Rules for a Proper Governess (2 page)

Jeffrey’s grip hurt. Bertie knew if she protested too much, both Jeffrey and her dad would let her have it. But she couldn’t do this.

“That fiend of a Scottish barrister is very smart,” she argued. “He’ll catch me, then
I’ll
be in the cell with Jacko, waiting to go before the magistrate.”

Bertie’s dad leaned in, his breath already reeking as well. “You just do it, Roberta. You’re like a ghost—he’ll never know. And if he
does
see you, you know what to do. Now get out there, before I take my hand to you.”

They weren’t going to leave it. In their minds, Mr. McBride was the villain of the piece and deserved to be punished. If Bertie refused, her dad would drag her away and thrash her until she gave in. If Mr. McBride went home while Bertie was taking her beating, her dad would make her wait here every afternoon until Mr. McBride returned for another case.

Either way, Bertie was doing this. One way would simply be less painful than the other.

Bertie jerked free of Jeffrey’s hold. “All right,” she snapped. “I’ll do it. But you’d better be ready. He’s no fool.”

“Like I said, he’ll never see ya,” her dad said. “You’ve got the touch. Go on with you.”

Bertie stumbled when her dad pushed her between the shoulder blades, but she righted herself and squared her shoulders. Taking a deep breath, she walked steadily toward where Mr. McBride stood waiting, his sad face and empty eyes focused on something far, far from the crowded streets of the City of London.

Sinclair McBride pulled his coat close against the icy wind and drew his hat down over his eyes.

Remember Sir Percival Montague, Daisy?
he asked the gray sky.
Well, I potted him good today. Old Monty was nearly rubbing his hands, wanting to pronounce sentence of death on that poor girl. Bloody imbecile. She was no more guilty than a newborn kitten.

The sky grew darker, rain coming with the night. So damnably cold here, not like the blistering heat of North Africa, where Sinclair had done his army time. His younger brother, Steven, was always trying to talk Sinclair into traveling with him—Spain, Egypt, back to Rome at least, where winters were balmy.

But there was the question of Andrew and Caitriona, Sinclair’s very interesting children. Sinclair couldn’t bring himself to foist them on Elliot and Juliana while he traveled the world. His brother and sister-in-law were starting their own family, their own life, and needed time alone.
Take them with me?
Sinclair had to smile.
Wouldn’t that be an adventure?

Sinclair imagined his two terrifying bairns on trains, carriages, carts, all the way to Italy. No, not the best answer.

Thinking about Andrew and Cat helped him avoid the one thought Sinclair had been trying to banish all day. Now as he stood in the cold, waiting for his coachman to bring the landau, the thought came unbidden.

Seven years to this day you left me, Daisy.

Margaret McBride, Maggie or Daisy to those closest to her, had died of a fever that threatened to take Sinclair’s children as well. Seven years ago today.

My friends and family expect me to move on, can you believe it? But they’ve not had the loves of their lives ripped away from them, have they? They wouldn’t say such bloody daft things if they had.

“Moving on” sounded like forgetting all about Maggie, his wife, his lover, his helpmeet, his best friend.
And I’ll never do that.

Maggie didn’t answer. She never did. But it didn’t matter. The comfort Sinclair drew from talking to her, out loud or inside his head, was some days the only thing that kept him sane.

When you’re ready for me to move on, I know you’ll tell me.
Another gust of wind had Sinclair grabbing for his hat and clenching his teeth. Where the devil was Richards with the coach?
I trust you, Daisy . . .

The crowd was thick, everyone in London going home for the night. Sinclair held on to his hat as he was buffeted. Richards was taking a damn long time. Sinclair wasn’t usually in a rush, but tonight was bloody cold, and the rain was starting to come down in earnest.

A shove and a thump sent Sinclair a swift step forward. A young woman had stumbled into him, her shoes skidding on the wet pavement. She struggled to keep her feet, and Sinclair put a steadying hand under her arm.

“Easy now, lass,” Sinclair said.

She looked up at him . . . and everything stopped. Sinclair saw a dark hat covered with bright blue violets, then eyes of the same blue—clear and warm in this swirl of gray. The young woman’s face was round, her nose slightly tip-tilted, her red lips curving into a charming smile.

He’d never seen her before, and at the same time, Sinclair felt a jolt rock him, as though he’d been waiting for years for this encounter. The two of them stood together in a warm stillness, removed from the rest of the world as it rushed around them.

“I’m
that
sorry, mister,” the young woman was saying. “Some bloke put his elbow right in me back, and me feet went clean out from under me. You all right?”

“I’m whole.” Sinclair forced himself back to the cold of the real world, and studied her with his professional assessment, honed by a long career of watching criminals. She wasn’t a street girl. Game girls had a desperate look, and were too eager to be seductive.
Want me to make ya feel better, lamb?
was the cleanest of the offers Sinclair had gotten as he strode through London’s streets.

This young woman was working-class, probably on her way home after a long day’s drudgery. She wasn’t dirty, but the sleeves of her velvet jacket were frayed at the cuffs, her gloves threadbare and much mended. Poor, but making the best of it.

Still, she didn’t have the downtrodden appearance many factory women had. Her smile was sunny, as though telling the world things could be better if given a chance.

“Well, that’s good,” she said. “’Night, mister. Sweet dreams.”

Another smile, and in the sudden flare of an approaching light, all Sinclair could see were her eyes.

Deep and blue, like the depths of the ocean. The Mediterranean could be that color. Sinclair remembered southern Italy and its shores from his leave time, when he’d been in the army and traveling the world. He’d known peace there.

This young woman with her blue eyes was beautiful, with a beauty that went beyond her shabby clothes and working-class grin. She was a vision of light in the darkness, in a place where darkness had lasted too long.

Someone else shoved him, and Sinclair turned to step out of the way. When he looked back for the young woman, she was gone. He blinked at the empty space where she’d been, then lifted his gaze and spied her slipping through the crowd, the violets on her hat bobbing.

The detail of her ridiculous hat kept Sinclair from believing he’d dreamed her. But of course he hadn’t. Visions of beautiful women were of golden-haired sirens with perfect bodies, strumming on lyres perhaps, luring men to their dooms. Sirens didn’t have lopsided smiles and plump faces, and blue eyes that pulled Sinclair out of his despair, if only for a moment.

But she was gone now, vision or no, and Sinclair needed to go home. Andrew and Cat would have locked their new governess into the cellar by now, or accidentally burned down the house. Or both.

They didn’t
mean
to be bad, his little ones . . . Well, mostly they didn’t. One of the governesses had claimed that Andrew was possessed by the devil. She’d even offered to contact a priest she knew who could have him exorcised. That governess hadn’t lasted more than an hour.

A clock struck. Sinclair, out of habit, reached for his watch to compare the time. His watch always ran a few minutes fast and having it repaired made no difference. Buying a new watch was out of the question, because Daisy had given him this one . . .

Which was no longer in his pocket.

Reality rushed back at Sinclair with an icy slap. His gaze went to the violet-covered hat as it disappeared around a corner.

Good God, how stupid had he been? He hadn’t pegged the young woman as a pickpocket, because pickpockets usually didn’t stop for a chat. They stole and slipped away before the victim was aware.

Her bad luck someone had tripped her. Or had it been luck?

All this went through his head as Sinclair whirled around and strode after the woman, his feet moving faster and faster as he went. Gone was any thought of finding his coach and going home. Nothing mattered but getting that watch back. Sinclair would find the young woman and take it away from her, even if he had to chase her to the ends of the earth.

Basher McBride was coming after her. Bertie had twigged he was much too smart not to notice if she lifted his timepiece, but she’d told herself not to be a coward. Now she knew her folly, because he was chasing her, and he’d have her nicked in a heartbeat. She should have stuck with taking his handkerchief and been done.

But she’d wanted Mr. McBride to look at her. To see those eyes, gray like the sky before dawn, to hear his rumbling voice. She’d warmed all over when the syllables had poured onto her—
Easy now, lass.

She’d lingered too long to admire him, and now he was coming. Bertie picked up her pace and dashed around another corner. She knew London better than most, and she could lead him on a merry chase. And if Bertie couldn’t shake him . . . well, she’d know where to run.

She scooted into the backstreets behind the grim walls of Newgate, ducking into the warrens and winding streets, lanes so narrow they blotted out the last streaks of light in the sky.

These passages were filled with trash, rats, and layabouts. A few of the men lolling in their gin-soaked stupor tried to grab Bertie’s skirts as she went by, but Bertie expertly twitched away from them and kept on running.

Bertie risked a dash across Aldersgate Street and back into the narrower lanes beyond. She jumped over a vagrant who looked to be far gone on opium, her bootheels clicking on the hard-packed street.

And wasn’t it just her luck? The Scottish bloke was keeping up with her. A swift glance behind her as she rounded a corner showed McBride running after her, his body moving with athletic competence as he ducked and swerved around carts, dung, and vermin, both human and rodent.

Bertie’s breath was coming fast, her corset too tight to keep this up for long. Blast the man. He should be giving up by now, toddling off to his comfortable home in Mayfair or Belgrave Square or wherever he laid his pristine head to rest.

She remembered how he’d stood straight and tall in front of the judge, taunting the old misery, turning the verdict around to surprise them all. Basher McBride’s arrogance had rolled off him, with even the judge grudgingly conceding to him.

But then, as soon as his performance was over, all that arrogance drained out of him, leaving Mr. McBride an empty shell. Until now, of course. His energy was back, focused on chasing Bertie and dragging her off to a constable.

Not that, never that. Bertie didn’t particularly want to finish her life at the end of a noose. The jury might be sympathetic that Bertie was forced to pickpocket by her father—if they believed her—but that would only mean she’d be transported across the ocean to someplace she knew nothing about or locked up in a grim and terrifying prison.

She should have been able to slip away from him by now, but Mr. McBride was keeping her in sight, whichever passage she took. Bertie knew she’d have to lure him to The Trap, whether she liked it or not, or she’d never get away from him.

That’s how she thought of it—
The Trap—
with capital
T
s outlining the jaws of it. No one escaped it, not easily anyway. Mr. McBride was smart—he’d run the other way as soon as he saw what was what, and leave Bertie alone.

“Oi!” she shouted when she was within three feet of the place. “It’s Bertie! I’m coming in!”

A door in a squalid wall in a dark alley swung open, and Bertie leapt over the doorsill. She swept up her skirts as she landed, careful not to turn her ankles in the rubble.

Beyond the door was an empty space where a house had stood, pulled down or fallen down long ago. The lot was surrounded on four sides by other buildings that soared five and six stories to the sky. No windows faced the place, nothing to reveal the secrets of the inner emptiness. The space was lit right now with a fire built in the remains of an old stove, and with lanterns of the men and boys who liked to gather here.

The Trap was to be used in dire emergency, when a pursuer became too keen or bullies from another neighborhood strayed too close. The men and boys who made The Trap their haven were usually armed, usually drunk, and always ready to have a go at whoever was mad enough to come through the door.

Bertie fled through the lot, which was strewn with stones and broken bottles, skirting the pile of old rubbish in the middle. A smaller door led out the other side to another passage, where Bertie could slip away and go home.

She turned around to take one last look at her handsome Mr. McBride, to glimpse him again before he sensibly fled.

Except, he wasn’t sensibly fleeing. Mr. McBride came on inside, firelight shining on his light-colored hair, his hat gone who knew where. He showed no fear about the toughs who were converging on him, and when he spotted Bertie on the other side of the lot, he roared, with a voice that rang like a warrior’s, “Stop her!”

The toughs blinked, not used to victims who didn’t scramble away from them in terror. Mr. McBride started around them, straight for Bertie. The lads came out of their shocked state by the time McBride was halfway past the mound of junk, then they struck.

“Aw, bloody
hell
!” McBride’s rich Scots rang out, and he grabbed a rusted iron bar from the pile. Before Bertie’s stunned eyes, Mr. McBride turned to face the onslaught and started fighting back.

The youths and men charging him had knives, clubs, or coshes. Mr. McBride parried their blows, thrusting and beating at them as they beat on him. Iron rang against steel, and one of the youths cursed as his knife went flying. Mr. McBride had the advantage against the knives, having chosen a bar long enough to keep them back. When they figured out how to get under Mr. McBride’s reach, however . . .

They were going to kill him.

These toughs were thieves, murderers, or the sons of such. They’d killed before, wrapping up a body and tipping it into the Thames, with the police none the wiser. Never mind that Mr. McBride was obviously a toff in his fine clothes—they’d kill him, strip him, divide up the spoils, and go for a gin.

Why the devil didn’t he just
run
?

Bertie came pounding back to him. She dove around the flailing bars, earning her curses from the youths yelling at her to get out of the way, and closed her hands around Mr. McBride’s arm. She found beneath the expensive cloth strength that matched the iron bar he wielded. Mr. McBride started to shake her off, but Bertie dug deeper.

“This way,” she shouted. “Run!”

“Get out of it, girl!” one of the toughs yelled. “Fair game.”

“No, you leave him be! Come
on
.”

She jerked at Mr. McBride, who finally saw wisdom and came with her. The lads, enraged she was depriving them of their fun, poured after them. Bertie ran out the narrow door on the far side, jumping over the sill to the street. Mr. McBride had to turn and fight at the last moment, buffeting back two lads who’d grabbed his coat. The coat tore, but stayed on, and McBride swung away and followed Bertie.

Bertie slammed the door. She grabbed the iron bar from Mr. McBride’s hands and wedged the door shut, though she knew it wouldn’t hold for long, and the lads could always go around the other side.

She seized him by the sleeve and started running. McBride ran with her, his strides strong.

It wasn’t long before Bertie heard the youths coming. A few would give up, losing interest, but some would be determined. Jeffrey’s mates loved a good fight, and they’d want to divide up the spoils they found on Mr. McBride.

“This way,” Bertie urged as she dove around a corner.

There was one place in all of London Bertie could go. No one else knew about it but her—not her dad, not Jeffrey, not her own mates. Taking Mr. McBride there was a risk—he could have the constables raid it when she let him go—but maybe it would be worth the sacrifice. This courageous, handsome Scotsman didn’t deserve to be beaten to death by East End thugs.

Bertie ran for the end of an alleyway that looked as though it went no farther. Mr. McBride started to argue, but Bertie put her finger to her lips and pulled him around a hidden corner, then down a slippery set of stairs and through a noisome passage. Finally, Bertie squeezed into a space that led between the backs of buildings, corners poking out and seeming to block the way. Bertie had discovered long ago that a lithe young woman
could
push through here and find a refuge.

Mr. McBride grunted a bit as he struggled through the narrower parts, then popped out like a cork behind Bertie as she opened a half-size door and ducked through. This door had led to an old scullery and kitchen for a house that had once been large and fine. But the room had been walled off long ago as the houses had been changed, pulled down, or rebuilt, and this corner of the cellar was lost and forgotten.

“Mind your head,” Bertie said.

At the same time she heard a thump and Mr. McBride growled, “Thank you, lass. Very timely.”

They went down a set of stairs in the pitch dark, Mr. McBride with a heavy hand on Bertie’s shoulder. “Seventeen of ’em,” she said, and started counting off.

Mr. McBride’s hand was firm, spreading heat beneath her worn velvet coat and wool bodice. Strong too, his fingers blunt and gripping hard.

At the bottom, they went through another door, then Bertie told him to stay put while she groped for the matches she kept on a shelf and started lighting lamps. She had three lamps down here now, which threw a rosy glow over the crumbling bricks and fallen beams that littered the triangular room.

A pile of cushions, carefully formed into the approximation of a sofa, stood against the most solid wall. Bertie had covered it with shawls and blankets, and set up a small folding table near it, strewn now with newspapers and magazines she’d managed to smuggle down here. The passage above was too narrow for her to bring in much furniture, but she’d made the place as cozy as she could. She’d carried down small rugs over the years, overlapping them to keep her feet off the cold, damp floor.

Mr. McBride remained in place by the door until Bertie’s lights strengthened. She’d need more kerosene before long, she saw.

The large man was out of place down here, that was for certain. His head touched the ceiling and he had to duck under the few beams that remained. He looked around the room in wonder, then his gray gaze landed on Bertie and pinned her as hard as he’d pinned Jacko in the dock.

“Are ye mad, lass?” he asked. “You stay down
here
? This ceiling could fall upon you any second.”

Bertie shivered as his rumbling, delicious voice filled the space. “Hasn’t in sixteen years,” she said stoutly. “And probably stood up a long time before that. Solid houses in this part of London.”

“Whichever part it is,” Mr. McBride said, half to himself. “Why’d you save me from those lads, woman, when ye’d led me to them in the first place? Why not let them beat me to a bloody pulp?”

Bertie folded her arms, spending a moment letting his Scottish consonants and vowels flow over her. “Well, you were supposed to run away, weren’t you?” she asked. “You thought you could take on eight street toughs by yourself? You have to be daft as a brick.”

“No, I wanted my watch.” Anger flared anew in his eyes, never mind that he was down here at Bertie’s mercy with no idea where he was, no help at hand. But
he
was the one in command, Bertie knew. Not her.

Mr. McBride pointed a strong finger at her. “Which you stole, right out of my waistcoat while I stood gawping. Give it back to me, and I’ll say nothing.”

Sinclair watched the young woman’s face flush in the candlelight, her guilt pure and simple. She swallowed and took a step back, rubbing her arms. She still wore the hat with the absurd violets, which was now hanging half over her right ear.

“Give me the watch, and I’ll leave you be,” Sinclair said, trying to gentle his voice. “No constables, no dock, though you are a bloody little tea leaf.”

She didn’t look impressed he knew rhyming cant:
Tea leaf—thief.

“Why’d ya help Ruthie?” she asked.

Sinclair had difficulty catching his breath. It was close down here, the biting wind shut out. It took him a moment to realize that by
Ruthie
she meant Ruth Baxter, the kitchen maid who’d stood in the dock at the Old Bailey not an hour ago. Already the details of the trial were fading, a trial that would be put down as a loss to him, but Sinclair didn’t care.