The Game and the Governess (9 page)

“I believe you told me before we left Peterborough that I was to lower myself to serve Mr. Turner as I would you, and to treat you as I would Mr. Turner,” Danson said, trying to hide a smile. “I have never ordered a bath for Mr. Turner.”

Brilliant. Marvelous
.

“Still. In this instance, if you could take pity on me . . .”

Danson sighed. “Certainly, sir. The bath has been drawn. I will show you to the bathing room.”

Danson produced a towel from a drawer and led Ned out into the hall.

It was not surprising that Puffington Arms utilized a bathing room. Among all the decorative changes wrought by Lady Widcoate, this at least was a functional one. The bathing room was tiled, with special access to the kitchens below, where water was being heated and brought up for the bather’s pleasure.

However, Ned was not accustomed to
sharing
a bathing room. He was simply used to the convenience of the personal bathing room he had in his London house, right next to his master suite.

But no matter! Sharing a bathing room was no trouble.

Sharing his bathwater, on the other hand, was a bit more disturbing.

“Danson,” he asked as the door to the bathing room closed behind them, “what is that?”

“That is your bath, sir.”

“But the water is . . .” Cloudy. Dirty. Soapy. “Used.”

“Of course it is,” Danson replied. “The
earl
had his bath first, as is his due. Followed by Sir Nathan, and then the two little children.”

“So I am bathing after four other people?”

“This is good fortune, sir—most of the ladies performed their ablutions this morning, readying themselves for your arrival.” Ned’s face must have been somewhat telling, because Danson leaned in and whispered, “You cannot expect the house to go through the time and expense of preparing a bath for just you,
Mr. Turner.
”

Ned met Danson’s gaze, but his valet very politely took a step back, with a gesture to help Ned disrobe and step into the milky water of the tub.

“Brilliant!” Ned blurted out, mustering his will. “Marvelous!”

“NOW, YOU TWO,”
Phoebe Baker commanded in her sternest governess voice as she dodged the thwack of a twisted wet towel, “stop fooling about!”

But Rose and Henry Widcoate, wearing dressing robes, seemed unable to end the Towel Wars, at least not before declaring a clear victor and making the defeated party forfeit their lands and riches.

“Say ‘uncle’!” Rose cried.

“Why?” Henry asked, perplexed. He was six to his sister’s eight, and therefore not well schooled in the nuances of towel warfare.

“‘Uncle’ means that you give up!”

“Oh.” Henry’s eyes went wide with understanding. “But I don’t give up. I’ve hit you six times, you’ve only hit me four!”

Thwack!
“Five now. And the loser has to give over their dessert tonight.”

“Then I definitely don’t give up!” Henry spun his towel, readying it for a furious strike.

Time for the cavalry to step in.

“If you don’t cease hostilities right now, tomorrow will have double the spelling lessons!” Miss Baker said, hands on her hips.

That was, apparently, sanction enough from a stronger empire to force an end to the Towel Wars.

Rose and Henry blinked up at her, as if they had only just realized she was in the room with them. Their hair was still wet from their baths, water dripping into their eyes.

“Oh, yes, hello,” she said, giving a short wave. “I’ve been here this entire time. I have witnessed your crimes and must insist upon a negotiated armistice before dinner.”

“Sorry, Miss Baker,” they answered in unison.

“What’s an armistice?” Rose piped up, bouncing up and down on the balls on her feet. Rose was always the bouncy one. Quick, and with more energy than she knew what to do with. Henry was the quiet, contemplative child, who—as evidenced by the recent conflict—could find trouble very easily when led into it by his sister.

But both were curious—and having curious pupils made up for quite a bit in the governess trade.

“An armistice is a cessation of hostilities.” Blank looks were her answer. “A promise of peace.”

“Like when the Boney man was shipped off to the island by Wellington?” Henry asked.

“Sort of,” Phoebe replied, satisfied with a six-year-old’s understanding of a war that had ended only shortly before he was born. One whose legend was quickly outstripping fact, as in all things.

History, of course, was written by the victors.

“Now, you both will be quite sorry if you don’t get ready for dinner. Your father has arrived home from Hollyhock, and you are expected in the drawing room before your supper. Nanny has laid out your best suit, Henry. And your lovely pink dress, Rose.”

Both froze. Because, as young as they were, and as breezy as Phoebe tried to make her speech, Rose and Henry knew all too well what their best clothes and an audience with their father meant.

“We are going to have a Questioning, aren’t we?” Rose asked, suddenly without her bounciness.

Phoebe looked into the imploring eyes of her young charges. She could have lied to them. She could have soothed and petted and cooed the way she wished to.

But that was not what governesses were for.

“Yes,” she replied crisply. “I imagine so.”

Rose groaned and fell in the most dramatic possible fashion face-first into a stuffed chair, while poor Henry simply brought his thumb to his mouth reflexively.

“Now, now,” Phoebe chided, crouching down to Henry’s level and gently removing the thumb from between his teeth. “None of that. This is not worthy of the thumb, Henry.”

“But we
hate
the Questioning!” Rose moaned, flopping over in the chair.

“Does the prospect of the Questioning make gravity affect you so much you can no longer stand?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. Rose, knowing that tone, managed to pull herself to her feet, however sulkily.

“Why all this nonsense? Your father only wants to make sure you are learning as you ought. And you
are. Rose, you did your multiplication tables perfectly yesterday.”

Rose seemed to consider that. As if perhaps she had accomplished something worthy of recognition. Although Phoebe knew Lady Widcoate would disagree.

“Can I show Papa my drawing?” Henry asked, holding up a page from his sketchbook. It was a rather lovely picture of a sunflower . . . for a six-year-old. However, if Phoebe knew her employer, it would not be considered masculine enough for the heir of Puffington Arms.

“Hmm . . .” Phoebe hummed, flipping back a page or two. “Why don’t we show him the picture of beetles you drew yesterday? And we can write their Latin names underneath?”

Henry considered it, and then nodded in agreement.

“Excellent.” Phoebe gave him a swift nod, the highest sign of approval a governess should give to her pupils. Or so Lady Widcoate had told her the first time she had dared to smile at her young charges.

No, smiles and coddling were not permitted from the governess. They were the purview of the mother. Meanwhile, scaring the children witless with probing questions and a distinct lack of patience was the father’s.

“But why are we to have a Questioning?” Rose asked, her fears unsoothed by her younger brother’s entomological prowess. “We just had one two days ago.”

Yes, there had been a Questioning two days ago, when the house party had begun in earnest with the arrival of Countess Churzy’s friends from Bath. The loud arrival.

It had been so long since Phoebe had been at school,
she had forgotten the kind of madness a group of young women can trail in their wake. One of them expressed an interest in meeting the children, so before dinner, in front of a room full of strangers, they were trotted out and quizzed on how they were doing with their lessons.

An idea that simply smacked of Lady Widcoate’s uncaring brilliance.

Thankfully, Rose and Henry acquitted themselves well enough, considering. Rose had stalled slightly in the beginning of the psalm she’d memorized for the occasion, causing Sir Nathan to begin to turn a mottled purple. But luckily, Countess Churzy happened to say to her sister, “Psalm Twenty-three? Is that the one that starts ‘The Lord is my shepherd’? I never remember that one.” And Rose was able to take it from there.

Of course, the children had no cause to fear their father. He was all bluff and bluster, his anger and the reason for it forgotten as soon as the event had ended. Sir Nathan was a man of little patience for trying things, but his bite would never actually break skin. Especially not that of his children.

No, it was Phoebe who had cause to worry, should they not do well in front of their audience. For while Sir Nathan had the ire, Lady Widcoate had the memory of it. And she would never direct her anger at her offspring. She would put it on the one she thought responsible.

Sometimes Phoebe actually felt bad for Lady Widcoate. She had two marvelous children. But she could not understand why her energetic daughter enjoyed mathematics and horses, while her son preferred
to draw quietly. Surely the reverse should be the case. At least, in that lady’s narrow definition of order and normality, it should be. And often, she would glare at Phoebe as if her children’s natural inclinations were the governess’s fault.

But Phoebe shook that off, put on her calmest Governess Face, and turned to look into the big, frightened eyes of the children. “You remember the very important men that arrived today. We came across them in the field.”

“The one with the beautiful horse.” Rose nodded, the thought of the stallion perking her up again ever so slightly.

“It’s the Earl of Assby,” Henry said drolly, and Phoebe found it necessary to stifle a fake cough, lest they see their serious and pinched governess actually crack a smile.

“It’s the Earl of Ashby,” she corrected, although, secretly, she thought Henry’s interpretation was closer to the truth. The Earl of Ashby, the man who had changed her life and damned her to the purgatory of governessing without knowing—or, more likely, without caring—definitely deserved the family crest and title of Ass.

Phoebe felt the bile that had risen in her throat at seeing him this afternoon churn and attempt to fight its way back up again. But no. She had to tamp down those feelings. She had to keep herself still and controlled. A governess who lashes out at an earl does so at her own peril.

“Yes, the man with the horse,” she replied, steadying herself with a judicious breath. “I imagine your parents would like for you to meet him.”

“But we already met him,” Henry’s logic had him saying. “On the road.”

“Yes,” Phoebe reasoned, “but this would be a formal introduction.” When Rose and Henry looked at her quizzically, she put her hands on her hips and stood up. “Your parents are quite proud of you, and wish to show to their very important guest that you are two of the brightest, best-behaved children in the county. Now it’s time to get dressed, else we shall be late, and that is no way to make an impression.”

As the pair shuffled diligently off to their beds, where their clothes and their young but efficient nanny waited for them, Phoebe took the opportunity to brush out her skirts and straighten her spine.

She checked herself in the small looking-glass that hung on the nursery wall. Pinching down the smile that gave away her delight in the ridiculous. Governesses did not delight in anything, other than their students’ accomplishments.

Five years of practice being the perfect governess—four years in Portsmouth and the last year with the Widcoates—had made it easier and easier to do every day. She could not present herself downstairs as anything other than what she was. And if she was lucky, the children would acquit themselves well and quickly, and they could be on their way, not to be thought of again for the next two weeks.

If she could make it through the fortnight and entirely avoid the Earl of Ashby, so much the better.

It was of course predictable, then, that Lady Widcoate had placed the earl’s secretary on the unadorned third floor, where Phoebe had previously reigned freely. With
the family on the second floor, and the small retinue of servants on the ground floor in their quarters, she had been the only person who existed in the strange “in between” space—not family, not serving class. In her sanctuary on the third floor, she could smile and laugh and unbend to her heart’s content.

She thought briefly of Mr. Turner with the dusty brown hair whom she had met with such surprise on the staircase. The one who seemed happy, angry, and confused all at once. But then she dismissed him from her mind.

If he worked for the earl, he knew what kind of man he was. And continued to work for him anyway. This did not speak highly of his character.

Oh well, Phoebe thought. It was only two weeks. She would survive it.

She had survived this long, after all.

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