Octavius and the Perfect Governess: Pryor Cousins #1

by Emily Larkin

  After that, she learned that kissing a man while both of you were naked was more enjoyable than kissing the same man when you were both clothed. Not twice as enjoyable, not three times, but exponentially more enjoyable. When her naked skin brushed his naked skin it set off scintillas the size of sunbursts.

  Next, Pip learned that she could be kissed in places where she’d never thought she could be kissed, which produced even more sunbursts of pleasure. And then she learned that men could be kissed in places she’d never thought they could be kissed, either.

  She learned how hot Octavius’s skin was and how sleek his muscles were, and that some of his hair was soft and some coarse and springy. She learned that she loved the scent of his skin and the taste of it on her tongue.

  She learned that she particularly liked it when Octavius kissed her in threes, but that there came a point when threes were irrelevant, when it no longer mattered whether he kissed her once or twice or twenty times, because she’d become a carnal creature, not a thinking creature, and threes meant nothing at all.

  She learned what it felt like to have a man’s appendage inside her for the very first time, that it stung as if it had bitten her. And after the sting had faded she learned how powerful instincts were, because she’d never had sexual congress before and yet her body knew exactly what to do.

  As the clock was striking midnight, Pip learned what physical ecstasy was—not just one sunburst, but a whole host of them exploding one after another inside her.

  “Was it all right?” Octavius asked afterwards. Pip couldn’t see his face, because the candle had long since burned down, but she thought he sounded a little worried.

  “Yes,” she said. “It was good.”

  “A little bit good or—”

  “Very good,” Pip said.

  “Truly?”

  “Truly.”

  She felt him relax alongside her in the bed. “I’m glad,” he said. “I was afraid it wouldn’t be, because I think . . . it might be better for men than for women.”

  “Impossible,” Pip said.

  Octavius uttered a soft laugh. He gathered her in his arms and pulled the covers up around their shoulders. “Comfortable?”

  “Yes.” She was comfortable and content and tired in a way she’d never been before. And safe. So safe in his arms.

  The last thing Pip learned that night, as she lay in the warm, quiet darkness, was just how wonderful it was to fall asleep while being held by the man she loved, what an incredibly intimate experience it was to hear his breathing slow and to feel his body relax fully.

  Even though he was asleep, she still felt safe in his arms. And oddly, she also felt stronger, as if Octavius had given her some of his own strength.

  I hope I do the same for him, she thought. I hope I make him feel stronger, too.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Octavius woke before his wife. What a wonderful word that was: wife. His wife.

  The bedchamber was still dark, but his inner clock had always been fairly accurate. When he crept out of bed and lit a candle, he saw that he’d woken almost exactly when he’d wanted to.

  He tiptoed into the dressing room and did his ablutions, then donned his clothes hastily, not bothering with such things as waistcoat and neckcloth. His wife stirred while he was laying out clothes for her on the bed. “Octavius?” She sat up and rubbed her face. “What are you doing?”

  “You’re awake. Excellent. Come on, there’s not much time.”

  “Not much time for what?”

  “I have a surprise. Go wash your face. I’ll help you to dress.”

  Pip disappeared into the dressing room. A few minutes later, she emerged, face scrubbed, hair pinned up.

  Octavius handed her the chemise, and after that, a gown.

  “My stays—”

  “No need for stays,” he said. “Or petticoats. Not where we’re going.”

  Stockings came next, and then shoes. Octavius wrapped a shawl around Pip’s shoulders, captured her hand, and drew her towards the door.

  “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see.”

  They tiptoed hastily along the quiet corridors, hand in hand, and exited through a side door. They crossed the dewy lawn. Octavius lengthened his stride until they were almost running.

  It was no longer fully night. Predawn was lightening the sky. There was no color in the world yet, though. The bluebell dell was a place of dark shadows. The Bird’s Nest folly loomed tall on the rising ground.

  They climbed the stairs, puffing and panting, and burst breathlessly into the round room at the top. One of the daybeds faced east. “Just in time,” Octavius said, flinging himself down on the cushions and pulling his wife onto his lap.

  By the time he’d caught his breath, colors had started to tint the sky.

  First came the palest of lemon yellows creeping up from the horizon, then streaks of orange on the lowest scattering of clouds, then pink on the clouds above those. The colors grew richer, stronger, more vivid, the orange like flame, the pink a brilliant magenta.

  Octavius felt something akin to awe as he watched the colors change. He might be able to do magic, but this was magic, too, this sky with its glorious cascade of colors.

  What was it Pip had said, back in Hampshire? That women saw more beauty in the world than men did?

  She’d been correct. He’d seen dozens of dawns in his life, scores of them, but he’d never once noticed how beautiful they were.

  The pink faded away, the orange grew fainter and fainter, the yellow dissolved into nothing.

  “You were right,” Octavius told his wife, once the final colors had disappeared. “Women see more beauty in the world.”

  And women not only saw beauty, they shared it. Pip had shared dawns with him, a gift that he’d have with him for the rest of his life—and that was something else that women did better than men: they enriched the lives of those around them.

  Octavius struggled to find the words to express this sudden epiphany. “Pip? Do you think . . .”

  Pip shifted in his embrace, until she could see his face. “Do I think what?”

  “Men thrive because of women,” Octavius said slowly, fumbling his way through his epiphany. “The whole world thrives because of women. You make everything better.”

  His face heated once he’d said it out loud because it sounded so ridiculous, the philosophical waffling of a fool, but Pip didn’t laugh. She smiled at him with such brightness and such warmth that his heart lurched in his chest. “You think we make the world a better place?”

  “Yes.”

  Her smile became even brighter and more joyful. “I’m glad.”

  Octavius tightened his arms around her, while he had yet another epiphany. It was easier to bare one’s soul to a woman than to a man, easier to be vulnerable, and that ease was both freeing and empowering.

  Women truly did make the world a better place.

  He hugged his wife tightly and rested his chin on her soft hair and knew that this was the best morning of his life.

  He hoped it was the best morning of Pip’s life, too. This sunrise. This start to their marriage.

  The sky was blue now and the scattered clouds were white and all around them was green. Green treetops, green hills, green hedgerows, green pastures. A hundred different shades of green—and that was another beauty he’d never noticed before, that there were so many greens in the world.

  Octavius’s stomach gave a rumble that he felt rather than heard, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten anything since last night. “There’s a breakfast,” he said. “On that table over there. I had the servants lay it out for us last night. Pastries and fruit. Something to drink.” He stroked her waist while he spoke, and as he stroked he remembered that Pip was wearing no stays. He could feel her natural curves.

  He stroked again, from hip to waist to breast, a gentle caress.

  Pip hummed beneath her breath.

  “You like that?”

  “Mm
m,” she murmured.

  Octavius forgot all about breakfast. Instead, he bent his attention to making this best morning even better.

  Afterwards

  Pip spent the first week of her married life interviewing governesses. She interviewed tall governesses and short ones, young governesses and old ones, blonde governesses and brunettes, a redhead, and two governesses with gray hair. She asked them all the same two questions. “Which of these qualities is, in your opinion, the single most important one for girls to acquire?”

  The latest candidate, a Miss Bollingbroke, was short, young, plump, and brown-haired. She had a lot of freckles and a pair of spectacles. She pushed the spectacles up her nose while she looked at the list Pip had given her.

  Docility

  Obedience

  Confidence

  Modesty

  Deference

  Humility

  Miss Bollingbroke frowned as she read her way down the list, and then glanced at Pip. “The most important quality?”

  “Yes.”

  “Confidence,” Miss Bollingbroke said, and gave the list back to Pip.

  Pip pursed her lips and made a mark on her paper, then she passed another list to Miss Bollingbroke. “Of these subjects, which would you teach girls and which would you not?”

  Spelling

  Arithmetic

  French

  Geography

  Climbing trees

  Pianoforte

  Painting

  Botany

  Paddling in creeks

  Deportment

  Elocution

  Embroidery

  Flying kites

  Miss Bollingbroke read her way down the list. “All of them,” she said, and gave the list back.

  “All of them?” Pip said, dubiously. “Even climbing trees?”

  “Of course. They’re children, are they not?”

  Pip made another mark on her paper, and then sat back and studied Miss Bollingbroke. Unless she was mistaken, she’d just found the perfect governess. “You’re hired, Miss Bollingbroke.”

  They talked about the girls for the next hour, about how confidence was the most important thing they needed to learn and that climbing trees, flying kites, and paddling in creeks were essential parts of their curriculum. Then Miss Bollingbroke departed, to be driven the twenty miles to Newingham’s estate in one of the duke’s liveried coaches.

  Pip tidied up her notes—the list of qualities, the list of subjects, the list of candidates’ names with fourteen names crossed out and one, Miss Bollingbroke’s, with two stars alongside it.

  A knock came on the parlor door. A maid peeked in. “Are you finished?”

  Pip put her lists to one side. “Are you?”

  The maid nodded. She was a very pretty maid, with curling blonde hair, large blue eyes, and a buxom figure.

  Pip pushed back her chair and left the parlor. Together she and the maid climbed the stairs to the bedchamber she shared with Octavius. Once inside, Pip locked the door. “No pinches?”

  “Not a single one,” the maid said, turning her back so that Pip could unfasten her dress. “No kisses either, or lewd comments. Nothing.”

  “That’s good,” Pip said. “We can cross Linwood Castle off the list.”

  The maid shucked her gown and petticoat and stood still while Pip undid the laces on her stays. “Thank heavens,” she said, once she was liberated from that garment. “I hate stays. Dashed uncomfortable.”

  “Neckcloths look uncomfortable,” Pip said.

  The maid removed her chemise. “They are, but not as uncomfortable as stays.”

  Pip, who’d never worn a neckcloth, couldn’t argue this point.

  The maid transformed into Octavius. “Ah,” he said on a sigh and closed his eyes. “So much better.”

  Pip held out his drawers. “Where to next?”

  Octavius opened his eyes. “Gloucestershire, then down to Somerset,” he said, not taking the drawers. “Then Dorset, then Surrey, then Kent.” He huffed out a breath that was half laugh, half sigh. “My family owns too many estates.”

  Pip didn’t disagree. She’d been rather daunted by the list of properties when she’d first seen it. Not daunted by the work that lay ahead of them, but daunted by the Pryor family’s wealth.

  “What would you like to do now?” she asked, still holding out the drawers. “Shall we go for a walk?”

  “We could,” Octavius said, making no move to take the drawers. “Or . . .” He caught her other hand and pressed three kisses to her palm. “We could do something else.”

  “But it’s the middle of the afternoon,” Pip protested.

  “So?”

  There was no rule that said they couldn’t make love in the afternoon, was there? “Or perhaps we could do both?” Pip suggested, rather breathlessly.

  “We could do both,” Octavius agreed.

  Pip dropped his drawers on the floor and let him lead her to the bed, where he kissed her a great deal more than three times.

  Thank you for reading Octavius and the Perfect Governess. I hope you enjoyed Octavius and Pip’s story!

  The Pryor Cousins series runs concurrently with the Garland Cousins series. The first Garland novel, Primrose and the Dreadful Duke, tells the story of a duke with a dreadful sense of humor, a bookish spinster . . . and a murderer.

  “From the first page the reader is plunged into a world of romance, suspense, and laughter.” ~Goodreads reviewer

  “I read it in one sitting. I also rolled my eyes and laughed until I snorted in an unladylike manner.” ~Goodreads reviewer

  Read Primrose and the Dreadful Duke today!

  Get the Baleful Godmother starter library when you join my Readers’ Group.

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  Click the link to get free copies of Unmasking Miss Appleby and The Fey Quartet.

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  www.emilylarkin.com/starter-library

  Praise for Unmasking Miss Appleby:

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  “Sexy, unusual, and vastly entertaining. The best historical romance I’ve read this year.”

  ~ Anna Campbell, author of the Dashing Widows series

  Praise for The Fey Quartet:

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  “Hans Christian Andersen for twenty-first century adults.”

  ~ Mindy Klasky, USA TODAY bestselling author

  Author’s Note

  The Tichborne Dole really did exist. In the 12th century, an ailing Lady Tichborne crawled around 23 acres so that the produce from that land would be given to the poor. To ensure that her miserly husband kept his word, she also laid the following curse: if the dole were ever to be stopped, the Tichborne family would bear seven sons and those sons would bear seven daughters, resulting in the family’s name dying out. The dole was stopped during the Georgian era and seven sons were born, the eldest of whom had seven daughters. At that point, the dole was resumed for fear that the curse was coming to fruition.

  Alas, droit de seigneur was alive and well in England for many centuries. (The diaries of Samuel Pepys make for horrifying reading. Pepys was a member of parliament and Chief Secretary to the Admiralty—and a man who routinely forced himself on his maidservants.)

  In Regency times, the Crown covered the cost of trials for treason, murder, counterfeiting, and malfeasance of public office. For everything else, the victim was required to foot the bill. Costs included hiring the investigators, paying the lawyers, and covering the expenses of any witnesses. This meant that justice through the courts was well beyond the reach of most people. However, poor women occasionally were able to obtain justice. (See the case of Harriet Halliday in 1811, if you’re interested. A local surgeon came to her rescue and successfully financed the prosecution against her attacker.)

  And to end on a literary note, The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne, by the Reverend Gilbert White, was published in 1789 and has been in print ever since. In the words of one Regency reviewer, “a more delightful or more original work than Mr. White’s
History of Selborne has seldom been published.”

  Reverend White preferred to observe live creatures in their natural habitat, rather than to study dead specimens. Many people consider him to be England’s first ecologist.

  I’ll leave you with a quote from him:

  “I was much entertained last summer with a tame bat, which would take flies out of a person’s hand … insects seemed to be most acceptable, though it did not refuse raw flesh when offered; so the notion that bats go down chimneys and gnaw on men’s bacon seems no improbable story.”

  Thank You

  Thanks for reading Octavius and the Perfect Governess. I hope you enjoyed it!

  If you’d like to be notified whenever I release a new book, please join my Readers’ Group.

  I welcome all honest reviews. Reviews and word of mouth help other readers to find books, so please consider taking a few moments to leave a review at your e-bookstore or on Goodreads.

  Octavius and the Perfect Governess is part of the Baleful Godmother series. The first Baleful Godmother novel, Unmasking Miss Appleby, and the series prequel, The Fey Quartet and are available for free when you join my Readers’ Group. Here’s the link: www.emilylarkin.com/newsletter.

  The Pryor Cousins series runs concurrently with the Garland Cousins series. The first Garland novel, Primrose and the Dreadful Duke, tells the story of a duke with a dreadful sense of humor, a bookish spinster, and a murderer.

  If you’d like to read the first two chapters of Primrose and the Dreadful Duke, please turn the page.

  Primrose and the Dreadful Duke

  Chapter One