The Governess Gambit

by Erica Ridley

  Would Lanbrooke be different? What would he say when he saw her?

  Of course he would be different. Wasn’t he different from his father in all other aspects? The real question was whether Chloe would have an opportunity to meet him.

  Perhaps the duke would exchange the painting for the vase and that would be that. Perhaps the duke would order his butler to make the exchange, or his footman, or a maid, and neither man of the house would put in an appearance on the doorstep.

  Perhaps—

  She frowned and touched the window. Bean was walking back to the carriage. Alone. Empty-handed.

  Something had gone wrong.

  “What is it?” she blurted out when he stiffly hoisted himself back into the coach.

  “The Duke of Faircliffe is a craven knave,” Bean replied. “No Wynchesters are to be allowed past the threshold.”

  “You’re not just a Wynchester,” she stammered. “You’re Baron Vanderbean!”

  It was more than that. Bean never returned empty-handed.

  Bean leaned his head against the back of the carriage. “Faircliffe’s leg is on the mend, but his internal injuries are more dire than first thought.”

  “The butler told you that?”

  “Lanbrooke did.” Bean rubbed his temples. “It was part of his don’t-come-back speech. He says he’s no friend of mine, and once his father is gone, I’ll have no excuse to return, so I should do us both a favor and stay away.”

  “What did he say about the painting?”

  “He didn’t. He shut the door and it would not reopen.”

  Chloe frowned. Bean always knew exactly what to say to cajole and convince. Perhaps he hadn’t pressed because of the accident. “Lanbrooke is preoccupied with his father. If anything ever happened to you, I wouldn’t be the least bit rational. We can give him a little time.”

  “We’ve no papers of provenance, or we could go to the magistrate. Not that they would take any action against a duke.” Bean slammed his hand on the seat. “I gave Faircliffe my money and he gave us the painting. It seemed simple. At the time, I didn’t care any more than that. After all, we were never going to sell it.”

  Chloe stared at him in dawning horror. “And now we have no proof that it was ever ours.”

  “His word against mine,” Bean agreed. “And soon, not even that.”

  She curled her fingers into fists. “What can we do?”

  “What we always do,” he answered. “Create a plan and execute it.”

  Chapter 5

  “Miss Chloe? A letter came for you.”

  Chloe turned from the blank spot on the wall where Puck & Family used to be. Their footman, Norbert, stood in the doorway holding a square of parchment.

  She strode across the Planning Parlor and unfolded the missive.

  * * *

  SHE’S HERE.

  Blond. Pink. Painted fan.

  * * *

  Chloe glanced up at Norbert, startled. “Is this from Mrs. Pine?”

  “Yes. Her boy is below.”

  “Please ask the lad to wait,” she told Norbert. “I’ll drive him back in the coach.”

  She dashed to her bedchamber to toss a handful of her new calling cards into a small basket. After pulling on a bonnet and pelisse, she clambered down the steps to the front door.

  Bean was already there, handing the boy a shilling in exchange for his secrecy.

  He straightened, holding onto his back with one hand. “What’s happened?”

  “Miss Spranklin is at the orphanage. No doubt hunting a replacement for Dot.”

  Bean’s eyes flashed. “We have to stop her.”

  “Mrs. Pine isn’t the only person who works at the orphanage, but she won’t sign over any children,” Chloe said. “She’ll delay any transactions as long as possible. I can do this part, if you’d like to rest.”

  “I told you,” he replied. “I’ll rest when they’re all safe.”

  The coach-and-four pulled up to the door.

  “Come along then,” Bean said to the wide-eyed boy, motioning him up and into the carriage.

  “What’s your name?” Chloe asked.

  “Henry,” answered the boy.

  “I’m very pleased to meet you, Henry,” she replied. “You did an excellent job of bringing me that letter.”

  The boy puffed up his chest.

  “Do you want to look out of the window?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  Chloe gave the boy the seat with the best view and arranged herself on the side facing traffic.

  “When we get there,” she said, “you follow Henry.”

  Bean frowned. “Where will you go?”

  “It’s not where I’ll go, but who I’ll be.” She held up a calling card. “This is my opportunity to introduce ‘Jane Brown’ to Miss Spranklin. It’s so much better than turning up on her doorstep. Our meeting will seem completely unplanned. And if I—” Chloe’s throat closed.

  Bean leaned forward. “What is it?”

  “A funeral.” She touched the window. “Lanbrooke is in a procession to the cemetery to bury his father.”

  “Not ‘Lanbrooke’ anymore,” Bean said quietly. “He’s the new Duke of Faircliffe.”

  Faircliffe.

  She wondered how long it would take her to remember to call the statesman by his new name. She wondered how long it would take him to remember to answer to it.

  Poor Lan—er, poor Faircliffe.

  What an utter nightmare. Chloe would not be surprised if he took some time off from Parliament. She would also not be surprised if he threw himself into his work with even more fervor.

  Anything to keep the grief at bay.

  “Don’t you dare die,” she told Bean, her stomach rebelling against the horrific thought.

  “We all die,” Bean replied, “but I can promise not to take any undue risks. I’ve no desire to leave you children a single second earlier than I must.”

  “Look,” said Henry. “We’re here.”

  The carriage pulled to a stop at the corner.

  “Let me go first.” Chloe hopped down to the pavement. “Wait until I’m inside before you follow.”

  Bean nodded. “I’ll teach Henry your magic trick with his new shilling to pass the time.”

  Henry’s eyes widened. “Real magic?”

  Chloe flashed a sovereign through her fingers and snapped to make it disappear.

  Henry’s mouth fell open.

  She grinned as she crossed the street to the orphanage. If she guessed right, Henry would practice that trick until he could tilt a coin over and through his fingers with his eyes closed.

  When she was perhaps forty yards from the orphanage’s front door, an angry-looking woman stalked out wearing a light-pink day dress with dark pink trim, a matching pink spencer, and large bonnet covered in pink silk flowers. The painted fan in her hand beat warm air toward her face, causing her profusion of blond ringlets to bounce in protest.

  Miss Spranklin.

  It had to be.

  Thank goodness she wasn’t towing a child behind her. Chloe hurried to catch up.

  “Miss Spranklin?” she called out in an upper-class accent. She infused her voice with merriment. “Why, it is you!”

  The woman paused to look at Chloe, a slight frown flitting across her brow.

  It was the expression Chloe’s presence always engendered. The vague confidence of having seen a face like hers somewhere before, coupled with a complete inability to produce the name of the person it belonged to.

  “Miss Brown,” Chloe supplied, then gave a self-deprecating chuckle. “Oh, of course you don’t recall my name. I didn’t have my cards with me last time, did I?” She made a show of opening her basket and pulling out one of her cards. “Here you are, just as I promised.”

  Miss Spranklin accepted the card. “‘Jane Brown, Governess.’ Of course. I remember now.”

  Whether she was lying to Chloe or to herself was impossible to guess.

  Either way,
Chloe beamed at her and barreled on, a tornado of bubbly good cheer.

  “As you may recall, I tire of being a governess. I want to be a businesswoman like you! I can barely concentrate from thinking about the empire you’ve made and the inspiration you are.”

  Miss Spranklin straightened at this bit of flattery.

  “Please say you’ll be my mentor and advise me on how best to begin a school of my own. Or—” Chloe gasped and clapped her hands together as if the most wonderful idea had occurred to her. “Let me learn from you. May I? I could be any kind of assistant you desire. I’ve the skills of a governess, and I’m not too proud to manage accounts and correspondence or perform any other tasks that need completed. Under your tutelage, I just know I’ll learn everything there is to know. There’s no one I admire more.”

  That was laying it on a bit thick, but Miss Spranklin had begun to preen more and more with every word.

  “I’m in a rush at the moment,” Miss Spranklin said, “but if you can pay a call to the school tomorrow afternoon at five, I can spare half an hour in which to give you a proper interview.”

  The post was as good as Chloe’s.

  She clasped her hands to her chest. “Oh, thank you! You’ve already been even more marvelous than I dared to dream.”

  Miss Spranklin’s eyes glittered. “I assume you can bring references with you?”

  “Of course,” Chloe gushed. “It would be such an honor to learn from you. I can hardly credit my good fortune. I will be there at five and not a single second late, references in hand. I swear it.”

  “See that you are,” Miss Spranklin said briskly, then turned and strode across the street with a much jauntier gait than when she’d exited the orphanage. She flagged a hackney and was gone with no further delay.

  “Good show,” said Bean as he and Henry crossed the street to Chloe. “I presume you secured the interview?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon,” she said with a satisfied smile.

  “Watch!” cried Henry.

  The shilling managed to tumble across two of his knuckles before slipping through his fingers and falling to the ground.

  “Be careful.” Chloe scooped it up from the ground and handed it back to him. “That’s a magic coin.”

  “It doesn’t seem magic. Every time I—” He stared at the coin in his palm. “It’s not a shilling anymore! It’s a sovereign! It is magic!”

  Chloe exchanged a grin with Bean before ushering Henry in through the orphanage door. After presenting their cards to the man guarding the door, she hurried in the opposite direction of the wards toward Mrs. Pine’s small office.

  The door was closed.

  Upon hearing the knock, Mrs. Pine opened the door a crack, then wrenched it open wide.

  Dot was seated on the floor in the corner with her arms wrapped about her knees.

  “Did you see her?” Mrs. Pine whispered. “Abhorrent woman!”

  “I’ll find out the extent of it tomorrow,” Chloe assured her. “She’s allowing me an interview. What did she want here?”

  “Nothing that she got!” Mrs. Pine said with a huff. “I caught her wandering the wards without accompaniment, searching for the clever ones just like she did before. This time, I didn’t stand for it. I said I knew what she was up to, and told her to keep her grasping hands away from my children!”

  No wonder Miss Spranklin had looked incensed.

  “What did she say to that?” Chloe asked.

  “She smiled a crocodile smile and said, ‘Prove it.’” Mrs. Pine’s lip curled. “How that woman raises my hackles... She won’t be back here, but there are plenty of orphanages to fish from.”

  “We’ll shut her school down,” Chloe assured her. “Even if she takes another child in the next week, we shan’t leave any behind.”

  “How?” Mrs. Pine said bleakly. “She’s right. We have no proof of wrongdoing, and she can always open another school somewhere else.”

  “We’ll find a way. Evidence is everywhere, if you know where to look. The trouble is knowing where to look. May I have the contract you signed for Agnes?”

  “Of course.” Mrs. Pine rummaged for a moment then produced a document. “What will it prove?”

  “Nothing yet,” Chloe admitted. “But it will give us a point of comparison to the contracts signed by the parents whose children are receiving a proper education.” She sank to the floor next to Dot. “Does any other adult work with Miss Spranklin? Anyone at all?”

  Dot shook her head.

  “Argh,” said Mrs. Pine. “There’s no one we can turn against her!”

  “No,” Chloe said calmly. “This is good news. Without an assistant or secretary, Miss Spranklin must deal with administrative tasks herself. Whatever written accounts exist are still there inside the school. And where there’s paper...” She snapped her fingers and produced the calling card she’d nicked from Miss Spranklin’s reticule. “...I can steal it.”

  Mrs. Pine covered Dot’s ears. “You can steal her ledgers?”

  Chloe nodded. “Once I know where to find them.”

  “I can still hear you,” Dot sang out.

  “Good.” Chloe waved Mrs. Pine’s hands away from Dot’s ears. “Does Miss Spranklin have an office?”

  Dot nodded. “It’s locked all of the time, even when she’s in it.”

  Mrs. Pine looked disappointed.

  Chloe was thrilled.

  “Perfect.” She ruffled Dot’s hair. “Now we know exactly where to find our evidence. All I have to do is gain access to the office.”

  “Weren’t you listening?” said Mrs. Pine. “The papers are kept under lock and key.”

  “Pah,” said Chloe. “A locked door has never stopped a Wynchester.”

  Chapter 6

  “I’m fine,” Bean insisted. “Or I will be, after I lie down. It may be influenza. You and the others should keep your distance until I recover, so that you don’t catch it.”

  Of course he wouldn’t be his usual self whilst fighting influenza. He didn’t need her hovering; he needed her patience.

  Chloe sighed. “Very well. But if you’re not improved in a few days...”

  “I’ll have a quick rest, and you’ll see the difference,” he promised.

  Troubled, Chloe watched as Bean made his way to his bedchamber with obvious difficulty and closed the door behind him.

  Lie down was not something Bean did.

  Chloe wasn’t certain she had ever seen him ill.

  She’d suffered influenza a few times herself, so she knew from experience how exhausting it could be. And she knew Bean was getting older. He hadn’t been young when he’d rescued her and the others almost twenty years ago. He was old enough to be her grandfather.

  “Chloe!” came a loud voice behind her.

  She turned to see her sister Marjorie fly down the stairs from her third-floor studio with a sheaf of papers in her hand.

  “Six letters of reference,” Marjorie announced with pride. “Each written in a different hand on varying qualities and types of paper.”

  “And if Miss Spranklin writes to these addresses?” Chloe asked as she accepted the small stack.

  Marjorie rolled her eyes. “Let her. All of the directions are to far-flung villages nowhere near a stagecoach route. By the time word comes back, we’ll have completed the mission.”

  “Excellent.” Chloe tucked the letters into a wicker basket. “See that the kitchen sends up tea and hot soup for Bean. Other than sustenance, he has requested no visitors until he recovers from the influenza.”

  Marjorie made a face.

  “I know,” Chloe said. “We all feel the same. Have Graham send for a doctor to be safe. Perhaps the rest of you could stay close, in case Bean needs you?”

  “Of course,” said Marjorie. “Now go. Don’t be late to your interview.”

  Chloe hurried down the stairs and into the waiting coach. The Wynchester mews contained several types of carriages. This was the one that looked like a common hackney. A go
verness in search of employment would not arrive in a fancy coach-and-four.

  She spent the drive memorizing the contents of Marjorie’s letters and inventing histories and anecdotes to go with each. Chloe would be able to answer quickly and easily any question Miss Spranklin might pose about her previous employment.

  None of which turned out to be necessary.

  The entryway to the Seminary for Girls opened on total chaos.

  Miss Spranklin’s voice could be heard through an open doorway, calling for order and instructing her pupils to copy whatever she’d just written on her blackboard.

  A young servant girl—likely an alleged student—was mopping the corridor. Another stick-thin girl bearing a tea tray had just tripped over the bucket, sending foul water and bits of broken china everywhere.

  Several other children abandoned their posts and their studies to investigate the clatter.

  Chloe took charge at once.

  “You,” she commanded one of the girls. “Dry rags, please. You, find a broom. You, pick up the large pieces of china. Perhaps something can be repaired. You, hand me that mop. You, replace the water in this bucket. You and you, back to your studies at once. And you, please stop crying. It is a tea service, not the end of the world.”

  “B-but the tea,” sobbed the miserable girl, “was for Miss Spranklin.”

  “I am certain she is no ogre who would take a simple accident out on an innocent child,” Chloe said firmly.

  The poor thing. Based on the expression of trepidation in the faces of children who had nothing to do with the accident, Chloe believed the opposite was true. But she’d glimpsed Miss Spranklin approaching from the corner of her eye. The woman would not act against such a positive view of her character.

  Not in front of Chloe, anyway.

  The girls scattered, either to do Chloe’s bidding or because they, too, had seen Miss Spranklin approaching.

  “The tea,” said Miss Spranklin with obvious displeasure, “was for our interview. I see the cakes are on the floor. It seems we shall have to do without.”