Octavius and the Perfect Governess: Pryor Cousins #1

by Emily Larkin

  Pip’s gaze wanted to linger on him. She forced herself to look elsewhere—at the sheep-down, at the girls and Lord Newingham, at the apron-kite tugging joyfully on the end of its string, and from the kite she looked higher and further, turning on her heel as she took in the view. How vast the sky seemed, how empty, when really it was filled with so many things: wisps of cloud laid out like ripples in water, the distant specks of hawks, skylarks riding the currents while they sang, sparrows and starlings and swallows, bees darting and humming, butterflies flitting. And now kites.

  The paper-and-paste kites eventually disintegrated, but Pip’s kite didn’t. She let the girls run with it, back and forth across the sheep-down.

  “The perfect governess has made the perfect kite,” Lord Octavius observed.

  To her annoyance, Pip felt herself blush again. “I’m hardly perfect.”

  “No?” He glanced at her, a sideways smiling glance that prompted her heart to do another of its foolish little leaps.

  “I have red hair,” Pip pointed out. “That’s surely proof that I’m not perfect.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “You think red hair a flaw?”

  “Of course. Most people do.”

  “But not everyone,” he said, with another of those smiling glances.

  Pip felt her cheeks flame with heat. She fastened her attention on the girls. He is not flirting with me, she told herself. He’s a marquis’s son, and marquises’ sons don’t flirt with governesses.

  But it felt a little as if he was flirting.

  She watched Edie and Fanny run across the meadow. After a minute, Lord Octavius said, “My grandmother, the Duchess of Linwood, had red hair when she was younger.”

  Pip didn’t know how to respond to that remark, but it did explain why he didn’t think red hair was a flaw. See, she told herself. He wasn’t flirting. The girls chose that moment to return to her, panting and exhausted. “Can we make more kites tomorrow?” Edie asked, and Fanny slipped her hand into Pip’s and beseeched with her eyes. “Please, Miss Toogood?”

  Pip smiled down at them both. “Of course we can.”

  “Kites like yours?” Edie begged. “With stitching, not paste.”

  “If you wish.”

  Both girls nodded eagerly.

  “I shall make one, too,” Newingham declared.

  Everyone looked at him in surprise. “Can you sew, Uncle Robert?” Edie asked.

  “After a fashion.”

  “That means no,” Mr. Pryor said. “And neither can I, but I’m willing to learn. I’m sure my cousin is, too. Aren’t you, Otto?” He elbowed Lord Octavius vigorously in the ribs.

  Lord Octavius winced, and rubbed his side. “Certainly. If you care to teach us, Miss Toogood?”

  Teach a viscount and two duke’s grandsons how to sew? “I can if you wish me to,” Pip said, feeling faintly nonplussed.

  “You’re too good, Miss Toogood,” Mr. Pryor said, with a smirk.

  “Ha!” Newingham said. “You’re too good, Miss Toogood! Did you hear that, Otto?” He dug an elbow into Lord Octavius’s ribs.

  “Ouch,” Lord Octavius said, and tried to elbow him back—and the afternoon degenerated into a laughing, shrieking game of tag across the sheep-down.

  Pip ate her meals with the girls in the nursery. That evening, to her surprise, the table was set for six. Not only were there three extra place settings, but those settings had crystal glasses and silver tableware and snowy-white napkins. As an accessory to the finery on the table, was a footman.

  “What’s all this for?” Pip asked.

  “The viscount and his guests are dining here tonight,” the footman said. His tone told her that he considered waiting on the nursery table to be beneath his dignity.

  Pip had eaten hundreds of dinners during her years as a governess, all of them adequate, many of them good, but this dinner was unquestionably the best. Not because of the food—although the food was better than she was used to—but because of the company. She couldn’t reprimand the girls for talking across the table, nor for laughing out loud at dinner, because Newingham did both of those things. They all did, and Pip thought that if today had been the happiest day of the girls’ lives, then this dinner was probably the happiest meal of their lives.

  “What happens now?” Newingham asked, after the footman had finished clearing the table.

  “Now we usually play cards or jackstraws,” Pip said.

  “Jackstraws?” Newingham’s face lit up. “Lord, I haven’t played that in forever! What do you say, Otto? Dex? Shall we stay for a game of jackstraws?”

  They stayed for three games. Lord Newingham made a performance of playing, rubbing his hands together and declaring he was going to thrash everyone soundly, screwing his face up when he made each move, cackling fiendishly if he succeeded, groaning piteously when he didn’t.

  The girls loved it.

  But the viscount’s performance didn’t win him any games, because Fanny was a demon at jackstraws.

  “She beat me again!” Newingham said indignantly. “A nine-year-old beat me again. By Jove, that’s not on!”

  Fanny looked delighted enough to burst.

  When the viscount challenged his nieces to another match, Lord Octavius glanced at Pip. “Cards?” he suggested.

  She nodded.

  The two packs of cards in the nursery had been shuffled together. They began the task of sorting them apart. “When the girls go to bed, I’d like to give you that lesson we talked about,” Lord Octavius said quietly, as he separated the cards into two piles. “Would that be all right with you?”

  Pip hesitated.

  Lord Octavius glanced up from the cards. “You’re worried about the impropriety of it?”

  Pip nodded.

  “Newingham and my cousin will stay, too. No one could think it improper, then.”

  Pip laughed at that statement. “Improper? You’re going to teach me how to fight. Of course it’s improper!”

  “But no one will know that’s what we’re doing,” he said reasonably. “They’ll think we’re talking about the girls. Newingham’s their uncle, you’re their governess.” He shrugged, as if to say What of it?

  Pip hesitated. He was correct. He was also correct that there was propriety in numbers. A governess and a gentleman alone together had the appearance of a tryst, but a governess and three gentlemen? Especially if one of those gentlemen was Lord Newingham? No tryst at all, but a discussion about the girls’ education, with a couple of bystanders for good measure. Nothing that could compromise anyone.

  “All right,” she said.

  The two packs of cards were now separated. Lord Octavius laid one aside. “What would you like to play?”

  Behind them, Newingham gave such a loud crow of triumph that Pip jumped.

  “I say, keep it down, Bunny,” Lord Octavius called out. “You’re scaring the ladies.” And then he winked at her.

  For some reason that wink didn’t just prompt Pip’s heart into a little leap; it made her heart lurch like a carriage about to tip over.

  She looked hastily down at the table. Do not fall in love with this man, Philippa Mary. Do you hear me? Don’t you dare be so foolish. After a moment, she risked a glance at Lord Octavius. He was briskly shuffling the cards. “Why do you call him Bunny?” she asked.

  “Robert, rabbit, bunny,” Lord Octavius said.

  Pip considered this for a moment. “It has a certain logic.”

  He grinned at her. “Of course it does.”

  “I assume there’s logic to your names, too? You and your cousin, I mean.”

  “Logic? Yes.” He pulled a face.

  “You don’t like your name?”

  “In town we’re known as the Numbers.”

  She didn’t say And you don’t like that? because it was obvious he didn’t. Instead, she said, “How many of you are there?”

  “Ten. Well, not really, but . . . wait a moment . . . it’ll be easiest to explain it like this . . .” Lord Octavius
quickly sorted through the pack and extracted all the spades. He laid the king and queen on the table. “My grandparents, the Duke and Duchess of Linwood.”

  Beneath those two cards he laid the ace, the two, the three, and the four, side by side. “My father, Primus, and my uncles Secundus, Tertius, and Quartus.”

  Pip nodded to show she understood.

  Lord Octavius turned the queen and the four of spades over, so that their backs showed. “Dead,” he said. “Scarlet fever, when Quartus was a baby.” He shuffled through the cards, selected the queen of hearts, and placed it on the other side of the king of spades. “My grandfather’s second wife.” He glanced at her and smiled. “The redhead.”

  Pip felt herself blush, although she had absolutely no reason to.

  Lord Octavius examined the rest of the spades thoughtfully, then pulled out the knight and added it to the row of sons. “My uncle, Mercury. He’s illegitimate. Grandfather didn’t know he existed for years.”

  Pip wasn’t sure what surprised her most: that Lord Octavius had an illegitimate uncle, or that he was telling her. “Your family acknowledges him?”

  “Absolutely. Uncle Mercury’s part of the family. Grandfather is very definite on that score.”

  “Oh,” Pip said, for lack of anything better to say.

  Lord Octavius glanced at her and then at the jackstraw players behind them, hesitated for a moment, then said in a very low voice, “His life was fairly brutal before he found us. I think Grandfather still feels guilty about it.”

  “Oh,” Pip said again, taken aback. Was Lord Octavius this open with everyone? Or was it just her?

  He picked up the rest of the spades and laid them out on the table. The five and eight went below the ace. “My brother, Quintus, and me.” The seven and ten went below the two. “My cousins Septimus and Decimus.” He turned the seven of spades face down. “Septimus was stillborn.” Lastly, he placed the six and nine below the three. “My cousins Sextus and Nonus.”

  But Lord Octavius wasn’t finished yet. He shuffled through the pack and finally fished out the ace of hearts. This card he lay alongside the ten. “Dex’s sister, Phoebe. The only girl among us.” He gave a flourish of his hand. “And there you have it: the Pryor family, in all our numerical glory.”

  “I take it you don’t intend to continue the tradition?”

  “Heaven forbid! My children will not be numbers.” Lord Octavius picked up the remaining cards and held them out to her. “Your turn, Miss Toogood.”

  “Mine?” Pip took the pack and sorted through it thoughtfully. She pulled out the nine of diamonds and laid it on the table. “My father, Llewellyn Toogood.” Nine for the number of letters in his name, but also because nine was a number her father had loved, a magical number that contained three sets of three.

  She flicked through the cards, found the four of diamonds, and placed it alongside the nine. “My mother, Mary.” Beneath that pair of cards she laid the three of diamonds, for herself—Pip—and then she turned over the four of diamonds and said, “My mother died not long after I was born.”

  She glanced at Lord Octavius and saw sympathy on his face, but he said nothing.

  Pip looked down at the cards again and turned the nine of diamonds over, too. “My father died when I was twelve.” This time, she didn’t glance at Lord Octavius. She didn’t want to see if his expression had become pitying.

  She shuffled through the cards instead and pulled out the five of diamonds. “My aunt, Sarah,” Pip said, placing the card on the table. “She took me in. She was very good to me.

  Her family looked very sparse compared to his. And then she remembered, and reached out and turned her aunt’s card face down.

  Her family looked even sparser now. Pip’s throat tightened and her eyes stung for a second. She blinked, and said brightly, “I come from ecclesiastical stock. Both my grandfathers were vicars, as was my father. If I marry, it will doubtless be to a vicar.”

  A flurry of noise arose among the jackstraw players. Mr. Pryor whooped loudly and the girls were in fits of giggles.

  “By Jove!” Lord Newingham said indignantly. “That’s just not fair! It was my turn to win.”

  Pip glanced at the clock and realized that it was past the girls’ bedtime. She clapped her hands briskly. “Time for bed, girls.”

  Chapter Nine

  When Octavius had told Dex and Newingham that he intended to teach Miss Toogood some techniques with which to defend herself, Dex hadn’t turned a hair. Newingham, however, had been shocked. Shocked about the droit de seigneur. Shocked that Octavius intended to give Miss Toogood a lesson in self-defense. Shocked, period.

  But Newingham was a pretty easygoing fellow, and after he’d stopped squawking and spluttering he’d agreed to assist with the lesson.

  Now that the girls had gone to bed, that time had come.

  “The schoolroom?” Octavius suggested.

  Miss Toogood lit the candles in the schoolroom, then blew out the taper and turned to face him. She looked a little self-conscious, a little awkward, and he couldn’t blame her. What they were about to do was highly irregular. Scandalous, even. But despite being irregular and scandalous, it was also necessary and important, and he wasn’t going to go to bed until he’d armed Miss Toogood with the skills she needed.

  The question was: where to start?

  He thought back to Vauxhall Gardens and what he’d done to free himself. “Right, let’s begin.”

  “Are you going to teach me how to box?” Miss Toogood asked dubiously.

  Octavius shook his head. “I’m going to teach you how to hurt someone enough to make them let you go.”

  She looked even more dubious. “Hurt someone?”

  “Yes,” Octavius said, the memory of Baron Rumpole trying to drag him into the shrubbery vivid in his mind. “If you’re subject to an advance that’s physical and forceful, then you’ll need to be physical and forceful to escape it.”

  She chewed on her lower lip for a moment.

  “He probably won’t expect you to fight back,” Octavius said, to reassure her. “The surprise of that alone will give you an advantage. Chances are you won’t need to hurt him much at all.”

  Miss Toogood looked somewhat relieved by this statement.

  Octavius glanced at the others. Dex was leaning against the closed door, his arms folded, idly interested. Newingham had taken up position by the worktable. He also had his arms folded. He didn’t look idly interested, though. He was frowning, as if he thought that Octavius was being a great deal too blunt.

  Octavius ignored him. Bluntness would keep Miss Toogood safer than ambiguity and polite roundaboutation.

  “There are three places you should aim for,” he told Miss Toogood. “The eyes, the nose, and the groin.”

  Newingham’s frown intensified at the word “groin.”

  Octavius took no notice. “Let’s start with the nose. Punch it, if you can, but you might not be able to, in which case you can use your hand like a hammer.” He showed her what he meant, closing his hand in a fist and wielding it like a hammer. “You can use your elbow or the heel of your hand, or even your forehead.” He beckoned to his cousin. “Dex.”

  Dex peeled himself away from the door and sauntered into the middle of the schoolroom.

  Octavius demonstrated breaking Dex’s nose with a punch, a hammer blow, an elbow, the heel of his hand, and a headbutt. Miss Toogood watched closely. “If you’re going to do it, commit to it,” Octavius told her. “Don’t hesitate. Do it hard. Put all your strength into it.”

  She nodded.

  “Now, with the eyes, you can punch or use your elbow, but you can also scratch and gouge and try to poke them out.”

  Miss Toogood pulled a face, but she nodded again.

  “As for the groin . . . men are very easily hurt here. It’s our Achilles heel, if you will. Hit a man hard enough in the groin and you’ll bring him to the ground.”

  Her eyebrows lifted at this. “Truly?”

&nbs
p; Octavius nodded. So did Dex. Newingham, who was clearly struggling with his sense of propriety, just looked like a stuffed fish.

  “It’s the most effective way to disable a man,” Octavius told her. He grabbed Dex’s shoulder for balance and then aimed his knee at his cousin’s groin, halting only a few inches away.

  Dex winced and tensed, but stood strong. It was Newingham who recoiled and said, “By Jove, Otto. Is this really necessary?”

  “Yes,” Octavius said, and demonstrated the move again. He didn’t give a damn how inappropriate it was. “As you can see, your skirts may get in the way if you have to do this.”

  Miss Toogood nodded thoughtfully.

  Octavius released his cousin’s shoulder and stepped back. “You can kick a man there, too, or use your elbow if you get the chance, or even punch, but whatever you do, do it as hard as you can.”

  Miss Toogood nodded again.

  “And if you can’t do anything I’ve shown you, if you can’t punch or kick, use your teeth. Bite him somewhere. Bite hard. Sink your teeth into his hand until you hit bone. Bite his ear off if you have to. Bite his nose off. Make a noise, be as loud as you can. Grab his head and scream into his ear. Deafen him. Make him want to get away from you.”

  His voice had risen as he spoke. His final words echoed loudly in the room. There was a slightly shocked silence. Everyone was staring at him.

  Octavius refused to feel embarrassed. This was important, damn it.

  “Are you right-handed?” he asked Miss Toogood.

  She nodded.

  “Let’s suppose he grabs your right wrist.” Octavius did just that, reaching out and gripping her tightly. Miss Toogood’s wrist was slender, much more finely boned than his, and it struck him how vulnerable she was—how vulnerable all women were—and just how important it was that she learned to defend herself. “Can you get away?”

  Miss Toogood tugged and twisted but couldn’t pull free, and he knew exactly how that felt, thanks to Baron Rumpole.