TESSA DARE is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over twenty historical romances. Her books have won numerous accolades, including Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA® award (twice) and the RT Book Reviews Seal of Excellence. Booklist magazine named her one of the ‘new stars of historical romance’, and her books have been contracted for translation in more than a dozen languages.

A librarian by training and a booklover at heart, Tessa makes her home in Southern California, where she lives with her husband, their two children, and a trio of cosmic kittens.

ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TESSA DARE AND MILLS & BOON

Girl Meets Duke

THE DUCHESS DEAL

The Governess Game

Tessa Dare

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-0-008-26825-1

THE GOVERNESS GAME

© 2018 Eve Ortega

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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For my children, the Darelings,

because apparently I have a trend with this

series—dedicating

books to people I hope will

never read them.

My daughter served as a

brilliant consultant on Rosamund and Daisy’s

characters, and my ever-clever

son taught me that some kids learn best in unconventional ways.

Darelings, I love you both. I promise that

out of all my books, this is the one and

only page I’ll ever force you to read.

(Bonus: I’ve now embarrassed you

in front of thousands of strangers.

Mom achievement unlocked!)

Contents

Cover

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Extract

About the Publisher

Prologue

Alexandra Mountbatten had common sense. That’s what her friends believed.

The truth was, Alex had no sense at all—at least, not when it came to charming gentlemen with roguish green eyes. If she possessed any wisp of rationality, she wouldn’t have made such a fool of herself with the Bookshop Rake.

Even now, more than half a year later, she could revisit the embarrassing scene and watch it unfolding, as though she were attending a play.

The setting: Hatchard’s bookshop.

The date: a Wednesday afternoon in November.

The personages: Alexandra, of course. Her three closest friends: Nicola Teague, Lady Penelope Campion, and Emma Pembrooke, the Duchess of Ashbury. And, making his first appearance in a starring role (trumpet fanfare, please)—the Bookshop Rake.

The scene proceeded thusly:

Alexandra had been juggling a tower of Nicola’s books in one arm and reading her own book with her free hand. A copy of Messier’s Catalogue of Star Clusters and Nebulae, which she’d plucked like a pearl from the used-book section. She’d been searching for a secondhand copy for ages. She couldn’t afford to buy it new.

One moment, she’d been blissfully paging through descriptions of astronomical nebulae, and the next . . .

Bang. A collision of cosmic proportions.

The cause remained unclear. Perhaps she’d taken a step in reverse, or maybe he’d turned without looking. It didn’t matter. Whosoever’s elbow jostled the other’s arm, the laws of physics demanded an equal and opposite reaction. From there, the rest was gravity. All her books fell to the floor, and when she looked up from the heap—there he was.

Ruffled brown hair, fashionable attire, cologne that smelled like bottled sin—and a smile no doubt honed from boyhood as a means to make women forgive him anything.

With affable charm, he’d gathered up the books. She’d been no help at all.

He’d inquired after her name; she’d stammered.

He’d asked her to recommend a book—a gift, he said, for two young girls. In response, she’d stammered yet more.

He’d drawn close enough for her to breathe in his woodsy, earthy, oh-so-manly cologne. She’d nearly fainted into the antiquities section.

But then he’d looked at her with warm green eyes—truly looked at her—the way people rarely did, because it meant allowing the other person to truly look at them, too. Equal and opposite reactions.

He made her feel like the only woman in the bookshop. Perhaps the only woman in the world. Or the universe.

The moment seemed to last forever, and yet it was over much too soon.

Then he’d made her a dashing bow, bid her adieu, and strolled away with Messier’s Catalogue of Star Clusters and Nebulae, leaving Alexandra holding an insipid book of stories for “obedient girls.”

End of scene.

Or at least, it should have been the end.

Alex resolved to scrub the encounter from her mental slate, but Penny—the incurable romantic among them—wouldn’t allow it. Since he hadn’t given his name, Penny anointed him with increasingly ridiculous titles. First he was merely the Bookshop Rake, but as the weeks wore on, he made a rapid ascent up the rungs of the peerage. Sir Read. Lord Literature. The Duke of Hatchard’s.

Stop, Alex told her again and again. That was ages ago, and I haven’t thought of him since. He certainly hasn’t thought of me. It was nothing.

Except that it wasn’t quite nothing. Some idiotic corner of her memory embellished the encounter with rainbows and sparkles until it resembled . . . something. Something too mortifying to ever admit aloud, even to Penny, Emma, and Nicola. In truth, Alex avoided admitting it to herself.

From that day forward, whenever she visited Hatchard’s—or the Temple of Muses, or even the Minerva Library—she looked for him. Imagining that they might collide once again, and he would confess, over afternoon tea that lingered into dinner, that he’d been haunting the bookshops, too—hoping to meet with her. Because, naturally, in those two minutes of painful one-sided conversation, he’d divined that an incoherent, clumsy, working-class girl small enough to fit into the average kitchen cupboard was everything he’d always yearned to find.

You’re exactly what I’ve been searching for.

Now that I’ve found you, I’ll never let you go.

Alexandra, I need you.

Common sense, feh.

Alex worked for her living, setting clocks in the homes of wealthy customers, and she didn’t have time for dreams. She set goals, and she worked to achieve them. Feet on the ground, shoulders squared, and head on straight.

She would not—absolutely not—be carried away with romantic fantasies.

Sadly, her imagination ignored this memorandum. In her daydreams, the afternoon tea led to walks in the park, deep conversations, kisses under the stars, and even—Alexandra’s dignity wilted just thinking of it—a wedding.

Truly. A wedding.

Do you take this man, Anonymous Bookshop Rake with Horrid Taste in Children’s Literature, to be your wedded husband?

Absurd.

After months of attempting to quash this madness, Alex gave up. At least the fantasies—foolish as they might be—were hers to keep secret. No one else need ever know. In all likelihood, she would never meet with the Bookshop Rake again.

Until, of course, the morning that she did.

Chapter One

The morning began in the same way as most of Chase’s mornings lately. With a tragic demise.

“She’s dead.”

He turned onto his side. As he blinked, Rosamund’s face came into focus. “What was it this time?”

“Typhus.”

“Charming.”

Using the sofa’s upholstered arm for leverage, he pushed to a sitting position. As he did so, his brain sloshed with regret. He rubbed his temples, ruing his behavior the night before. And his licentiousness in the very early morning. While he was at it, he decided he might as well regret his entire misspent youth, too. Clear a bit of his afternoon schedule.

“It can wait until later.” Once his head ceased ringing and he’d washed off the cloying scent of French perfume.

“It must be now, Daisy says, or else the contagion could spread. She’s preparing the body.”

Chase groaned. He decided it wasn’t worth arguing. Might as well have it done with.

As they began climbing the four flights of stairs to the nursery, he interrogated his ten-year-old ward. “Can’t you do something about this?”

“Can’t you?”

“She’s your little sister.”

“You’re her guardian.”

He grimaced, rubbing his throbbing temple. “Discipline isn’t one of my particular talents.”

“Obedience isn’t one of ours,” Rosamund replied.

“I’ve noticed. Don’t think I didn’t see you pocket that shilling from the side table.” They reached the top of the stairs and turned down the corridor. “Listen, this has to stop. Quality boarding schools don’t offer enrollment to petty thieves or serial murderesses.”

“It wasn’t murder. It was typhus.”

“Oh, to be sure it was.”

“And we don’t want to go to boarding school.”

“Rosamund, it’s time you learned a harsh lesson.” He opened the nursery door. “We don’t always get what we want in life.”

Didn’t Chase know it. He didn’t want to be guardian to a pair of orphaned girls. He didn’t want to be next in line for the Belvoir dukedom. And he most assuredly did not want to be attending his fourth funeral in as many days. Yet here he was.

Daisy turned to them. A veil of dark netting covered her straw-colored curls. “Please show respect for the dead.”

She waved Chase forward. He dutifully crossed to her side, bending down so that she could pin a black armband around his shirtsleeve.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said. So very sorry. You don’t know how sorry.

He took his place at the head of the bed, looking down at the deceased. She was ghostly pale and swaddled in a white shroud. Buttons covered her eyes. Thank God. It was damned unnerving when the eyes looked up at him with that glassy, empty stare.

Daisy reached for his hand and bowed her head. After leading them in a recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, she poked Chase in the ribs. “Mr. Reynaud, kindly say a few words.”

Chase looked to the heavens. God help him.

“Almighty Father,” he began in a dispirited tone, “we commit to your keeping the soul of Millicent. Ashes to ashes. Sawdust to sawdust. She was a doll of few words and yet fewer autonomous movements, yet she will be remembered for the ever-present—some might say permanently painted—smile on her face. By the grace of our Redeemer, we know she will be resurrected, perhaps as soon as luncheon.” He added under his breath, “Unfortunately.”

“Amen,” Daisy intoned. With solemnity, she lowered the doll into the wooden toy chest, then closed the lid.

Rosamund broke the oppressive silence. “Let’s go down to the kitchen, Daisy. We’ll have buttered rolls and jam for our breakfast.”

“You’ll breakfast here,” he corrected. “In the nursery. Your governess will—”

“Our governess?” Daisy gave him a sweet, innocent look. “But we don’t have a governess at the moment.”

He groaned. “Don’t tell me the new one quit. I only hired her yesterday.”

Rosamund said proudly, “We were rid of her in seventeen and a quarter hours. A new record.”

Unbelievable.

Chase strode to the world map on the wall and plucked a tack from the border. “There.” He stabbed an unsuspecting country at random, then pointed at it with authority. “I am sending you to boarding school there. Enjoy”—he squinted at the map—“Malta.”

Fuming, Chase quit the room and made the journey back down the four flights of stairs, and then down a half flight more and through the kitchen—all the way to his private retreat. Upon entering, he shut and locked the door before exhaling a lungful of annoyance.

For a gentleman of leisure, he was damned exhausted. He needed a bath, a shave, a change of clothing, and a headache powder. Barrow would arrive in an hour with sheaves of papers to look over and bank drafts to sign. The club had a bacchanalian revel this evening. And now he must hire yet another governess.

Before he could face any of it, he needed a drink.

As he made his way to the bar, he navigated a card table draped with a dustcloth and a stack of paintings propped against the wall, waiting to be hung. The apartment was a work in progress. He had a well-furnished bedchamber upstairs, of course, but for now he needed a space as far away from the nursery as architecturally possible. The arrangement was for the girls’ benefit as much as his own. He would rather not know what mischief his wards wrought at the top of the house, and they must never learn of the devilry he practiced at the bottom of it.

He uncorked a bottle of wine and filled a large glass. A bit early in the day for burgundy, but what of it. He was, after all, in mourning. Might as well lift a glass to Millicent’s memory.

He’d downed half the glass in one swallow when he heard a light knock at the door. Not the door to and from the kitchen, but the door that opened onto the side street.

Chase cursed into his burgundy. That would be Colette, he supposed. They’d had their fun the other night, but apparently neither his well-established reputation nor the parting bouquet he’d sent had communicated the message. He would be forced to have “the talk” with her in person.

It’s not you, darling. It’s me. I’m an irredeemable, broken man. You deserve better.

All of it was true, as hackneyed as it sounded. When it came to relationships, sensual or otherwise, Chase had one rule.

No attachments.

Words to live by, words to make love by. Words to send wards to boarding school by. When he made promises, he only caused pain.

“Come in,” he called, not bothering to turn around. “It’s unlocked.”

A cool draft swept across his neck as the door opened, then shut again. Like the whisper of fingertips.

He took another glass and filled it. “Back for more, are you? Insatiable minx. I knew it was no accident you left your stocking here the other”—he turned, holding the wineglasses in his hands and fixing a roguish half smile on his face—“night.”

Interesting. The woman who’d entered was not Colette.

She was very much not Colette.

A small, dark-haired young woman stood before him. She clutched a weathered brown satchel in her hands, and her eyes held abject horror. He could actually watch the blood draining from her face and settling at the base of her throat as a hot, fierce blush.

“Good morning,” he said amiably.

In reply, she made an audible swallow.

“Here.” Chase extended his left hand, offering her a glass of wine. “Have this. You look as though you could use it.”

Him.

It was him. She would know him anywhere. Those features were etched in her memory. He was indelibly handsome. Roguish green eyes, mussed dark hair, and that lopsided smile so seductive, it could steal a woman’s virtue from across a crowded room.

Alexandra found herself standing toe-to-toe (she was too small-statured to manage face-to-face) with the Bookshop Rake, in the flesh.

So. Much. Flesh.

Sleeves rolled to the elbow, open shirt, no cravat . . . Alexandra dropped her gaze to keep from staring. Good Lord. Bare feet.

“I . . . I . . . Forgive me, I thought this was the servants’ entrance. I’ll leave straightaway.” She ducked her head to hide her face, praying he wouldn’t recognize her. If she left now, and quickly, this encounter might be survivable.

“You weren’t mistaken. It was the servants’ entrance until a few weeks ago. I’m adapting the space for my own purposes. A sort of gentleman’s retreat.”

She swept her gaze about the room. His “purposes” were easy enough to discern. Well-stocked bar. Plush chaise longue. Plum-colored velvet drapes. A rug fashioned from the hide of some shaggy beast. On the wall, a rack of antlers.

And there it was, the aforementioned forgotten stocking. Draped over one of the stag’s forked prongs like a white banner of surrender.

She’d wandered into some sort of pleasure dungeon.

Embarrassment seared her from the inside out. A sheen of sweat broke out on her brow. “I’m clearly intruding. I’ll return another time.” She tightened her grip on her satchel and attempted to sidle around him.

But he wouldn’t be sidled so easily. He was too quick, too tall. Too muscled and male. He slid sideways, blocking her path to the door. “Believe me, I am delighted to see you.”

I’d be delighted if you didn’t see me at all.

Alex shielded her face with one hand and slanted her gaze to a painting propped against the wall. It featured a woman bare to her skin, save for a strategically positioned fan. “I left a card last week. I meant to speak with your housekeeper about offering my services.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Then perhaps you could direct me to her.”

“I conduct all the interviews myself. Saves time, I find.”

She looked up in surprise. It was beyond unusual for the gentleman of the house to interview his own employees—let alone an employee whose sole duty would be to adjust the clocks to Greenwich time once a week.

“Forgive me. I’ve run ahead of myself.” He inclined his head in a perfunctory bow. “Chase Reynaud.”

Chase Reynaud.

Mr. Charles Reynaud.

Mrs. Alexandra Reynaud.

For the love of God. Stop.

He set aside the glasses of wine and wiped his hands on his trousers. “We can discuss your immediate employment. Make yourself comfortable.”

Alex would rather make herself invisible. She moved toward the windows lining one side of the room, partly wishing to disappear behind the draperies. But also because she was drawn by the glimmer of brass.

Could it be . . . ?

Yes. Pushing aside a fold of aubergine velvet, she found confirmation of her hopes.

A telescope.

Since childhood, Alexandra had been fascinated by the night sky. Life aboard a merchant frigate didn’t offer many ways to amuse oneself after sundown. She’d borrowed her father’s spyglass so often, he’d finally given in and bought her one of her own. Here in London, she made do with a collapsible pocket telescope she’d purchased for sixteen shillings at a lens grinder’s shop. A hobbyist’s instrument.

But this . . . ?

This was, without question, the most astonishing object she’d ever touched.

Without thinking, she bent to have a look through the eyepiece. She found the instrument to be directed at an attic window of the house across the way. The servant quarters of a pretty young housemaid or two, no doubt.

Alex swung it away from its sordid direction, pointing it toward the gardens in the center of the square. Heavens, she could make out individual blades of yellow-green grass pushing through the soil.

Behind her, glassware clinked. She startled, jumping back from the telescope, knocking it on its swiveling mechanism, and sending it into a nearby vase, which she had to lunge to catch before it hit the floor. What a display of professional skill. Why yes, I’m here to offer my services handling intricate, expensive machinery.

“Forgive me. I didn’t catch your name, Miss . . . ?”

Her tongue was a sailor’s knot. “Mountbatten,” she managed. “Alexandra Mountbatten.”

Then he tilted his head and looked at her. Truly looked at her, with that same deep, searching gaze he’d given her in the bookshop.

Her heartbeat paused in anticipation.

Alexandra didn’t expect a confession of unrequited love, of course. At most, a simple Haven’t we met somewhere? Perhaps even Oh, yes. Hatchard’s, was it?

“Miss Mountbatten. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

Oh. He had no memory of meeting her at all.

A stroke of luck, she told herself. If he did recall her, she would have lingered in his memory as a clumsy, stammering, bookish ninny, not an object of admiration. This was a boon, truly. Now she could cease wasting time thinking of him.

It would be completely irrational to feel disappointed. Much less hurt.

However, her powers of reason flew out her ear whenever this man was involved. She did feel wounded, just a little. Inside her, the sharp proof of her foolishness twisted and scraped at her pride.

He cleared the tea table of a candlestick with guttered tapers and two emptied brandy glasses. He whisked the forgotten stocking from the antler prong and—after casting about in vain for an appropriate place to store it—wadded it into a ball and stuffed it behind a pillow.

“I truly should go,” she said. “I seem to have interrupted something, and I—”

“You’re not interrupting anything. Nothing of consequence, at any rate.” He patted the back of an armchair. “Sit down.”

She numbly took the offered seat. He dropped onto the chaise across from her. From the way he sank into the cushioning, Alexandra suspected the upholstery had strained and bounced beneath many a torrid encounter.

In one last farcical swipe at decency, he ran a hand through his disheveled brown hair. “I’ve two that need looking after.”

Clocks.

Yes. Concentrate on the clocks. Those ticking things with dials and gears and numbers. They were how she made her living, and she’d been knocking on the door of every servants’ entrance in Mayfair to find more clients. She wasn’t here to gawk at the sprinkling of hair on his chest, or ponder the meaning of his black armband, or flog herself over silly fantasies that he would sweep her into his arms, confess his months of suffering for love of her, and vow to abandon his sinful ways now that she’d given him reason to live.

She slammed the lid on her imagination, buckled the strap, affixed a padlock, and then pushed it off a cliff.

This was just another business call.

He went on, “I can’t tell you much of their history. They’d been passed around by several different relations before they landed with me last autumn.”

Family heirlooms, then. “They must be precious.”

“Oh, yes,” he replied dryly. “Precious indeed. To be honest, I’ve no idea what to do with the two of them. They came along with the title.”

“The title?” she echoed.

“Belvoir.” When she did not respond, he added, “As in, the duke of it.”

A wild burst of laughter escaped her.

A duke? Oh, how Penny would gloat over having guessed that.

“Believe me,” he said, “I find it absurd, as well. Actually, I’m merely heir to a duke, for now. Since my uncle is infirm, I’ve been handed the legal responsibilities. All the duties of a dukedom, none of the perks.” He waved aimlessly in her direction. “Well, then. Teach me a lesson.”

“I . . . I beg your pardon?”

“I could inquire as to your education and experience, but that seems a waste of time. We may as well have a demonstration.”

A demonstration? Did he want to know how clockworks operated? Perhaps he meant the chronometer. She could explain why it kept the right time when clocks could lose several minutes a day.

“What sort of lesson did you have in mind?”

He shrugged. “Whatever you think I might need to learn.”

Alex couldn’t hold it in any longer. She buried her face in her hands and moaned into them.

He leaned toward her at once. “Are you ill? I do hope it’s not typhus.”

“It’s disappointment. I expected something different. I should have known better.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “What precisely were you expecting?”

“You don’t want to know.” And I don’t want to tell you.

“Oh, but I do.”

“No, you don’t. You really, truly don’t.”

“Come now. That kind of protestation only makes a man more intrigued. Just have out with it.”

“A gentleman,” she blurted out. “I expected you’d be a gentleman.”

“You weren’t wrong. I am a gentleman. Eventually, I’m going to be a peer.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. I thought you’d be the respectable, considerate, honorable kind of gentleman.”

“Ah,” he said. “Yes, that was a mistaken assumption on your part.”

“Obviously. Just look at you.”

As she spoke, her gaze drifted downward, toward his broad shoulders. Then toward the rumpled linen of his shirt. Then toward the intriguing wedge of masculine chest exposed by his open collar. The skin there was smooth and taut, and the muscular contours were defined, and . . .

And she was openly staring now.

“Look at this place. Wineglasses scattered on the table. Perfume still lingering in the air. What kind of gentleman conducts an employment interview in this . . .” She indicated their surroundings, at a loss for the word. “. . . cave of carnality?”

“Cave of Carnality,” he echoed with amusement. “Oh, I like that. I’ve a mind to engrave that on a plaque.”

“So you understand my mistake now.” The words kept pouring out of her, rash and unconsidered, and she couldn’t put them back in the bottle. She couldn’t even find a cork. “When I opened the door, I was fool enough to expect someone else. A man who’d never allow a lady to wander London with only one stocking and call it ‘nothing of consequence.’ Stockings are of consequence, Mr. Reynaud. So are the women who wear them.” She made a defeated wave at his black armband. “All of this whilst you’re in mourning.”

“Now that, I can explain.”

“Please don’t. This lesson is cruel enough already.” She shook her head. “Then there’s the telescope.”

“Hold a moment.” He sat forward. “What has a telescope to do with anything?”

“That”—she pointed with an outstretched arm—“is a genuine Dollond. A forty-six-inch achromatic with a triple object-glass of three-and-three-quarters-inch aperture. Polished wood barrel, brass draw tubes. Capable of magnifying land objects sixty times over, and celestial objects to one hundred and eighty times. It’s an instrument most could only dream of owning, and you’re letting it gather dust. It’s . . . Well, it’s heartbreaking.”

Heartbreaking, indeed.

In the end, Alex had only herself to blame. All the clues were there. His dreadful taste in books. His charming grin that made promises no man could intend to keep. And those eyes . . . They held some kind of potent, brain-addling sorcery, and he went about jostling young women in bookshops without the decency to keep them hidden beneath a wide-brimmed hat.

Her only consolation was that he’d forget this conversation the moment she left, just as he’d forgotten her before.

“Thank you, Mr. Reynaud. You’ve given me a much-needed lesson today.” She released a heavy sigh and tipped her gaze to the wall. “Antlers. Really?”

After a prolonged silence, he whistled softly through his teeth.

She rose to her feet, reaching for her satchel. “I’ll show myself out.”

“Oh, no, you won’t.” He stood. “Miss Mountbatten, that was capital.”

“What?”

“Absolutely brilliant. I would very much like to engage your services.”

Perhaps she had this all wrong. Maybe he was not the Bookshop Rake after all, but the Bookshop Madman.

Then he went and did the most incomprehensible thing yet. He looked into her eyes, smiled just enough to reveal a lethal dimple, and spoke the words she’d stupidly dreamed of hearing him say.

“You,” he said, “are everything I’ve been searching for. And I’m not letting you get away.”

Oh.

Oh, Lord.

“Come, then. My wards will be delighted to meet their new governess.”

Chapter Two

Governess?

Alexandra was speechless.

“I’ll show you upstairs.” In a display of masculine presumption, Mr. Reynaud took the satchel from her grip. As he relieved her of its weight, his hand grazed hers. The fleeting brush of warmth pushed her brain off balance. He turned and walked to the back of the room. “This way.”

She shook life into her frozen arms and followed. How could she do otherwise? He’d taken her satchel—and with it her chronometer, plus her ledger of clients and appointments. Her livelihood was literally in his hands.

“Mr. Reynaud, I—”

“They’re called Rosamund and Daisy. Aged ten and seven, respectively. Sisters.”

“Mr. Reynaud, please. Can we—”

He led her through a kitchen and up the stairs. They emerged into a first-floor corridor. She followed him down a passageway with walls covered in striped emerald silk. From the springy plush beneath her boots, she would have guessed the corridor to be carpeted in clouds. Her work took her into many a fine London house, but she never ceased marveling at the luxury.

He led the way up the main staircase, taking the risers two at a time.

“They carry the last name Fairfax, but it’s likely an adopted name. They’re natural children. Some distant relation sired a few by-blows and left their guardianship to the estate.”

As they climbed flight after flight of stairs, Alexandra could scarcely keep pace with him, much less change the topic of conversation.

“I’m sending them to school at Michaelmas term.” He added wearily, “Assuming I can bribe a respectable school into taking them.”

At last, they reached the top of the house. Alex darted forward to grab his sleeve. “Mr. Reynaud, please. There’s been some sort of misunderstanding. A grave misunderstanding.”

“Not at all. We understand one another perfectly. I’m a paltry excuse for a gentleman, as you say. I’m also no fool. That scolding you delivered downstairs was brilliant. The girls need a firm hand. Discipline. I’m the last soul on earth to teach them proper behavior. But you, Miss Mountbatten? You are just the one for the job.” He gestured at the rooms that opened off the passageway. “You’ll have a bedchamber to yourself, of course. The nursery is this way.”

“Wait—”

“Here we are.” He flung open the door.

Alexandra’s mind refused to make sense of the scene. Two flaxen-haired girls stood on either side of a bed. A beautiful bed. A grand four-poster with a lacy lavender canopy, gold-painted posts, and matching bed hangings tied back with pink cord. The bed would have been any young girl’s dream. Beneath it, however, was a nightmare. The white bed linens were streaked and spattered with crimson.

“You’re too late.” The younger of the two turned to face them, her expression eerily solemn. “She’s dead.”

“Curse it all.” Mr. Reynaud heaved a sigh. “Not again.”

Chase couldn’t believe it.

Twice in one morning. Insupportable.

He put down Miss Mountbatten’s satchel, stalked to the bed, and swiped a finger along the soiled linens. Red currant jelly, by the looks of it.

“It was the bloody flux,” Rosamund said.

Of course it was. Chase set his jaw. “From now on, there will be no jelly. None, do you hear? No conserves, no jam, no preserves of any kind.”

“No jelly?” Daisy asked mournfully. “Whyever not?”

“Because I am not eulogizing another leprosy victim covered in sores that weep marmalade! That’s why not. Oh, and no mushy peas, either. Millicent’s bout of dyspepsia last week ruined the drawing room carpet.”

“But—”

“No arguments.” He leveled a finger at his morbid little wards. “Or I’m going to lock the both of you in this room and feed you nothing but dry crusts.”

“How very gothic,” Rosamund replied.

“I’m afraid I must be going now.” The faintly voiced interruption came from Miss Mountbatten, who’d remained near the doorway.

And who, shortly thereafter, made a stealthy reach for her satchel and vanished through said doorway.

Damn it.

He strode to the map and jabbed a tack into the first empty expanse he saw. “Start packing your things.”

“There aren’t any boarding schools in the Lapland,” Rosamund said.

“I’ll put up the money to start one,” he said on his way to the door. “I hope you like herring.”

Then he ran after his newest—and please, God, not latest to quit—governess.

“Wait.” He took the stairs three at a time, vaulting over the banister so as to catch her on the next landing. “Miss Mountbatten, wait.” With a flailing swipe, he caught her by the arm.

They stood wedged in the stairwell. She was short, and he was tall. The crown of her head met him mid-sternum. Conversation was comically impossible. He released her arm and took two steps downward so he might look her in the eye.

Her gaze nearly knocked him down the stairs. For a woman of small stature, she made a prodigious impact. A delicate snub of a nose, olive skin, and a glossy knot of midnight-black hair. And fathomless dark eyes that pulled on something deep in his chest. He needed a moment to collect himself.

“Millicent is Daisy’s doll. She kills the thing at least once a day, but—” Curse it, he’d left red smudges on her sleeve, and God only knew what substance she presumed it to be. “No, it’s not what you think. It’s only red currant jelly.” He held up his stained index finger. “Here, taste for yourself.”

She blinked at him. “Did you just invite me to lick your finger?”

He wiped his hand on a fold of his shirt. God, he was making a hash of this. If she worried for her virtue, that wouldn’t aid his case. Any sensible young woman would hesitate to accept employment in the house of a scandalous rake—even if the rake’s wards were perfect angels. Chase’s wards were incorrigible, morbid hellions.

In fact, the post offered few advantages, save one.

“I’ll pay you handsomely,” he said. “An astronomical sum.”

“There’s been a mistake. I came to offer my services as a timekeeper. I’m not a governess. I’ve no training, no experience. And governesses are gently bred women, aren’t they? I don’t meet that qualification, either.”

“I don’t care if you’re gently bred, roughly bred, or a loaf of brown bread with butter. You’re educated, you understand propriety, and you’re . . . breathing.”

“I’m certain you’ll find someone else to fill the post.”

“The post has been filled. And vacated. And filled and vacated several times over. Sometimes multiple times in one day.”

You’re not doing your offer any favors, Reynaud.

“But you’re not like the rest of those candidates,” he hastened to say. “You’re different.”

She was different.

Here was a woman who’d just schooled him within an inch of his dignity. She thought him a crude, unintelligent layabout. A paltry excuse for nobility and a waste of good tailoring. Miss Mountbatten—quite wisely—wanted nothing to do with him.

And Chase was positively desperate to keep her near.

The desire rising in him wasn’t physical. Well, it wasn’t entirely physical. She was pretty, and he appreciated a forthright woman who knew what she was about. But mingled with the attraction was something more. A wish to impress her, to be worthy of her approval.

She made him want to be better. And wasn’t that an ideal quality in a governess? He had to keep this woman in his employ.

“It’s only for the summer,” he said. “A year’s wages, for a few months of work.”

“I’m sorry.” She sidestepped him and continued down the stairs.

“Two years’ wages. Three.”

“Mr. Reynaud . . .”

Chase caught her at the door. “It comes down to this. Those girls need you.”

He waited until she looked at him, and then he reached into his arsenal of persuasion.

A hard swallow, indicating a manful struggle with emotion.

An intense, searching gaze.

The husky whisper of a confession.

“Miss Mountbatten.” Hell, why not go for it all? “Alexandra. I need you.”

There. That line worked on every woman.

It didn’t work on her.

“No, you don’t.” A flash of irony crossed her face. “Don’t worry. You’ll forget me soon enough.”

And then she did what Chase yearned to do, often. She flung open the door, fled the house, and didn’t once look back.

Chapter Three

Two hours later, Alexandra found herself standing on a Billingsgate dock.

Terrified.

The June morning was soaked with sunshine, but she’d left Mr. Reynaud’s house in a mental fog. Her distraction was such that she’d made two wrong turnings on her well-trod path to London Bridge, and now she had missed the noon coach to Greenwich.

The rational solution was to take a wherry down the Thames. However, the mere sight of the boat sent an irrational shiver rippling down her spine.

I can’t. I just can’t.

But what were her alternatives?

If she risked waiting for a later coach, the bridge would be madness, crushed with carts going nowhere. She’d never make it home before dark.

She could call off the journey entirely. However, calibrating the chronometer once a fortnight was her signature promise to customers. They paid for precise Greenwich time, and she delivered it, without fail.

Just do it, she told herself. It’s time to move past this, you ninny. You were raised on a ship, after all. A merchant frigate was your cradle.

Yes. But it had nearly been her coffin, too.

Nevertheless, here she stood ten years later. Alive. She could survive a brief jaunt down the Thames to Greenwich.

She could do this.

As the boatman loaded bundles and helped passengers into the wherry, she hung back, waiting until the last possible moment.

“Are you coming, miss, or ain’t ye?”

“I’m coming.” Alex accepted his hand and boarded the boat, wedging herself on a plank between two older women and settling her satchel on her lap.

When the boatman cast off the ropes mooring the wherry to the dock, she decided to set her mind on something else. Now that she knew better than to fantasize about Chase Reynaud, a good portion of her brain was suddenly available for other pursuits. Naming all the constellations bordering Ursa Major, perhaps.

Drat. Too easy. She rattled through the list in moments—Draco, Camelopardalis, Lynx, Leo Minor, Leo, Coma Berenices, Canes Venatici, Boötes—and there her concentration fractured. Once the first oar hit water, she couldn’t piece a single thought together.

She balled her hands in fists and dug her nails into her palms, attempting to distract herself by means of pain. That didn’t work, either. She felt nothing but the lift and roll of water beneath the craft. That terrifying sensation of coming unmoored. Drifting untethered.

No. She couldn’t do this after all.

Alex pushed to her feet, making her way to the edge of the boat. They hadn’t yet pushed off. Still just a foot from the dock. “Wait,” she told the boatman. “I’ve just recalled something. I need to disembark.”

“Too late, miss. You can cross again when the boat comes back.” He moved to push off with the oar.

“Please.” She was begging now, her voice cracking. “It’s urgent. I must get off the boat. I . . .”

“Sit down, woman,” he barked, bracing his oar to push off.

Alex was frantic, wild. She scrambled atop the rail of the boat, wavering on her toes. The other passengers cried out in alarm as the boat tipped to one side. The boatman gripped the hem of her frock, attempting to yank her down into the boat. His grasping only increased her desperation.

She quickly judged the distance between the wherry and the dock. She could make it, she thought, but only if she jumped.

And jumped now.

She made the leap.

Her judgment wasn’t faulty. If not for her boot slipping on the wherry’s edge, she would have made the jump cleanly. Instead, she plunged into the water with a splash, gasping as she went and catching a foul, wretched mouthful of the Thames.

When she surfaced, a man on the dock caught her under the arm, pulling her up and helping her scramble out of the river.

On the dock at last, she sputtered and choked with relief.

That’s when she noticed it had gone missing. Her satchel. The chronometer. When she’d tumbled into the river, it had fallen from her grip and sunk into the depths.

Her livelihood, gone.

A sob wrenched from her body, like a droplet wrung from damp cloth.

One more thing the water had taken from her. It was the insatiable monster in her life. Jonah’s whale. Devouring everything she loved, but spitting her back out, again and again, more lost and lonely than ever.

And once more, there was nothing to do but pick herself up and start over.

“Well? What do you think?” Chase spread his arms and turned slowly, putting on a display of his unfinished apartment. “I’m remaking it into a manly retreat.”

Barrow stared at the shambles of what had formerly been the housekeeper’s quarters. “Where are Mrs. Greeley’s things?”

“I’ve moved her to a bedchamber on the second floor. Far superior accommodations.”

“Dare I ask the reason behind this renovation?”

Chase went to pour them two tumblers of brandy. “Until Rosamund and Daisy go off to school, I need somewhere to escape.”

“A grown man escaping from two little girls. Now that’s rather pathetic, isn’t it?”

“Come now. I don’t know what to do with children. There’s no point in troubling to learn. I’m not going to sire any of the grimy things. Even if I wished to marry, there’s no use searching for a wife. You’ve laid claim to the best woman in England.”

“This is true.”

John Barrow Sr. had been Chase’s father’s solicitor, and from the time Chase and John Jr. had been boys, it was understood they would continue the family tradition. Also understood, but never spoken of, was the reason why. They were half brothers. Chase’s father had impregnated a local gentleman’s daughter, and his loyal solicitor had taken it upon himself to marry her and raise the child as his own.

So Chase and John had grown up together, sharing both tutors and paddlings. Squabbling over horses and girls. Despite the disparity in their social ranks, they’d maintained a close friendship through school and beyond. A damned lucky thing, on Chase’s part. Now, with a dukedom at stake, he needed a trusted friend to help manage the estate.

“How is my godson?” Chase asked. “Speaking of grimy things.”

“Charles is living up to his namesake, unfortunately.”

“Ah. Charming every woman in sight.”

“Lying about while everyone else does the work.”

“I’ll have you know,” Chase said indignantly, “I have been hard at work during your absence. Witness the renovation in progress around you. I built that bar myself, thank you very much. It only needs a few coats of lacquer. And if that’s not sufficient for you—in the past week alone I’ve gone through a decade of bank ledgers, given seven orgasms, and interviewed five governesses. And no, none of the governesses were recipients of the orgasms, although a few of them looked as though they could use one.”

“Five candidates, and you didn’t find one to hire?”

“I hired each and every one of them. None of them lasted more than two days. In fact, the latest didn’t even make it past the nursery door. A pity, too. I had hopes for her. She was different.”

Normally, Chase was the one coaxing women to leave. He wished he’d been able to make Alexandra Mountbatten stay.

Barrow peered at him. “That was odd.”

“What was odd?”

“You sighed.”

“That’s not odd at all. Not lately.”

“Well, it was the tone of the sigh. Not weary or annoyed. It was . . . wistful.”

Chase gave him a sidelong look. “I have never been wistful a day in my life. I am entirely devoid of wist.” He tugged on his waistcoat. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an engagement this evening. The women of London can’t pleasure themselves, you know. I mean, they can pleasure themselves. But on occasion they generously let me have a go at it.”

“Who is she this time?”

“Do you really care?”

“I don’t know. Do you?” Barrow gave him a look that cut like a switch. “Someday you’ll have to put a stop to this.”

Chase bristled. “You are a solicitor. Not a judge. Spare me the moralizing. I make women no promises I don’t intend to keep.”

In truth, he made no promises at all. His lovers knew precisely what he had on offer—pleasure—and what he didn’t have to give—anything more. No emotional attachment, no romance, no love.

No marriage.

As war, illness, and his own unforgivable failures would have it, in the space of three years, Chase had gone from fourth in line for his uncle’s title to the presumptive heir. It was a development few could have imagined, and one that nobody, Chase included, had desired. But once his uncle let go the thin cord connecting him to life, Chase would become the Duke of Belvoir, fully responsible for lands, investments, tenants.

There was only one traditional responsibility he wouldn’t take on.

He wouldn’t be fathering an heir.

The Belvoir title should have been Anthony’s by rights, and Chase refused to usurp his cousin’s birthright. His line was the crooked, rotting branch of the family tree, and he meant to saw it off. Cleanly and completely. It was the least he could do to atone.

And since there would be no marriage or children in his future, didn’t he deserve a bit of stolen pleasure in the present? A touch of closeness, now and then. Whispered words in his ear, the heat of skin against skin. The scent and taste and softness of a woman as she surrendered her pleasure to him.

A few scattered, blessed hours of forgetting everything else.

“Which of these would look better hanging above the bar?” Chase held up two paintings. “The fan dancer, or the bathing nymphs? The nymphs have those delightful bare bottoms, but that saucy look in the fan dancer’s eyes is undeniably captivating.”

Barrow ignored the question. “So if you haven’t found—or kept—a governess, who’s minding the girls?”

“One of the maids. Hattie, I think.”

No sooner had he said this than screams and a thunder of footsteps came barreling down the stairs.

Hattie appeared in the doorway, her hair askew and her apron slashed to tatters. “Mr. Reynaud, I regret to say that I cannot continue in your employ.”

He cut her off. “Say no more. You’ll have severance wages and a letter of character waiting in the morning.”

The maid fled, babbling with gratitude.

Once he heard the door close, Chase sank into a chair and buried his face in his hands. There went his plans for the evening.

“Now that,” Barrow said, “was a despairing sigh.”

The front doorbell rang. “I’d better answer that myself.” Chase rose to his feet. “I’m not certain I have any servants remaining to do it.”

He opened the door, and there she was: Miss Alexandra Mountbatten. Soaked to the skin, her dark hair dripping.

He tried not to look downward, and when he did so anyway, he told himself it was out of concern for her well-being. He was concerned for her well-being. Especially if one defined “well-being” to mean “breasts.”

So he noticed her nipples. What of it? He spent a ridiculous portion of his waking hours thinking of nipples. Hers just happened to be the nearest, and the most chilled. Hard as jewels beneath her bodice. Red as rubies, maybe. Or pink topaz, pale amethyst . . . ? No. Given her dark coloring, they were most likely a rich, polished amber.

The chattering of teeth pulled his attention back upward. God, he was every bit the repulsive cad she’d called him, and more.

She caught her bluish bottom lip beneath her teeth. “Is the post still available?”

He didn’t hesitate. “Name your price.”

“Ten pounds a week. Another hundred once they’ve gone off to school.”

“Five pounds a week,” he countered. “And two hundred once they’ve gone off to school.”

“One more thing.” From beneath a dripping umbrella of eyelashes, her eyes met his. “I want the use of your telescope. The one down in your . . .”

He crossed his arms and leaned against the door. “Cave of Carnality?”

“Yes.”

Chase supposed he had offered her an astronomical sum. Besides, he wasn’t making use of it. “Very well.”

She sniffled. “I’ll report first thing tomorrow.”

He caught her arm as she turned to leave. “Good God. At least come in and get warm first.”

I’ll warm you.

He chased the errant thought away, like he would an eager puppy. She was in his employ now, and there would be no such ideas. Even he had that much decency.

“Thank you, no. I’ll need to pack my things.”

She walked away, leaving a trail of sloshy bootprints. Chase looked about the entrance hall for an umbrella and found none. Of course there wouldn’t be a greatcoat, either, not in the middle of June.

With a curse, he bolted through the door empty-handed and dashed after her. “Miss Mountbatten.”

She stopped and turned on her heel. “Yes?”

“You’re not leaving dressed like that.” He shrugged out of his tailored topcoat, shaking it down his arms.

“I can’t accept your coat.”

“You can, and you will.” He swung the coat around her shoulders and tucked it tight. She was so petite, the garment’s hem nearly reached her boots. The sight was equal parts comic and piteous.

“But—”

He jerked on the coat’s lapels, drawing them together. “Yes, yes. I know you’re bossy. As a governess, it’s to your credit. But I’m your employer, as of two minutes ago. For as much as I’m paying you, I expect you to do as I say.” As he worked the buttons through their holes, he went on. “Given the alacrity with which you fled my offer of employment this morning, it’s obvious something dire occurred to make you change your mind. If I were any sort of decent fellow, I would ask about that dire situation and sort it out. Seeing as I am a selfish blackguard, however, I intend to take full advantage of your lowered circumstances.”

There, now. He had her buttoned, and he stood back to look at her. She looked like a sausage roll.

A soggy sausage roll.

A soggy, confused sausage roll with slick ebony hair that would feel like satin ribbons between his fingertips.

Right. He dragged himself back to the point.

“I need a governess. Not just any governess, Miss Mountbatten. I need you. Which is why I will not have you walking home in the rain and catching the grippe.”

“But it isn’t—”

“I insist. Most insistently.”

She blinked at him. “Very well.”

Finally, she heeded his demands. She walked down the pavement and turned the corner, disappearing from view.

As he returned to the house, Chase took note of an unexpected sensation. Or rather, the lack of an expected sensation. Miss Mountbatten had appeared at his front door soaked to the skin, and he hadn’t yet felt a single raindrop.

He tipped his head to the sky. Strange. Nothing overhead but the periwinkle and orange streaks of twilight.

It wasn’t raining.

In fact, now that he thought of it, it hadn’t rained all day.

Chapter Four

At home, Alexandra unwrapped herself from Mr. Reynaud’s coat and hung it on a peg. She’d likely ruined the thing. The garment had smelled deliciously of mint and sandalwood when he’d wrapped it about her shoulders. Now it reeked of the Thames.

After bathing and changing into a clean shift and dressing gown, she followed the scent of baking biscuits down to the kitchen. Thank heaven for Nicola and freshly baked biscuits.

She sat down at the table and laid her head on folded arms. “Hullo, Nic.”

Nicola whisked a tray of biscuits from the oven. A sweet, lemony steam permeated the kitchen. “Goodness, has the day gone already?”

“It has, I’m afraid.” And what a day it had been. Alex lifted her head. “Do you remember the Bookshop Rake?”

“The Bookshop Rake?” Nicola frowned. “It’s not a poem or limerick, is it? I’m useless at those.”

“No, it’s a man. We met with him in Hatchard’s last autumn. I was carrying a stack of your books in one arm, and reading one of my own with my free hand. He and I collided. I was startled, dropped everything. He helped me gather up the books.”

Nicola piled the biscuits onto a plate and carried it to the table, setting it between them.

“Tall,” Alex prompted. “Brown hair, green eyes, fine attire. Handsome. Flirtatious. We all decided he must be a terrible rake.” And we didn’t guess the half of it. “Penny teased me for months. Surely you must remember.”

Nicola lowered herself into a chair, thoughtful. “Maybe I do recall. Was I buying natural history books?”

“Cookery and Roman architecture.”

“Oh. Hm.” Biscuit in one hand and book in the other, Nicola was already absorbed in other thoughts.

Alexandra reached for a biscuit and took a resigned bite. That was Nicola for you. She jettisoned useless information like ballast. She needed the brain space to cram in more facts and theories, Alex supposed. And to come up with her ideas.

When Nicola was concentrating, she set aside everything else. She would neglect the passing of hours and days, if not for the odor of burnt cakes coming from the kitchen, or the clamor of the twenty-three—

Cuckoo! Cuckoo!

The twenty-three clocks.

So it began. The chiming, ringing, chirping, and bonging from timepieces that stood, hung, sat—even danced—in every corner of the house.

Alexandra couldn’t complain about the noise. Nicola’s clocks were the only reason she could afford to live in a place like Bloom Square. In exchange for a room in her friend’s inherited Mayfair house, Alex bartered her timekeeping services. The din was loud enough when they all struck the hour in unison . . . but if they fell out of synchrony, the noise went on for ages.

After the last chime sounded, Alex spoke to whatever fraction of her friend’s divided attention she could command. “He offered me a post. The Bookshop Rake.”

“The Bookshop Rake?” Lady Penelope Campion burst through the kitchen door, flushed and breathless, holding a flour sack in one hand and clutching a bundle to her chest with the other. “Did I hear mention of the Bookshop Rake?”

With a soft moan, Alex laid her head on the table again.

“Oh, Alexandra.” Penny dropped the sack, sat down beside her, and clutched her arm. “You’ve found each other at last. I knew you would.”

“It wasn’t like that. Not in the slightest.”

“Tell me everything. Was he just as handsome as he was in Hatchard’s?”

“Please, Penny. I beg you. Hear me out before you start dreaming up names for the children.”

“Oh!” Penny snapped her fingers. “I nearly forgot the reason for my visit. It’s Bixby’s cart. He was chasing after the goslings, and he popped the axle out of place.” At the sound of his name, the rat terrier poked his head out from the blanket. Penny clucked and fussed over him. “What a little scoundrel you are. If you had all four legs, I shouldn’t know what to do with you.”

Nicola reached for the sack and withdrew the contraption inside—a tiny cart she’d rigged up to serve in place of Bixby’s hind legs. She turned it over, inspecting the axle. “Won’t take but a moment.”

“There, now. Alex, you were saying . . . ?”

“She was saying he offered her work.” Nicola retrieved her little caddy of hand tools and sorted through the wrenches and pliers. “That’s all.”

“Of course he offered her work,” Penny said. “As a pretext. That way he can see her once a week. He’s taken with her.”

Alex placed both hands on the table. “If you’re going to make up your own tale, I can retire to bed.”

“No, no.” Penny fed Bixby a biscuit. “We’re listening.”

Alexandra poured herself a cup of tea and began at the beginning. By the time she reached the end of her tale, the plate of biscuits had been devoured to crumbs and Bixby was racing circles around the table with the aid of his cart.

“He ran after you and gave you his coat.” Penny sighed. “So romantic.”

“Romantic?” Nicola made a face. “Did you miss the bit where he keeps two little girls locked in the attic and feeds them nothing but dry crusts?”

“Not at all,” Penny returned. “It’s one more reason to accept. Just think of how much those orphaned girls need her.”

Alex rubbed her temples. How she missed Emma. She adored all three of her friends, but Emma was the most understanding among them. A former seamstress, she’d once worked for her living, too. At the moment, however, both Emma and her heavily pregnant belly were happily ensconced in the country.

Nicola tsked. “Alex, I can’t believe you accepted the post.”

“I couldn’t say no. He offered me an astronomical sum. I will make more in two months than I could hope to make in two years of clock setting. Besides, after what happened at the dock, I didn’t have a choice.”

“Of course you had a choice. You might have asked your friends for help,” Penny said. “We are always here if you need us.”

“We could have scraped together the money to replace your chronometer.” Nicola looked up from her tinkering. “And you know you are welcome to stay with me as long as you wish.”

“That’s lovely of you both. But what if you loaned me money I couldn’t repay?” She turned to Nicola. “What if you decide to marry, and your husband doesn’t want a spinster in the house?”

Nicola chuckled. “Me, married. Now that is a laugh.”

“No, it isn’t,” Penny protested. “It’s entirely likely that a dashing gentleman will fall in love with you and propose.”

“But would I want to accept? That’s the question.”

Alexandra was grateful the conversation had veered to Nicola. The risk she was taking was so enormous, she couldn’t contemplate it. No more than a snowflake could contemplate summer. If she failed in this post, she could lose any chance of supporting herself thereafter. And as much as she adored her friends, Alex craved a place of her own.

A home.

Even a tiny cottage in the country would do nicely, so long as it was hers. She longed to feel real earth beneath her feet and let her toes burrow into the soil like roots. No more drifting on tides.

However, her plan required money. A large amount of money. She scoured the papers for notices of cottages to let and made careful note of the rents. She’d drawn up a budget, then calculated the lump sum she’d need to have saved in the bank in order to live on the interest.

Four hundred pounds.

In three years, she’d managed to save fifty-seven.

Now she had the chance to walk away with two hundred and fifty pounds by Michaelmas. For that sum, she would shovel the Shepherd Market middens during the height of summer. Naked.

“I have to go upstairs and pack my things. I’ve promised to report tomorrow morning.”

“Be careful of him, Alex,” Nicola said. “If he is truly a rake, as you say.”

“Believe me, there’s nothing to fear. He isn’t interested in me. He didn’t even remember meeting me. Apparently I was quite forgettable.”

“Stop.” Penny stole Alex’s hand. “I will hear none of that. You are not forgettable.”

Dear, sweet Penny, with her heart for lost and broken creatures. No doubt she recalled the name and personality of every last mouse in the cupboard. But most people weren’t Penny, and this wasn’t the first time Alexandra had raised her hopes, only to be disappointed.

“It doesn’t matter whether he recalled me or not. I’ll be looking after his wards. I will scarcely see him.”

“Oh, you will see him,” Penny said. “Especially if you go wandering about the house at night. Try the library first.”

“Lock yourself in your room,” Nicola countered. “I’ll make you a deadbolt.”

“Stop, the both of you. I’m accepting a well-paid situation for the summer. Until yesterday, I was setting clocks; tomorrow, I begin as a governess. It’s not romantic. It’s not dangerous. It’s work.”

“You don’t have to be sensible all the time,” Penny said.

Easy enough to say, for a lady with a house of her own and a thousand pounds a year. Penny and Nicola didn’t have to be sensible all the time, perhaps, but Alexandra did. She couldn’t afford to be swept away.

Fortunately, there was no longer any chance of that happening. Never mind that he’d ensorcelled every other woman in London. Alex knew better. Now that she’d seen his shameless nature, Chase Reynaud had lost all appeal. She would never be tempted by him again.

Not his smile.

Not his eyes.

Most certainly not his bare chest.

Nor his voice, forearms, wit, charm, or large feet.

And not his warm, delicious-smelling coat, either.

Oh, Alex. You are doomed.

Chapter Five

Alexandra reported for duty the following morning. This time, she knew to knock at the front door. And, to her profound relief, the housekeeper answered.

Mrs. Greeley looked her up and down. “I thought you were the girl who sets clocks.”

“I was,” Alexandra answered. “Apparently now I’m a governess.”

“Hmph. By the end of the day, you’ll be the girl who sets clocks again.” She waved Alex toward the stairs. “Come, then. I’ll show you to the nursery. I’ll have Jane prepare you a room, and Thomas will bring up your trunks in a bit.”

Alex suspected Jane and Thomas would be waiting to see if she lasted the morning before they went to the trouble.

When she entered the nursery today, she did not come upon another murder scene. Thank goodness. This time, she had the chance to take a proper look at the surroundings—and what she took in left her breathless.

The room was a fairyland. All done up in frothy white and buttery yellows and blushing pinks. Like the window of a confectionery. White wainscoting lined the bottom half of the room, and here and there painted ivy tendrils climbed the sky-blue walls. The room offered no shortage of playthings. Alex saw rocking horses, miniature tea sets, and marionettes. An upholstered window seat had been wedged under one of the eaves, and beneath it ranged a shelf overflowing with books.

Considering the freshness of the paint and the lavish quality of the furnishings, she deduced two things: First, the room had been done up expressly for these two girls. Second, no expense had been spared.

“That one there is Rosamund.” The housekeeper pointed to the elder of the two girls.

Rosamund sat reading a book in the window seat. She didn’t look up.

“And that’s Daisy,” Mrs. Greeley said.

Daisy acknowledged her at least, dropping in a slight curtsy. Her eyes, pale blue and wide as shillings, were downright unsettling. In her arms, she cradled a doll. A quite expensive one, with a head carved from wood, covered with gesso, and painted with rosy cheeks and red lips.

Alexandra crossed the room to Daisy’s side. “I’m most pleased to meet you, Daisy. This must be Millicent.”

Daisy took a step in retreat. “Don’t draw too near. She has consumption.”

“Consumption? I’m sorry to hear it. But I’ve no doubt you’ll nurse her to a swift recovery.”

The girl shook her head gravely. “She’ll be dead by tomorrow morning.”

“Surely she won’t—”

“Oh, she will,” Rosamund said dryly, speaking from the window seat. “Best to have a few words prepared.”

“A few words prepared for what?”

Without moving her lips, Daisy made a few dry, hacking coughs. “Millicent needs quiet.”

“Yes, of course she does. Do you know what I hear is the best remedy for consumption? Fresh air and sunshine. A stroll to the park should set her up nicely.”

“No outings,” Mrs. Greeley declared. “They’re to focus on their lessons. Mr. Reynaud was very clear.”

“Oh. Well, then. Perhaps we can soothe Millicent another way.” She thought on it. “Perhaps tea with heaps of milk and sugar, and a dish of custard. What do you think, Daisy? Shall we give it a go?”

“No custard,” Mrs. Greeley said.

“They’re not allowed custard, either?”

“That’s Daisy’s fault,” Rosamund explained. “She gave Millicent a nasty case of the grippe and used it for phlegm.”

Daisy shushed them all, clutching the doll tightly to her chest. “Please. Allow her some peace in her final hours.”

“I won’t disturb your peace if you don’t disturb mine,” Rosamund said. “You had better not wake me with hacking and wheezing in the middle of the night.”

Now that she had Rosamund’s attention, Alex decided to try with her. “What are you reading?”

“A book.” She turned a page.

“Is it a storybook?”

“No, it is a book of practical advice. How to Torture Your Governess in Ten Simple Steps.”

“She’s likely writing the second volume,” Mrs. Greeley muttered. “The cook will send up your luncheon at noon.”

The housekeeper disappeared, leaving Alexandra alone with her two young charges. Her stomach fluttered with nerves.

Steady, she told herself. Rosamund and Daisy were only girls, after all. Girls who’d been orphaned and passed from home to home, guardian to guardian. If they greeted a newly arrived governess with mistrust, it was only natural. In fact, it was sensible. Alex had been an orphan, too. She understood. It would take time to build trust.

“We won’t have any lessons today,” she announced.

“No lessons?” Rosamund lifted an eyebrow from behind her book. “What are we going to do all day?”

“Well, I intend to acquaint myself with the schoolroom, then perhaps write a letter or read a book. How you spend the day is yours to decide.”

“So you intend to bilk our guardian for wages while letting us do as we please,” the girl said. “I approve.”

“That is not my intent, but we have the whole summer for lessons. Of course, if you wished to begin today, I could—”

Rosamund put her nose back in her book.

Alex was relieved. The truth was, she had no idea where to even start. Being a governess hadn’t sounded so difficult last night—she had an education, after all—but now that she was here, she felt at a loss.

While the girls were occupied, Alex had a look at her surroundings. One side of the space had been designated as a schoolroom. She found it furnished with just as much attention and thought as the nursery. Two child-sized writing desks, an adult-sized table with a wide, flat top, and a bedsheet-sized slate hanging on the wall. On the slate, in careful script, someone had chalked five words:

 Letters

 Ciphers

 Geography

 Comportment

 Needlework

Alex moved on to a world map affixed to the wall. The continents were peppered with tacks in a seemingly random arrangement. Malta, Finland, Timbuktu, a speck of an island in the Indian Ocean, the Sahara Desert.

Daisy appeared at her elbow. “Those are the places Mr. Reynaud says he’s sending us to boarding school.”

Alex considered the options. “Well, if I were you, I’d take Malta in a heartbeat. It’s quite lovely. Surrounded by azure seas.”

“You’ve been to Malta?”

“I’ve been all sorts of places. My father was a sea captain.” Alex rearranged the tacks, pushing them into common trading ports. “Macao. Lima. Lisbon. Bombay. And I was born near here.” She placed the final tack.

“Where’s that?”

“Read for yourself.”

Daisy flashed a glance over her shoulder, then whispered, “I can’t.”

“Ma-ni-la.” Alex sounded out the syllables for her. “It’s a port in the Philippine Islands.”

Seven years old, and she couldn’t yet read. Oh, dear.

“Say, Daisy. I’m wondering if we have enough pencils and bits of chalk. Would you help me count them out?”

“I—”

“Daisy,” Rosamund interrupted sharply. “I think I hear Millicent coughing.”

As her sister went to nurse her ailing patient, Rosamund fixed Alex with an unflinching—and unmistakable—look. Stay away from my sister.

Alex’s spirits dipped. The challenge before her was already intimidating. She had no teaching experience, the younger of her two charges had not yet learned to read, and her employer would be completely unhelpful.

However, it was plain that the most formidable obstacle in this entire endeavor would come in the shape of a mistrustful, strong-willed, ten-year-old girl.

So. The war of wills began here.

If she didn’t want to leave this house penniless, it was a war Alexandra had to win.

Chapter Six

That evening, Chase stood in the doorway of his governess’s bedchamber, waging a fierce battle with temptation.

He’d stopped by her room with the most innocent of motives. He intended to see that she’d settled in, and be assured that the accommodations were to her liking.

What he was doing, however, was admiring her sweet, round little bottom.

It wasn’t as though he’d intended to ogle her. He wasn’t some perverse old man leering through a peephole in the closet. Her door was open, and her back was to him, and she hadn’t taken note of his presence—probably because she was bent over that cursed telescope.

So there it was, presented for his view. The most delightful peach of a backside. More generously rounded than he would have guessed, given her slender figure.

At his sides, his hands instinctively cupped, estimating size and plumpness.

Chase, you despicable bastard.

He shook out his hands and cleared his throat. “Miss Mountbatten?”

Startled, she stood bolt upright and reeled to face him. “Mr. Reynaud.”

“So. Do you like what you see?”

“Do I like what I . . . ?”

Her gaze wandered over him. In his evening attire, he could only imagine he made a markedly different picture than he had on their first meeting. He’d actually bathed and shaved, and gone to the trouble of buttoning his cuffs.

She stammered. “I . . . er . . . that is to say, I should imagine that—”

“The room,” he said. “Does it meet with your satisfaction?”

“Oh, that,” she said with relief. “Yes. Thank you. Very much. I wasn’t expecting something so spacious.”

“Mrs. Greeley usually gives the governesses a chamber next to the nursery, but I told her you required the one with the largest window and a clear view of the sky. I’ll send up a maid to assist you in unpacking your things.”

“I’ve already unpacked them,” she replied, looking self-conscious. “There was only the one trunk.”

“Oh. Yes, of course.” He strolled across the room to the window, taking a look at the arrangement of the telescope and window. “There’s space out here for a narrow verandah. I’ll have plans drawn up for a platform and railing this week.”

“That’s too generous of you.”

“Nothing of the sort. It’s entirely self-interest. If you’re satisfied with your accommodations, you’re less likely to leave.” He bent and squinted to peer through the telescope. “Why did you want it? I can’t help but be curious.”

“Well, our agreement is temporary. At the end of the summer, I will need a new occupation.”

“I should think you’d go back to setting clocks.”

She shook her head. “I’m planning a new business venture. Instead of selling the time, I’m going to sell comets.”

“Selling comets?” He laughed a little. “Oh, I must hear this. Pray tell, how do you intend to catch them?”

“The aristocrats are positively mad for comets, but most don’t have the time or interest in doing the work. I’ll search the skies and chart observations, and then I’ll find a patron willing to pay me for the effort.”

“So you’ll find the comet, and this patron claims it as his discovery? That sounds highly unjust.”

“I’m not interested in it for the glory. A woman of my station has to be more practical than that.”

“So you intend to be an astronomical mercenary. I’m impressed.”

She smiled a little. “That makes it sound far too exciting. It’s boring work. A matter of searching the sky, one dark patch at a time, looking for anything smudgy.”

“Smudgy? A proper scientific term, that.”

“I’ll show you an example, if you like.”

She joined him, crowding into the small window alcove, and bent to adjust the telescope—affording him, should he choose to take it, a view directly down the neckline of her frock. Chase pulled his gaze away, but not swiftly enough. That split-second view of two celestially perfect crescents of soft, feminine flesh was going to linger.

In need of distraction, he swept a gaze around the room—which, in its own way, was equally revealing.

This was the sum total of her possessions? The bedchamber remained empty for the most part, save for a simple dressing set on the washstand, a row of books and writing supplies on the corner table, and a few articles of clothing hanging on pegs. On the wall above the table, she’d affixed items clipped from newspapers and magazines. A map of the constellations, a card with an illustration commemorating the appearance of Halley’s comet in 1759, and a few smaller notices that he had to squint to read from this distance. At the top of one, he could just make out the words “Cottage for Let.”

“Here it is. Have a look, if you like.” She beckoned him to look through the eyepiece.

Chase bent awkwardly, closed one eye, and peered into the brass tube. His reward was a blurry glimpse of a wholly unremarkable speck of light. “Apparently I’m a natural astronomer. I can declare with certainty”—he squinted—“that is a smudgy sky thing. I shall expect to imminently receive my medal from the Royal Astronomical Society.”

“That’s not a comet. Most of the smudges aren’t. Before declaring it a new discovery, you have to rule out the other possibilities. Fortunately, others have done much of that work. There’s a book by a Frenchman. Charles Messier. He catalogued a great many of the known not-a-comet smudges, so that comet-hunting observers know to ignore them.” She went to retrieve a folio from the table and flipped through the pages for him to view.

“You said a book. That’s not a book.”

“I couldn’t find a copy I could afford to purchase,” she admitted. “So I borrowed it from a circulating library and copied it out by hand. After consulting Messier, one must check against lists of identified comets. If it’s not among those, then you can report your smudge to the Royal Observatory for verification. Even then, nine times in ten it will have already been claimed.”

“And the smudges that aren’t comets. What are they?”

“Nebulae, mostly. Or star clusters.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to define these things if you want me to have any idea what you’re talking about. Alternatively, you can simply go on talking while I stare at your earlobe.”

She blushed. “You needn’t trouble yourself.”

“It’s no chore.” He crossed his arms and leaned back against the window casing. “I’m a veritable connoisseur of earlobes, and yours is rather nice.”

“I meant you needn’t pretend to be interested, Mr. Reynaud. Clearly you have an engagement this evening, and I don’t wish to delay you.”

“I’m not pretending. I’m finding this conversation most fascinating. Even though a great deal of it is lost on me.”

That wasn’t precisely the truth. He was finding Alexandra Mountbatten fascinating, and nothing about her was lost on him. He wasn’t all that interested in gazing at the sky himself, but he was captivated by the experience of watching her gazing at the sky. Her figure and earlobe weren’t the half of it.

Standing this close, he could detect the faintest hint of orange-flower water about her. Not enough to qualify as a perfume. Just the suggestion that she scented her bathwater with a few sparing drops. An amount carefully poised between the indulgence of a small feminine luxury, and the economy required to make a small vial last for months.

A tiny, beaded, cross-shaped pendant was tied about her neck with a narrow satin ribbon just long enough for the coral beads to nestle at the base of her throat. Again, that balance between prettiness and practicality. The best quality ribbon she could likely afford, purchased in the smallest possible amount.

Damn, she would be a delight to spoil. If she weren’t his employee, he could shower her with little gifts and luxuries. Remove all the small worries that came between her and the sky.

“Do go on,” he said. “I’m listening.” And looking. And noticing.

“Nebulae are clouds of stardust floating in space. Star clusters are just as they sound. Stars appear so close together in the sky, they’re sometimes mistaken for one object. My favorite smudge, however, isn’t a nebula or cluster. It’s Messier’s number 40. A double star. Perhaps even a binary star.”

“Oh, truly.” And with that, he was back to the earlobe.

She bent to peer through the eyepiece. “A binary star is created when two stars are drawn together. Once they come near enough, neither one can resist the other’s pull. They’re stuck together forever, destined to spend eternity revolving about each other, like . . . like dancers in a waltz, I suppose.” She scribbled a note in her notebook. “The fascinating thing is, a binary star’s center of gravity isn’t in one star or the other. It’s in the empty space between them.”

He was silent for a while. “I’ll be damned. You were right when you scolded me for letting this instrument go to waste.”

“I’m glad you see its value now.”

“Absolutely. To think, I could have been using it to seduce women all along.” To her chastening look, he replied, “Come now. All that waltzing star business? It’s deuced romantic.”

“I would never have marked you as a romantic.”

“I suppose it’s all that glory-of-the-universe talk. Makes a man feel rather small and insignificant. And that makes a man want to grab the nearest woman and prove himself to be otherwise.”

Their gazes met, and they both became keenly aware of the obvious.

She was the nearest woman.

He was not—absolutely not—going to pursue his governess. Yes, he was a rake. But for a gentleman, chasing after the house staff wasn’t rakish behavior. It was repulsive.

“The girls,” he blurted out, breaking the tension. “How was your first day?”

“Challenging.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“Can you tell me something about their interests, or their schooling? Anything at all?”

“They’ve had little proper schooling, but are somehow far too clever despite it. Their interests are mischief, disease, petty thievery, and plotting crimes against the house staff.”

She laughed a little. “You speak as though they’re hardened criminals.”

“They’re well on the way to it. But now you’re here to take them in hand. I have every faith in you, Miss Mountbatten.” He patted her shoulder gamely. “I’ve seen your natural talent as a disciplinarian.”

She cringed. “Yes, about that . . .”

“If you’re intending to apologize, don’t. I richly deserved all your censure, and then some. I wish I could say you’ve already seen me at my worst, but that’s nowhere near the case. However, I do wish to say one thing.”

“Yes?”

She gave him her full attention—and she had an intimidating amount of attention to give. Only natural, he supposed. Here was a woman willing to stare into dark emptiness night after night, on the hope that someday some tiny speck might shine back. As she gazed at him, Chase found himself wishing he could reward her observation.

Only darkness here, darling. Don’t waste your time.

“If my reputation worries you,” he said, as much for his own benefit as hers, “it needn’t. Seducing you would never even cross my mind.”

She nodded. “Thank you for your assurances, Mr. Reynaud. I appreciate them very much indeed.”

Chapter Seven

Seducing you would never even cross my mind.

What a perfectly timed reminder. Really, the man had a way of withering Alexandra’s pride to a dried-up husk. One moment, he was listening to her babble away about comets, hanging on her words, and complimenting her earlobe, and the next, he left her with a few parting words to remind her that she was a fool.

Embroidery wasn’t her favorite hobby, but Alex planned to stitch those words on a sampler and hang it above her bed:

Seducing you would never even cross my mind.

—Mr. Charles Reynaud, 1817

She no longer wondered at his popularity with women. Devilish charm simply radiated from him, like one of nature’s essential forces. Gravity, magnetism, electricity . . . Chase Reynaud’s masculine appeal.

His every lopsided grin or low, teasing word sent a frisson of excitement rushing along her skin. That alone wouldn’t be a problem. But then her brain caught up all those sensations, rolled them into a ball, and set it on a shelf. As if that quivering mass of feminine reaction was something that deserved to take up space. As if it needed a name.

Well, Alexandra would label it, right this moment.

I-D-I-O-C-Y.

She heard the creak of a door down at street level, and she gave in to the temptation to peer over her windowsill. There he stood, waiting on the pavement in that immaculately tailored black topcoat. He gave his cuffs a smart tug and ran a hand through his tawny brown hair. A pair of matched bays pulled a fashionable blue-lacquered phaeton around from the mews, and the groom handed him the reins.

Off he went to spend his evening enjoying the company of others. And here Alex was left mooning over him like a fool.

She readied herself for bed and put out the candle. And then she lay awake far too long listening for the sounds of a returning phaeton, or the creak of a door. Not that it was any of her concern what time he returned home, or whether he returned at all.

She must have fallen asleep at some point, because she woke to the sensation of someone poking her in the arm.

Repeatedly.

She opened her eyes halfway. “Rosamund? Is that you?”

“She’s dead.”

Now Alex was awake. She sat bolt upright in bed. “Dead?”

“Millicent. The consumption took her overnight.”

The doll. She meant the doll.

“You gave me a fright.” Alex pressed a hand to her chest. Perhaps her heart would stop racing in a day or two.

“The funeral is prepared. We’ll be waiting on you in the nursery.”

Funeral?

Rosamund was gone before Alex could inquire further. She rose from bed and hastily dressed. Given her disorientation in a new room and the abrupt way she’d been roused from sleep, she didn’t do a very good job of it. After two attempts, she decided she could live with misaligned buttons for the moment, and three passes of the hairbrush would have to be enough. Clenching a few hairpins in her teeth, she made her way into the corridor, winding her hair into a knot as she went.

Alex hoped the standard of attire at this funeral wasn’t overly formal. She’d just jabbed the second pin into her haphazard chignon when she entered the nursery. Millicent lay in the center of the bed, staring up blankly from the swaddling of her shroud. The girls stood on either side. Daisy wore a scrap of black lace netting draped over her head as a veil.

Alex struggled, mightily, not to burst out laughing. If for no other reason than that doing so would launch the remaining hairpins in her mouth like missiles.

She completed her upsweep, composed herself, and approached the bed. To Rosamund, she whispered, “What happens now?”

“We’re waiting on—”

A male voice breezed into the room. “Such a tragedy. Deepest sympathies. A grievous loss.”

Mr. Reynaud had joined the group.

Alex slid a cautious glance in his direction. He wore the same black coat and boots he’d been wearing the night previous. His cuffs were undone, however, and his cravat was missing.

Probably draped over an antler prong somewhere.

He walked toward Daisy and made a deep bow of condolences before holding out his arm so that she could pin something around it.

A black armband.

She recalled his words from a few days ago. Millicent is Daisy’s doll. She kills the thing at least once a day.

So this was why he’d been wearing the black armband a few mornings past, when they’d conducted that farce of an interview in his not-at-all-a-gentleman’s retreat. He hadn’t been in mourning. Not for a human being, at any rate. Perhaps she shouldn’t have judged him quite so harshly.

He bent to place a kiss on Millicent’s painted forehead. “Bless her soul. She looks just as though she’s sleeping. Or awake. Or doing anything else, really.”

Alex’s mouth twitched at the corners, but she bowed her head and tried to appear bereaved.

“Let us begin,” Daisy said solemnly.

They formed a semicircle at the foot of the bed. Rosamund went to Daisy’s right side. Mr. Reynaud assumed what was clearly his usual place at Daisy’s left—which put him next to Alexandra.

She didn’t want to think about where he’d been since she saw him last, but her senses gave her no choice in the matter. When she inhaled, she smelled brandy and sandalwood, and the suggestion that he’d walked through a cloud of cheroot smoke. She didn’t detect any hint of a lady’s perfume, however. That should not have come as a relief, but it did.

She stared at the bedpost and set her mind on tragedy.

“Mr. Reynaud, would you kindly say a few words?” Daisy asked.

“But of course.” He clasped his hands together and intoned in a low, grave voice, “Almighty Father, we are gathered here today to commend to your keeping the soul of Millicent Fairfax.”

Daisy nudged him with her elbow.

“Millicent Annabelle Chrysanthemum Genevieve Fairfax,” he corrected.

Alexandra bit the inside of her cheek. How could the man keep a straight face through all this?

“She will be remembered for her faithful companionship. A truer friend never lived. Not once did she stray from Daisy’s side—save for the few occasions when she rolled off the bed.”

Oh, help. Alex was going to laugh. She knew it. Biting her tongue clean through wouldn’t help.

Perhaps she could disguise a burst of laughter as a cough. After all, consumption was catching.

“Let Millicent’s composure in the face of certain death be a model for us all. Her eyes remained fixed on heaven—and not merely because she lacked any eyelids to close.”

She cast a pleading glance at him, only to catch him glancing back with devilish amusement. He wanted her to laugh, the terrible man. And then, just as she thought she was lost, he took her hand in his, lacing their fingers into a tight knot.

Alex no longer worried she might laugh.

Instead, her heart squeezed.

On Mr. Reynaud’s other side, Daisy clasped her guardian’s hand tight. Then she offered her free hand to Rosamund. The four of them had formed an unbroken chain, and Alex realized the truth. Here were three people who desperately needed each other—perhaps even loved each other—and they would all rather contract consumption than admit it.

Daisy bowed her veiled head. “Let us pray.”

Alex fumbled her way through the Lord’s Prayer, quietly reeling. His grip was so warm and firm. His signet ring pressed against her third and fourth fingers. The moment felt intimate. The way they stood holding hands, heads bowed in prayer, it felt less like a funeral, and more like . . .

More like a wedding.

No, no, no.

What was wrong with her? Had she learned nothing from those months of foolish imaginings? All those silly fantasies had popped like a soap bubble when it became clear he’d forgotten her completely. Chase Reynaud was not the man of her dreams. By his own declaration, he would never even think of seducing her.

She really needed to start on that sampler.

“Lead us not into temptation,” Alex prayed fervently, “but deliver us from evil.”

When the prayer was done, Daisy placed the deceased doll reverently in a toy-chest “grave.”

Mr. Reynaud kept Alexandra’s hand in his. “Well, then, Miss Mountbatten. Now that’s over with, I shall leave you to your pupils.” He gave her hand a light squeeze before releasing it. “Let the education begin.”

Chapter Eight

The education was on hold. Before any lessons could take place, Alexandra had a ten-year-old girl to conquer.

After breakfast, the Rosamund Rebellion commenced.

Silence was her first strategy, and she’d marshaled Daisy into the campaign. Neither of them would speak a word to Alex. Indeed, once the funeral was over, neither of them even acknowledged her presence. Rosamund read her book, Daisy exhumed Millicent, and all three treated Alex as if she didn’t exist.

Very well. Both sides could play at this game.

The next day, Alex didn’t even try to start conversation. Instead, she brought a novel and a packet of biscuits—Nicola had sent her off with a full hamper of them—and she sat in the rocking chair to read. She laughed aloud at the funny bits—really, pigeons?—gasped at the revelations, and loudly chewed her way through a dozen biscuits. At one point, she was certain she felt Daisy gazing at her from across the room. However, she didn’t dare look up to confirm it.

It became a habit. Every day, Alex brought with her a novel, and every day, a different variety of Nicola’s biscuits. Lemon, almond, chocolate, toffee. And every day, as she sat eating and reading, the girls ignored her existence.

Until the morning a foul odor permeated the nursery. A sharp scent that even fresh-baked biscuits had no hope to overpower. As the day grew warmer, the ripe, pungent smell became nauseating. The girls offered no clue as to its origin, and Alexandra would not give Rosamund the satisfaction of asking. Instead she sniffed and searched until she found the source. A bit of clammy, shrunken Stilton buried in her bottom-most desk drawer.

Well, then. It would seem the tactics were escalating. She could rise to the challenge.

Alex had exhausted her supply of biscuits. She brought in a new box of watercolors, bright as jewels in a treasure chest, placing them in easy reach.

The girls dusted her chair with soot.

Alex brought in a litter of kittens Mrs. Greeley was evicting from the cellar. No one could resist fluffy, mewling kittens. And Daisy almost didn’t, until Rosamund yanked her away with a stern word.

That evening, a rotting plum mysteriously appeared in Alex’s slipper—and unfortunately, her bare toes found it.

Rosamund seemed to be daring her to shout or rage, or go complaining to Mr. Reynaud. However, Alex refused to surrender. Instead, she smiled. She allowed the girls to do as they pleased. And she waited.

When they were ready to learn, they would tell her so. Until then, she would only be wasting her effort.

At last, her patience was rewarded. She found her opening.

Rosamund fell asleep on a particularly warm afternoon, dozing off with her book propped on her knees and her head tilted against the window glazing. Alex motioned Daisy closer and laid out a row of wrapped sweetmeats on the table, one by one.

“How many are there?” she whispered. “Count them out for me, and you may have them for yourself.”

Daisy sent a cautious glance toward her sister.

“She’s sleeping. She’ll never know.”

With a small, uncertain finger, Daisy touched each sweet as she counted aloud. “One. Two. Three. Four. Five.”

“And in this group?”

Daisy’s lips moved as she counted them quietly to herself. “Six.”

“Well done, you. Now how many in both groups together? Together, five and six are . . . ?”

“Daisy,” Rosamund snapped.

Startled, Daisy snatched her hand behind her back. “Yes?”

“Millicent’s vomiting up her innards. You’d better see to her.”

As her sister obediently retreated, Rosamund approached Alexandra. “I know what you’re doing.”

“I never imagined otherwise.”

“You won’t win.”

“Win? I’m not certain what you mean.”

“We will not cooperate. We are not going away to school.”

Alex softened her demeanor. “Why don’t you want to go to school?”

“Because the school won’t want us. We’ve been sent down from three schools already, you know.”

“Don’t say you’d rather remain here with Mr. Reynaud. If it were up to him, you’d have only dry toast at every meal.”

“We’re not wanted by Mr. Reynaud, either. No one wants us. Anywhere. And we don’t want them.”

Alexandra recognized the defiance and mistrust in the girl’s eyes. A dozen years ago, those eyes could have mirrored her own.

A tender part of her wanted to clutch the girl close. Of course you’re wanted. Of course you’re loved. Your guardian cares for you so very much. But to lie would be taking the coward’s way out, and Rosamund wouldn’t be fooled. What the girl needed wasn’t false reassurance—it was for someone to tell her the honest, unflinching truth.

“Very well.” Alex folded her hands on the desk and faced her young charge. “You’re right. You’ve been passed around from relation to relation, sent down from three schools, and Mr. Reynaud wishes to rid himself of you at the first opportunity. You’re unwanted. So what you must decide is this: What do you want?”

Rosamund gave her a suspicious look.

“I was orphaned, too. A bit older than you are now, but I was utterly alone in the world, save for a few distant relations who paid for my schooling—on the condition that they would never have me in their sight. It wasn’t fair. It was lonely, and my schoolmates were cruel, and I cried myself to sleep more evenings than not. But in time, I realized I had an advantage over the other girls. They had to worry about catching a husband to help their families. I was indebted to no one, I answered to no one, and I needn’t meet anyone’s expectations of what a young lady should or shouldn’t be. My life was my own. I could follow any dream, if I was prepared to work hard for it. Do you hear what I’m saying?”

Rosamund gave no acknowledgment, but Alex could tell the girl was listening. Intently.

“So what is it you truly want? If you could have any life you wished, what would it be?”

“I want to escape. Not just this house, but England.”

“Where do you mean to go?”

“Anywhere. Everywhere. I’d take Daisy with me. We’d travel the world, wearing trousers and smoking cheroots and doing as we pleased.”

Alexandra had been hoping to hear “I want to be a painter.” Or a French-trained chef, or an architect. Whatever pursuit Rosamund named, Alex could build lessons on its foundation. But she was quite certain Mr. Reynaud would not approve of lessons in cheroot-smoking. Alex wouldn’t have known how to give them, anyway.

“That sounds like a grand life indeed,” she said, “but how will you support yourselves?”

“I’m perfectly capable of looking after us both.” Rosamund cast a glance at the table. “So you can clear away your nine sweets and leave us alone.”

“You know very well there are eleven sweetmeats.”

“Are there?”

Alex looked. Sure as could be, two sweetmeats were missing. The girl had managed to steal them, right from under her nose, and one of the two was already across the room in Daisy’s hands. Alex could hear the paper crinkling as the younger girl unwrapped it.

“Rosamund, may I tell you something? You will find yourself reluctant to believe it, but it’s the truth.”

The girl gave a lackadaisical shrug. The warmest gesture she’d made toward Alex so far.

“I like you,” Alexandra said. “I like you very much indeed.”

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