Octavius and the Perfect Governess: Pryor Cousins #1

by Emily Larkin

  “Your valet gave it to me,” Octavius told him, disbelief and indignation mingling in his voice. “He told me to empty it.”

  Dex laughed. He didn’t get up from the armchair. He waved one hand carelessly and said, “Well, empty it, then.”

  Octavius almost did, all over his cousin. The only thing that stopped him was the fact that they were in his own bedroom and the mess would have been on his armchair and his floor. He thrust the pot at Dex, making the piss inside slosh. “You empty it.”

  “Me?” Dex slouched even more indolently in the armchair. “I’m not a housemaid.”

  Octavius hissed at him through his teeth.

  Dex laughed again.

  “It’s not funny!” Octavius said. “He’s waiting for me to bring it back. Empty!”

  “So, empty it.”

  “I don’t know where housemaids empty chamber pots!”

  Dex shrugged. “Swap it with a pot from an empty bedroom.”

  The idea was both simple and brilliant, and one that he ought to have thought of himself. Octavius headed for the door, and then halted. “I can’t. One of the maids will get blamed for it.”

  “Honestly, Otto, your conscience—”

  “I’m not going to leave a full chamber pot somewhere that will get a maid into trouble,” Octavius said. He crossed the room and shoved the chamber pot at Dex. “It’s your piss; you get rid of it.”

  Dex smirked and made no move to take the pot.

  Octavius placed it on his cousin’s lap, a precarious perch, and released it.

  “Oi!” Dex said, grabbing the chamber pot before it tipped over. “What are you doing, you idiot?”

  Octavius ignored him. He crossed to his bedside cabinet, fished out his own empty chamber pot, and headed for the door. He stomped down the corridor to Dex’s room, knocked on the door, and waited for the valet to answer. And waited. And waited.

  He knocked again, more loudly, and opened the door.

  The valet wasn’t in the room.

  Octavius put the chamber pot in the cabinet and marched back to his own room. He didn’t bother to knock, just stalked inside, almost slamming the door behind him. If Dex was still sitting there, smirking—

  Dex wasn’t sitting, he was standing. He was smirking, though.

  Octavius narrowed his eyes at him. “What did you do?”

  “Emptied it out the window.”

  “You what?” Octavius crossed the room quickly and opened the window. The wall below was cloaked in ivy, from which the faint scent of urine wafted up. He slammed the window shut. “God damn it, Dex. They’ll think I pissed out the window!”

  Dex shrugged, unconcerned. “Don’t tell me it’s something you’ve never done.”

  Octavius couldn’t tell him that, so he scowled at his cousin.

  “What?” Dex said, lifting his eyebrows and spreading his hands. “No gratitude? I’d have thought you’d be pleased. I even dried it for you.”

  “What with?” Octavius asked suspiciously. “I swear to God, Dex, if you used my towel I’ll strangle you with it.”

  “I used your dirty neckcloth.” Dex gestured at the fireplace. A neckcloth lay smoldering amid the coals.

  Octavius tried to feel outraged that one of his neckcloths had been sacrificed, but all he could feel was relief that the problem had been dealt with. He remembered that he hadn’t locked the bedroom door and hastily rectified that error, then turned back to his cousin. “Thank you,” he said grudgingly. “That was a good idea.”

  “Well, I am the smartest of us all,” Dex said.

  Octavius snorted, and unpinned the mobcap. “No, Sextus is.”

  Dex ignored him. “And the best-looking.”

  “That’s Sextus, too,” Octavius said, unfastening his apron. “But you’re the most degenerate of us, I’ll give you that.”

  Dex wasn’t offended; he smiled smugly, and then he helped Octavius out of his dress. “Did you find Rumpole?”

  “No.” Octavius stripped off the chemise and changed shape. Magic flowed like pins-and-needles through his bones and over his skin. “Bastard must have gone to bed early. Damn it. I really felt like teaching him a lesson tonight.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” Dex said, tossing him his nightshirt. “I think we’re going to have to use magic.”

  “I have been using magic,” Octavius said, hauling the nightshirt over his head. “What do you think this has all been about?” He gestured at the pile of maid’s clothing.

  “I think it’s going to take both of us.”

  “How?”

  “Fear of God,” Dex said, and gave a little wiggle of his fingers.

  Octavius’s feet lifted off the floor. He grabbed at the air in a vain attempt to stop himself rising. “Dex!” he hissed. “Put me down!”

  Dex ignored him.

  Octavius rose higher, drifting upwards as if he were weightless. He warded himself off from the ceiling with his hands. “Put me down!” he whisper-shouted at his cousin.

  Dex ignored him. He picked up the maid’s dress and folded it, whistling a jaunty tune under his breath.

  Octavius growled at him.

  Dex continued to ignore him. He folded the maid’s petticoat, and then the maid’s chemise, still whistling.

  Octavius tried to swim to the window so that he could pull himself down using the curtains, but he couldn’t move from where he was—couldn’t descend to the floor, couldn’t make his way to the door or the window or the four-poster bed, couldn’t do anything but bob there helplessly. “Damn it, Dex, put me down. I’m not in the mood for this.”

  Dex rolled up the maid’s stockings. “How does it make you feel?”

  “It makes me want to rip your head off your shoulders,” Octavius snarled.

  “Only because you know it’s me doing it. If you didn’t know that, how would you feel?”

  Octavius stopped trying to fight Dex’s magic. How would he feel if he didn’t know his cousin was doing this?

  “Terrified,” he admitted. “Panic-stricken.”

  “Fear of God,” Dex said, and placed the rolled-up stockings alongside the neat pile of clothes.

  Octavius floated, his hair brushing the ceiling. “So . . . you’re saying you’re willing to hold Rumpole over a pit of flames?”

  “No pits of flames,” Dex said, firmly. “And no bodies of water, either. Even if you’re not afraid of Grandfather, I am.”

  Octavius wasn’t afraid of his grandfather, but he didn’t want to disappoint the old man, or worse, incur his wrath.

  “We can scare the innards out of Rumpole without pits of fire.” Dex settled himself in the armchair again, crossed his legs, and gazed up at Octavius. “Doesn’t matter where he is; if I do this, he’ll be frightened.”

  “But it’s not going to stop him from preying on women.”

  “No, it’s not. That part’s up to you.”

  Octavius crossed his arms and frowned down at him. “How?”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it? It’s a damned shame you can’t take the shape of a mythological creature. If you could be Medusa and tell the baron you’ll turn his balls to stone if he so much as looks at a woman again—now that would scare him.”

  Octavius chewed on this thought for a moment. “I could be someone really big, like the giants one sees at fairs, or . . .” He frowned. “But it would be better if I were female. More fitting.”

  Dex shrugged.

  “Joan of Arc?” Octavius said doubtfully. “Boadicea?”

  “There are lots of females you could be.” Dex swung one foot idly. “Question is, are any of them sufficiently frightening? Would they scare Rumpole enough?”

  A gorgon would scare the baron enough. So would a gryphon. But he couldn’t become creatures that didn’t actually exist in the real world—that had been the rule laid down by his Faerie godmother.

  “I need to think about it,” Octavius said. “Put me down.”

  Dex cocked an eyebrow at him.
<
br />   Octavius gritted his teeth and then said, “Please put me down.”

  Dex gave that irritating smirk of his and lowered Octavius to the floor.

  “Thank you,” Octavius said, grudgingly.

  Dex stood and stretched and strolled across to the door. “’Night, Otto.”

  Octavius didn’t reply. He was thinking. What female would scare Rumpole enough?

  Chapter Sixteen

  Pip woke even earlier than she normally did. She stood at her window and watched as a hundred shades of gray gave way to the creeping colors of dawn. Sunlight tiptoed across the broad lawns, gilding the grass tips, and as the colors grew brighter so did her eagerness, until she was more eager for this particular day than she’d ever been for any other day in her life—eager to see Lord Octavius again, eager to hear his voice, to exchange smiles with him, walk with him, talk with him.

  Today was a Sunday, a day for quietness and contemplation. Definitely not a day for kissing people one wasn’t married to, but it might be a day for proposals, so Pip paid extra attention to her appearance, braiding her hair before pinning it up in an intricate knot, and choosing to wear not her second-best gown, but her very best.

  St. Mary’s Church, with its short Norman tower, was the church where the Reverend Gilbert White had once been curate. Pip didn’t know what kind of preacher White had been, but she suspected he’d been an enthusiastic one. The present incumbent was not. Last week, she’d been disappointed, and worse, bored. She’d struggled not to yawn, struggled to appear alert and interested and to set a good example to the girls.

  The baron hadn’t bothered to set a good example; he’d simply fallen asleep, his chin pillowed in the stiff folds of his neckcloth. Even in sleep he’d looked dour and dissatisfied. Gravity hadn’t been kind to his face, accentuating the petulant set of his mouth.

  Today’s sermon was as long-winded and hackneyed as last week’s had been, but Pip couldn’t find it in herself to be disappointed. Happiness hummed in her veins. The curate’s voice was a dry, dusty monotone, the baron had gone to sleep, the congregation was bored and restless, but Lord Octavius was seated at the other end of the pew, and that was all that mattered. She couldn’t see him unless she turned her head, but she knew he was there.

  Lord Octavius Pryor, with his smiling eyes and his too-attractive grin and his honorable intentions.

  Sunlight filtered through the stained-glass windows, bathing the church in jewel-like colors—ruby and sapphire and emerald. Dust motes spun in the air like tiny flecks of gold, and it seemed to Pip that the little church was basking in a glow of sunshine and joy. The curate droned on, Baron Rumpole snored, the congregation fidgeted, and Pip’s heart had never beaten so joyfully. She tapped her hymn book three times with a fingertip, not for good luck, but because she was so happy that it was impossible not to. Once—twice—thrice, all is well in the world.

  After church, the baron returned to Rumpole Hall by carriage. Everyone else elected to walk the mile and a half. Pip’s steps fell in time with Lord Octavius’s without any conscious effort on her part. It happened quite naturally, as it had up on the sheep-down yesterday, and she wondered if it had been that way from the moment they’d first met and she just hadn’t noticed.

  Newingham and Mr. Pryor were engaged in a lively debate about the merits of a three-horse unicorn hitch, but she and Lord Octavius didn’t talk. There was no need to. It was enough to simply walk side by side, exchanging smiling glances, while the girls gathered wildflowers and Newingham and Pryor argued about horse teams. The things she wanted to say to Lord Octavius—the things she wanted him to say to her—were too personal, too private, for a busy country lane.

  When they reached the gates to Rumpole Hall, Lord Octavius paused and said, “I’d very much like to speak with you alone this afternoon. Will that be possible?”

  Pip’s heart felt as if it had grown tiny wings and was performing pirouettes in her chest. Yes, she wanted to say. Yes, yes, absolutely yes!

  “Probably not,” she admitted reluctantly. “The girls spend Sunday afternoons in the schoolroom.”

  His eyebrows quirked. “They do?”

  “They write to their brother and work on the gifts they’re making for his birthday. I could tell them we’re doing something else, but . . .”

  “But after what they told us yesterday, you’d rather they spent the time on their brother, because he deserves it.”

  “Yes,” Pip said, relieved that he understood. “That’s it, exactly.”

  Lord Octavius eyed her for a moment, and then smiled. “I was right. You are the perfect governess.”

  Pip felt herself flush. “Truly, I’m not.”

  “I beg to differ.”

  The warmth in his gaze—the approbation—brought even more heat to Pip’s cheeks. She ducked her head and resumed walking, but an absurd little smile tugged at her mouth.

  Lord Octavius fell into step beside her, past the carved stone gateposts and along the driveway. The girls had abandoned their flower-gathering, but Newingham and Mr. Pryor were still discussing horse teams.

  Pip felt as if she was floating rather than walking, her feet not quite touching the ground, but her feet clearly were touching the ground because she heard the sound of gravel beneath her shoes.

  The heat in her cheeks faded, but warmth lingered in her chest. The little smile lingered, too, plucking at her lips.

  Lord Octavius wanted to speak with her privately.

  He couldn’t this afternoon, but somehow that didn’t matter. What mattered was that he wanted to, and that, at some time in the future—perhaps tonight, perhaps tomorrow—he would speak to her alone.

  And when he did, she knew he was going to ask her to marry him.

  After luncheon, Pip set out writing paper and ink in the schoolroom and helped the girls to trim their quills. The room seemed ridiculously empty without the three men in it. How could someone’s absence resonate so profoundly in a room? Particularly someone who’d been a stranger only a few days ago?

  But it wasn’t merely Lord Octavius whom she missed, it was Mr. Pryor, with his swagger and his smirk, and Lord Newingham with his unfailing cheerfulness.

  If the girls missed their uncle, they didn’t mention it. They were arguing about their letters.

  “I’m going to tell Archie about the dole,” Edie announced.

  “But I want to—”

  “You may both tell him about it,” Pip said firmly. “But why don’t you tell him about your uncle’s visit first? Start with—”

  “The kites!”

  “Yes, the kites. And the tree-climbing and the creek, and then the dole.”

  Both girls settled down to write.

  Pip decided to write a letter, too, to herself, as a way of ordering her thoughts and making sense of this strange upheaval in her life, this wholly unexpected act of falling in love. She laid out a sheet of paper, dipped her quill in ink, and wrote a burst of sentences. I’m in love, was the first one, at the very top of the page, and then, underneath that: He’s not at all the sort of man I thought I’d fall in love with. The exact opposite, in fact. But it feels so right that I can’t doubt it.

  Underneath that: He’s asked to speak alone with me, and I know that when he does he’s going to make an offer of marriage, because he told me his intentions are honorable.

  And under that: I’m going to accept.

  I can’t even begin to imagine how completely my life will change. I’ll no longer be a governess; I’ll be a—

  Pip stopped writing. She looked across at Edie and Fanny, their heads bent over their letters, their fingertips already inky, eager and earnest and desperately in need of encouragement and love.

  Pip looked down at what she’d written. I’ll no longer be a governess.

  She’d no longer be Edie and Fanny’s governess.

  She wouldn’t be able to teach them confidence in themselves, or shelter them from their father’s disapproval, or show them that they were worth somet
hing, that their thoughts and opinions were valued, that they were loved.

  Slowly, she wrote: I can’t leave them. Not yet. Can I?

  Pip stared at those words until the ink dried on her quill, then she dipped it in the inkpot again and wrote: I need to find someone who will care for them as much as I do. Someone who will be safe in this household.

  A stout, homely, middle-aged governess would be just the person. A governess who would mother the girls and whom Rumpole wouldn’t look twice at. Although heaven only knew how Pip would find such a person, or how long it would take. Could she ask Lord Octavius for assistance? Would he be willing to help, or annoyed at her for laying such a task at his feet?

  If I ask him to wait until I’ve found a suitable governess for the girls, will he be angry with me? Pip wrote.

  I think that will be the test. The test of everything.

  Because if Lord Octavius lost his temper, if he refused to wait, if he placed his own well-being ahead of Edie’s and Fanny’s, then he wasn’t the man she wanted to marry.

  But I think he’ll wait, Pip wrote. I hope he will. He wasn’t angry this afternoon when I couldn’t speak privately with—

  A light knock sounded on the schoolroom door. “May I come in?” Viscount Newingham asked.

  “Of course,” Pip said. She folded her sheet of paper and slid it into the top drawer of her desk.

  Newingham advanced into the room, smiling. “Lord Octavius told me the girls are writing to their brother. I thought I’d join them. Write my own letter. Tell him about starting a dole in my sister’s name, ask him to walk the land with us.”

  “Oh, yes, do!” Edie cried eagerly. “Sit between us, Uncle Robert!” She hurried to pull up another chair.

  Pip found a quill and more paper and gave them to the viscount. He settled himself between the two girls and glanced at her. “My friends went for a walk in the rose garden. Perhaps you’d like to join them, Miss Toogood?”