The Game and the Governess (26 page)

JOHN TURNER LIKED
to consider himself a straightforward man. He was raised to it, the son of a mill owner and businessman who taught him he would only ever be as good as his word. His leadership during the war had been born out of that forthrightness, and he had men, women, whole families counting on him back in Lincolnshire because he gave his word. To get the mill up and running again. And he would do what he must to make it so.

But he had never counted on being an earl.

The obfuscation and misdirection of the last week had been . . . trying at best. He was not used to the clothes, to the looks everyone gave him, and even though he’d held a command position on the field of battle, everyone here seemed to expect him not to lead . . . but to decide. He was the one everyone deferred to. He was the one they wanted to hold on to.

It was very much against his nature.

But he had to do it. It was the only way.

He had wagered everything on it.

But now, as he stood at the window of the front drawing room looking out onto the road, which bore a dirty and dusty Ned Granville back from his day at the stables, he could feel his chances for success slipping away.

For next to Ned walked the governess, her charges running ahead of them. They did not touch, they did not even look at each other. But they had fallen into step. Together.

Turner could feel his knuckles turn white. “Bloody hell,” he breathed.

He could kick himself. That offhand suggestion to Sir Nathan that Ned be the one to teach Rose to ride! Thinking it would force Ned out of the way of the Ryes and Miss Benson, and of course Leticia. Yet, as he learned mere minutes later, the request had simply put Ned into the path of an apparently eligible young woman.

Perhaps Lucky Ned really was the luckiest person in the world.

But there was no possible way he could be allowed to win this wager.

God, when had he become so hard? So serious? When had he let his friendship with Ned Granville crumble into this battle?

There was a time when Ned had been his best friend. And he missed it.

But he was too desperate now to turn back.

He could remember exactly the moment that had led them to this. No, it was not their card game a week
ago. Nor was it when he received news of the ship having been lost at sea, bearing his new machinery. Instead, the moment that had led to the current situation—to the wager, to Ned courting a governess, to his wearing Ned’s ill-fitting signet ring and overstarched coat—was the first moment. The day five years ago when he had come to London, and called upon the young man—an earl now!—who had saved his life on the battlefield. And, he had hoped, would save his life again.

He remembered the knocker on the door to the Grosvenor mansion—brass polished to a shine, even on such an intemperate day. He used it, and before the dusting of snow on its bridge could even fall to the ground, an officious-looking servant had opened the door. Before he knew it, he was gravely escorted back past the larger rooms into a private study.

Where he found young Ned Granville, Earl of Ashby, tearing his hair out over a pile of papers.

“Captain!” Ned had cried, and come forward immediately, rushing to greet Turner. Although there was a tinge of desperation to his voice.

“Not Captain anymore, my lord,” Turner said, with a bow. “Just Mr. Turner now.”

“And if you call me ‘my lord’ I will assume my great-uncle has risen from his grave.” Ned tried to smile, but it was weak. “What brings you to London?”

“I have to meet with some bankers about my mill. There . . . was a fire.”

“Oh, Cap—I mean, Mr. Turner. I am so sorry.”

“A terrible hazard of the business. But now that the war is over, and my father is gone, I must step up to fill his shoes.”

“Yes,” Ned had agreed solemnly. His eyes went to the empty chair, hidden behind the overrun desk. “Strange, isn’t it? Everyone was always so worried about our living through the war, and yet we come home to empty houses.”

Turner could only nod in agreement. He then watched as Ned, lost in his own thoughts, went back to the papers in his hands, his usual cheerful attitude sunken.

“Where are you staying?” Ned tried, with a forced smile. “Oh, never mind that, you shall stay here. Danson will have a room fixed up for you. Perhaps we can scare Dr. Gray out of his laboratory in Greenwich, and go out on the town.”

“That is very kind,” Turner replied, surprised at the generosity. To be sure, Ned had always been generous—but seeing him as an earl put him in a very different light.

An earl who, right now, seemed to be very, very worried about something.

“My l—er, sir. Ned. What is it? I can tell something is wrong.”

Ned looked up from the pages—ledger pages, from the quick glance Turner could obtain. “Thank you, my friend. But unless you can decipher columns of numbers, it would be of no use.”

Turner took in Ned’s desperate resignation and made a decision. He began to unbutton his coat.

“What are you doing?”

“Preparing to decipher columns of numbers,” he said, taking the pages out of Ned’s hand. Ned’s body practically crumpled with relief. “I may not be a fancy
Londoner, but I do know how a business runs. Now, tell me what these are.”

He pulled out a pile of short, squarish pages with embossed printing. Ned glanced at them, his brows coming down in anger.

“They are shares in a company. I think. Mr. Sharp, my great-uncle’s secretary—whom I inherited—made the purchase. Apparently, I’ve been purchasing a small sum of shares every month since I became earl, but I’ve never heard of the company. Sharp has been nowhere to be found for a week now, and suddenly this pile of paperwork arrives at my door.”

“What are they?”

“Bills!” Ned shook his head, pacing the floor as he did so. “And not silly things like the bootmaker or tailor that you can put off.” Turner glanced up at that, but let Ned continue. “These are bills for grain. For the farms at Ashby Castle. There’s one in here for a dredging that apparently was supposed to have been paid six months ago! The normal running of the Ashby estates has somehow been falling apart while I was still settling into the seat.”

Turner looked at the bills, the columns on the ledger pages. He took them all. After a few hours of sorting through the paperwork, he could tell that Ned had been robbed. And quite well.

“He took how much?!” Ned asked.

“Nearly ten thousand pounds. He’s been skimming it here and there. Using it to purchase stock in this company—the ‘Riversold Building Company’—which provides you with an account of where the money is going, thus balancing the books. But, in reality, I can only as
sume that Mr. Sharp was the sole owner of Riversold Building.”

Ned again put his head in his hands. Then he stood and went over to a small cabinet. “I do believe this calls for some brandy.”

Turner glanced at the window. Granted, hours had passed, but it was then still daylight. And then again—“I suppose it does.”

“If anyone finds out about this, I’ll be a laughingstock in this town.” Ned’s voice was pitched as high as a matron’s. “‘Ned Granville, oh, you know him, the country boy whom old Ashby turned into his heir? Should send him back to the village.’”

“The good news is that your income makes it so that you should be able to repay these bills with little hindrance to your lifestyle. Although you will have to live carefully for a little while. And may have to sell a horse or two.”

Ned made a small, pitiful sound at that before throwing back his glass of brandy. Then he refilled it and poured one for Turner.

Ned handed Turner his drink and sat down, nodding grimly. “I suppose I can do that. Make that sacrifice.”

“Or, better yet, we can set the authorities on your Mr. Sharp, find him, and make him pay back what he took,” Turner advised, taking a sip of his (very good) brandy.

But Ned’s reaction to that advice was surprisingly harsh.

“No!” He set his snifter down so hard it nearly cracked. “Did you not just hear me? If the authorities get involved, rumors will circulate. And I don’t want anyone to know. I just . . . I just want it gone. Then things can be pleasant again.”

“But . . .”

“Turner. I just want it done.”

“All right,” Turner conceded. His first big mistake. His second was now to come. For, after a few moments, he noticed that Ned was regarding him, considering.

“Turner, how long do you think you will be in town?” Ned asked, his voice casual but his eyes calculating.

“I . . . I doubt much longer,” Turner replied. “I did not tell you the whole truth. My mill burned, and it will take some cost to repair it. I went to my bank this morning, but the mortgage was already high, and . . . they have decided not to assist in helping me rebuild. I was going to try other banks tomorrow, but I doubt—”

“I will,” Ned said suddenly.

“You’ll what?”

“I will help you rebuild. In my way.”

“What do you mean, ‘in your way’?”

“I need a secretary,” Ned said, leaning forward on his elbows and letting that sly smile spread across his face. “Someone I can trust. You need an income, immediately.”

“Ned—sir. I’m not a secretary. I run a mill!”

“Your mill cannot run without money. And you proved to be a damn better secretary than my last one in a few short hours,” Ned argued quickly. “How much will it take to get the banks from calling your loan?”

Turner was so taken aback that he quoted Ned the number.

“That’s your salary for the first year—nay, the first six months.” Ned clapped his hands together. “Payable in advance. You can keep your mill from immi
nent death by helping me sort through my own mess. Then, when your mill is back on its feet and ready to run again, you can train your replacement and we part friends.”

He thrust out his hand. “What do you say?”

Turner remembered looking from his friend, to the pile of papers on the desk, back to his friend’s hand again. His first thought had been outright rejection. In the plainest truth, he had come to this house on the hope that he could convince Ned to invest in his mill. But this was not the situation he had imagined.

He could not abandon his mill in Lincolnshire! It would be impossible. But . . . would it? His mother was still quite strong, and had run the mill by his father’s side for years. With the funds he could earn working for the Earl of Ashby, the rebuilding could take place and she would be there to oversee it. He would not worry on that score. And he would be working for the Earl of Ashby—for his friend Ned, who had been at his side for good and bad marching on the fields in Europe. And working for one’s friends would certainly be better than working for strangers, wouldn’t it?

Turner had grabbed the hand in front of him before his better judgment could stop it.

“I say, let’s get started.”

Ned grinned at him and pumped his hand. “I’m so pleased you came by, Turner. It’s the best of all possible luck!”

THAT HAD BEEN
five years ago. Five years of Ned’s luck countering his own. Five years of setbacks with the mill,
of Ned’s demands and dismissive attitudes. And now . . . he was about to lose it all, because of a wager he’d thought he couldn’t lose—that Ned’s luck would abandon him and Turner would be able to steal it. But, as he watched Ned and the governess stop and speak before entering the house, he knew that simply wasn’t the case.

“What has you so pensive?”

The voice floated over him, a dreamy, soothing lilt. He turned and could feel his body relax at the sight of Leticia’s pretty frown.

His heart soared at the sight of her. Odd, as his heart was not often given to soaring. But ever since that first moment he had seen Leticia, there were flutters and beats and entirely new rhythms to his pulse.

She was again dressed to impress, and he knew the aim was to impress him. Frankly, he enjoyed every second of it. She wore a saffron-colored Indian shawl, woven intricately with leaves and flowers, wrapped around a light blue gown, which set off the warm tones in her eyes and her dark hair. She was a radiant woman, standing out as such apart from the unformed girls who flitted around Puffington Arms like a marauding troop of magpies. Meanwhile, Leticia, Countess Churzy, was . . . not a peacock, no. Too showy. She was a dove.