was initiative and improvisation. She had never lacked for either.
Though she was no doubt expected to be silent and submissive in the duke’s presence, she was far less skilled at either of those traits. Might as well do a bit of reconnaissance.
“Miss Thorn said your daughters are ten, eight, and five,” Jane said.
He inclined his head. “I believe that is correct.”
He believed? Didn’t he know?
“And what are their favorite courses of study?” she asked as he led them up to the landing. On the wide gallery, his ancestors stared balefully from their gilt-edged picture frames as if not a little dismayed to find her here. Well, s
he felt the same way.
The duke clasped his hands behind his back. One of the colonels Jimmy had served under had done that. Biding his time, Jimmy had said, until he could figure out an answer. Military strategy ought to take a little thought. But his daughter’s preferences?
“Lady Larissa, the oldest,” he said at last, “is following the typical course of study for a young lady making her debut.”
At ten? That seemed a bit young, but Jane nodded to encourage him as he turned the corner onto another corridor, this one with walls paneled in yellow silk. Already she wasn’t sure north from south. It seemed the house was as much a maze as the library.
“Lady Calantha has demonstrated some proficiency for oration, I have been told,” he continued.
Did that mean she liked to talk? “Commendable,” Jane managed.
“And Lady Abelona is just learning her letters, if memory serves.”
Once more she bit her lip to keep from speaking her first thoughts aloud. Larissa, Calantha, and Abelona? Who’d saddled the girls with such appellations? Little Abelona would likely have to learn the entire alphabet just to spell her full name.
He paused before a paneled door, hand on the gilded latch. “I have been told my daughters require gentle handling since the death of their mother. I have observed a certain reticence on their parts. I would council patience, Mrs. Kimball.”
Jane raised her brows, but he swung open the door and motioned for her to proceed him through it.
This could not be the schoolroom. Sky-blue walls held alcoves with Chinese vases and crystal decanters. Curved-leg side tables displayed porcelain figurines and tiny chinoiseries boxes. The three little girls in their high-waisted muslin gowns—white of all things!—looked like waxen dolls seated on a sofa patterned with blue and yellow irises.
“Mother,” the duke said to the silver-haired woman seated opposite them in regal splendor on a tall-backed chair of cerulean blue. “Girls. This is Mrs. Kimball, the new governess.”
My, but he sounded confident, even though he had said she must win over his mother. Perhaps it was all show, that noble bearing, that distant smile. Inside, was he quaking as much as she was?
For a moment, no one spoke, and she dared glance around at them. His daughters must have taken after their mother, for all had varying shades of blond hair. The biggest, very likely Lady Larissa, had the darkest blond hair and eyes somewhere between brown and green. The ringlets on either side of her long face were already losing their spring. She inclined her head just as slightly as her grandmother did to acknowledge Jane’s presence.
The next biggest, Calantha, had far paler hair, thin enough that any curl had faded. She blinked big blue eyes and fidgeted. A look from Her Grace brought her eyes forward and her spine ramrod straight. Jimmy would have been impressed, if she’d been a cavalry officer.
The littlest, with golden hair curling all on its own and eyes the jade of her father’s, stared at Jane, full lower lip starting to tremble.
Her Grace’s lips weren’t trembling. They were set in an unforgiving line as she eyed Jane.
“I’ll leave you to it,” His Grace said with a bow to no one in particular as he backed toward the door.
Coward.
Jane put on her best smile. “Your Grace, ladies, did you have some questions before I settle in?”
It was by far the bravest thing she could have said. But if the duke could brazen it out for a moment, so could she. Only Calantha looked impressed.
Her Grace curled her fingers to beckon. “Come here, where I can see you better.”
Jane moved around the side of the chair, half expecting to spot rheuminess in the woman’s gaze. But no, by the way the duchess’s head came up, she saw all too well. She raised a gold-edged quizzing glass to her right eye, squinting at Jane through it. Her look moved from Jane’s feet to her head, as if studying every inch of her.
“Shall I turn in a circle?” Jane asked. “Or would you like to count my teeth?”
The duchess dropped the eyepiece. “Impertinent girl! Is that how you address your betters?”
“It’s how I address anyone who behaves rudely, Your Grace,” Jane told her. “I assumed you’d want me to serve as a model for your granddaughters. No one should look them over as if they were an overripe cabbage.”
“Certainly not,” the duchess agreed. Then she frowned. “Where was I?”
“About to ask my qualifications for the post,” Jane assured her. “I worked for Colonel Travers, the hero of the Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo, looking after his only daughter. I was raised a vicar’s daughter with the usual studies in Scripture, history, Latin, and Greek. I speak French and Portuguese as well.”
By the way Her Grace’s face worked, she was trying not to look impressed. “And you are a widow.”
“Yes, Your Grace. My husband was an officer in the Twelfth Dragoons. He was killed on duty thirteen months ago.”
At last her look softened. “I am sorry for your loss. My husband has been gone nearly eight years now, and I still miss him terribly.”
Jane’s throat tightened. “My condolences as well, Your Grace.”
The woman rallied. “These are my granddaughters,” she said with a sweeping wave that took in the three statues on the sofa, legs not reaching the carpet. “Lady Larissa.”
Larissa inclined her head again. “Mrs. Kimball.” She had a pleasant voice at odds with her narrow look.
“She will need work in deportment and dance,” her grandmother said as if the girl was deficient in those areas.
“Reading, arithmetic, science, and history as well,” Jane said. “After all, she’ll have to lead a great house one day.”
Larissa frowned. So did her grandmother, but she nodded to the girl’s sister. “And this is Lady Calantha.”
The towhead continued to stare.
“Sometimes I fear she hasn’t an original thought or much else in her head,” the duchess confided. “You’ll need to work on that.”
By the color climbing in the girl’s cheeks, she knew exactly what was happening and had her own opinion on the matter. Jane offered her a commiserating smile.
“Then there’s Lady Abelona,” Her Grace continued.
The little beauty raised her chin. “I want a unicorn.”
Jane blinked.
Her Grace sighed. “I expect you to quell those fancies.” She aimed her frown at her youngest grandchild. “Ladies don’t ride unicorns, Abelona. There’s no such thing.”
The girl’s lip was trembling again. “There is! I’ve seen them.”
Larissa snorted, then covered her mouth with her hand as if she had merely coughed.
“That is quite enough,” the duchess said, glancing at the three of them. “What will Mrs. Kimball think of you?”
Calantha finally spoke up. “The last governess said we were willful and spoiled. The one before that called us monsters.”
Her Grace drew herself up, but Jane had heard enough. She took a step forward, met their gazes in turn. “I don’t hold with name calling. My father always said you know a person by their deeds. You decide what those deeds should be, not anyone else.”
“By your fruit you shall be known,” the duchess mused. “Well said, Mrs. Kimball. Larissa, show your new governess the schoolroom and her quarters.”
Larissa slid dutifully from the sofa, but Jane’s heart soared. It seemed she’d won her place in the duke’s household. She could hardly wait to tell him.
She pulled in a breath and knew it wasn’t relief that fueled it. Jimmy was the one she’d shared confidences with. She shouldn’t expect things to be that way with the duke. She was a governess, nothing more. She needed to remember that.
~~~
Alaric strode down the corridor for the stairs, feeling as if a band of French cuirassiers rode screaming behind him, cutlasses drawn. He could stand before his peers in Parliament, make his case for or against a bill. He had seen to the release of men from debtors’ prison. He had rescued tena
nts from the rising floodwaters of the Thames. He’d assisted friends serving under Lord Hastings to identify and stop aristocrats spying for France. He had helped nurse Evangeline through several illnesses. Why was it one moment with his daughters, and he wanted to bolt?
Miss Thorn met him as he came down the stairs. Her cat regarded Alaric from her arm. Those copper eyes seemed to see inside him. The twitch of her tail said she was disappointed in him. The look in Parsons’ eyes as he excused himself said the same.
As if she had noticed, Miss Thorn offered him a smile. “If you need additional assistance with staff, I’d be delighted to help.”
The footman standing by the door raised his chin defiantly. Most of the staff he’d inherited from his father. He’d known them since he was a boy. Parsons was one of the more recent additions. Evangeline had hired him when Alaric had ascended to the title, claiming they needed someone more sophisticated and polished, as their butler. Only the nursery footman, Simmons, was truly new, having been introduced to the castle in the last year.
“Thank you,” he told Miss Thorn, “but we’re well staffed at present. Most of our people have served for years, even to multiple generations.”
“That is a credit to your house.” She gathered the cat closer. “I’ll take my leave for the moment, then.”
Alaric frowned. “Don’t you wish to be certain Her Grace approves of Mrs. Kimball?”
She adjusted the cat against her chest. “Her Grace will approve. Like knows like.”
The cat smiled as if to prove it. For some reason, he found it difficult to doubt either of them. It seemed he had a new governess, for now.
“I will, of course, return in a few days to ensure that everything is satisfactory,” she said.
“A wise precaution,” Alaric acknowledged. “Not every governess is suited to the role.”