The Governess Gambit

by Erica Ridley

  Chloe would spare no expense to find a missing child, but Miss Spranklin did not seem the sort to spend a single farthing. England was overflowing with orphans and foundlings. Why did Miss Spranklin care about Dot?

  “I won’t have a child undermine my control,” the headmistress snapped. “Especially a chit who was only here for a month. I shall make an example of her when she returns, and no other girl will dare go against my command.”

  “I see,” Chloe murmured. Of course Miss Spranklin wouldn’t want the children to have hope of one day escaping her control. She liked to keep everyone under her thumb.

  Miss Spranklin’s lip curled. “There’s an old woman at the orphanage whom I don’t trust a bit. Perhaps I ought to send the investigator there. Miss Brown, I need you to take over mathematics and music whilst I plan—”

  “Take over your duties as well? I have no time for that!” Chloe burst out.

  “I’ll increase your gift at Christmastide.”

  There was no Christmastide. There was Bean, erupting in painful pustules at home, waiting for Chloe to bring word of a successful mission, which might have happened if everything didn’t aspire to sap away the precious few moments she had in which to achieve the mission. And now Miss Spranklin wanted Chloe to be even more occupied, whilst the headmistress shuttered herself inside the one and only room that held the key to escaping this hell?

  “I don’t want your money.” To Chloe’s horror, her eyes shimmered and her voice broke. “I have—my father is very ill and—I cannot prepare more coursework than I already—I never know what condition I’ll find him in when I—”

  “I can see you’re of no use to me in your condition,” Miss Spranklin said coldly. “Go home, Miss Brown. Take the rest of the day. I will dock it from your wages. But I expect you back here at a quarter to six tomorrow morning with none of this blubbering. Is that understood?”

  “No—I—”

  “At once, Miss Brown. It is an order. Do not question me again.” Miss Spranklin lifted a brow.

  Chloe had no choice but to nod dutifully, retrieve her now-empty basket, and slink out into the rain to flag down her carriage.

  Should she have stayed? People were counting on her. Everyone was counting on her. Bean, the girls, her siblings. Chloe was letting them all down by falling apart. She had to win out. There was no other possibility. And she had to stop crying before her red eyes gave her away in front of Bean.

  If anything happened to him while Chloe was playing handmaiden to Miss Spranklin...

  As soon as the carriage paused in front of the Wynchester home, Chloe raced upstairs to the sick wing, hoping assure herself Bean was doing fine and was on the mend.

  The doctor blocked her path. He closed the sickroom door behind him and herded her further down the corridor toward the rest of her siblings, well away from Bean’s door.

  “It’s for your own good,” the doctor said gently. “Our patient is very ill and would be deeply upset if any of you were to catch smallpox from him.”

  “I know,” Chloe said in a defeated voice. “I just... miss him.”

  Tommy nodded, her normally animated face pale and splotchy. She was barred from visiting Bean too, until he recovered.

  “When will he be better?” Elizabeth asked, leaning heavily on her cane. The distress of Bean’s illness and not being able to see him must be causing Elizabeth’s chronic pain to intensify.

  For a moment, there was no reply.

  “Miss Elizabeth,” the doctor said gently. “Baron Vanderbean’s fever has worsened. He’s developed lesions on his throat.”

  Chloe’s breath caught.

  “What is he saying?” Tommy swung wild eyes toward Chloe. “What is he saying?”

  “Please do not panic,” said the doctor. “Not yet. I’ll return in the morning.”

  When the doctor’s footsteps faded down the stairs, all six siblings touched their fingertips to the wall where Bean fought for his life on the other side.

  “I promise we’ll save the children,” Chloe said fiercely.

  “And I promise we’ll get our painting back,” Tommy added. “Whatever it takes.”

  “Please get better,” Jacob whispered.

  Chapter 9

  At four o’clock the next morning, Chloe lurked outside the Palace of Westminster. It was the end of June and ostensibly summer, but instead of the bright yellow and pink of dawn, the gloom stretched over the entire city. No, the entire country. The weather was worse day by day, growing colder and hazier and wetter and darker.

  She would not be here at all, except that it was the waning weeks of the House of Lords, making it her last opportunity to intercept the Duke of Faircliffe and beg for the return of the Wynchester family portrait.

  Chloe would not be allowed to enter the sickroom triumphant to show Bean their painting had returned, but she would be the one who brought the heirloom back home.

  Parliament ended anywhere between midnight and the wee hours of the morning. Chloe had been standing here, beneath a sodden umbrella, since eleven o’clock. The carriage was at the corner, with the driver asleep inside. She could have waited there, out of the rain, but she didn’t want to miss her chance to speak to Faircliffe.

  Bean needed their painting to come home where it belonged. If they could hang it in his sickroom, it would give him strength. His beloved sprites would be there on his wall, even if they were barred from his chamber in person. If it was the closest Chloe could come, then she was determined Bean would have it.

  The doors swung open and clumps of expensively tailored lords spilled out of the palace.

  She waited in the shadows until she saw Faircliffe.

  He walked alone.

  This was her moment.

  She rushed forward. “Your Grace! My apologies for the other day at Rotten Row. If you could give me just one moment of your time, my family will very much make it worth your—”

  He stepped around her and continued walking.

  Her mouth fell open.

  Of all the—

  “Who was that chit?” she heard another lord ask him.

  “What?” the duke replied blankly. “Where?”

  That arse!

  He climbed into his waiting carriage without bothering to look behind him.

  Chloe closed her jaw with an audible click and tried to ignore the heat pricking at the back of her eyes.

  She’d been right in front of him. Talking to the blackguard. He’d had to physically move aside in order to brush past her and continue on.

  And she had still left no memory of her presence behind.

  Chloe hugged herself, fists clenched, as she trudged back to her waiting carriage.

  “I cannot believe I thought delivering your vase would ruin my anonymity,” she muttered under her breath. “I could break it on your head, and you wouldn’t notice.”

  She recognized the irony. Being wholly unremarkable was a skill she’d cultivated for decades. Invisibility gave her power.

  Yet lately, all she felt was powerless.

  After spending another fruitless day trying and failing to sneak into Miss Spranklin’s office with the headmistress unawares, the next evening Chloe met her siblings in the corridor leading to the empty wing with Bean’s sickroom.

  The doctor was inside.

  “Did you—” Elizabeth began.

  Chloe shook her head. “I’ll try again tomorrow.”

  “You don’t have to,” Jacob said. “Tell Miss Spranklin you need a few days, and you’ll return when Bean is better.”

  “I do have to.” Chloe’s words came out wooden and hollow. “I’m not like you. I can’t visit Bean and read to him from his sickroom. Stopping Miss Spranklin is the only thing I can do.”

  “But you’re not,” Marjorie said.

  “I’m trying to!” Chloe burst out, her voice shaking. “You have no idea what it’s like to have two dozen frightened little girls clinging to your limbs whilst trying to dodge a headmistress whose fav
orite activities are ‘looming over one’s shoulder’ and ‘popping up out of nowhere’ and making me—”

  “That is what Marjorie means,” Jacob said gently. “It’s an impossible task under the best of circumstances, and that is not where we find ourselves. ‘Chloe in top form’ can do anything, but ‘Chloe worried sick about Bean’ will not be able to concentrate properly. You can’t help the girls in this condition.”

  “I can’t help Bean either,” Chloe said wretchedly. “I make it as far as the office door and I’m stopped. I place myself in front of Faircliffe, and I’m brushed aside. Even if it’s hopeless, shouldn’t I keep trying?”

  “Not if it makes you sick, too.” Elizabeth leaned on her sword stick. “You’ll be of no help to anyone. You’re driving yourself mad, Chloe. When is the last time you slept? You spend all night copying papers, then long hours standing in the rain outside of Westminster. You look terrible. If you keep this up, you’ll be in a sickbed of your own. Do you think that’s what Bean wants?”

  Chloe looked into the faces of one concerned sibling after another, then slumped her shoulders against the wall. She hadn’t been sleeping. There was too much to do. Too many people who needed her.

  But Elizabeth was right. Chloe’s brain was now sluggish, and too full of concern about Bean to concentrate on much else, no matter how hard she tried. Her reaction times were slower, her fingers shaky with the picks, her usually glib alibis choppy and suspicious. She was not helping Bean.

  She wasn’t helping anyone.

  “You’re right.” Chloe swallowed. “Family comes first. I’ll pen a letter to Miss Spranklin telling her I need a few days and she’s welcome to dock an entire month from my wages. She’ll lecture me, but she won’t say no.”

  “It’s the right choice,” Jacob said. “When Bean’s better, you’ll be better, and we’ll be able to get justice for those poor girls.”

  Chloe nodded. “As soon as I can see Bean again, I—”

  The sickroom door opened, and the doctor emerged.

  His face was grave.

  “No,” Elizabeth whispered.

  Chloe’s flesh turned cold and clammy. “Is... Is he...”

  “He’s alive,” the doctor said carefully, “but he’s not eating. His vision is impaired, which may be permanent, but the most concerning—”

  “No,” Tommy interrupted before the doctor could finish his sentence. “Bean promised he would recover.”

  The doctor’s eyes were sad, but he closed his mouth. There was nothing more to say.

  “No. He’ll be fine.” Chloe linked arms with her sister and ignored the scratchy thickening of her throat. “Bean loves us too much to die.”

  “Ices,” Chloe said decisively the following evening as she and her siblings stood before Gunter’s pineapple sign. “Bean must eat to regain his strength. He adores fresh fruit ices. They’ll feel good on his poor throat and taste like better times.”

  She didn’t say that she was doing this because it was the only thing she could do. She was no good at the school or with Faircliffe, but she could cheer up Bean, and perhaps her siblings too, while she was at it.

  They were all desperate to feel useful. Desperate to have hope again. This was a task they could achieve. Something tangibly good they could do for Bean.

  Chloe dragged in an uneven breath and tried to portray confidence. This had to work.

  Jacob nodded. “We’ll buy all of his favorite flavors.”

  They carried china serving dishes with deep lids filled with ice that would help keep the contents cold until they could get home.

  “For Bean,” Chloe said firmly.

  All six siblings touched their free hand to their hearts. “For Bean.”

  After purchasing as much flavored ice as would fit into the china, Chloe led them out of the door toward the carriage. She ran straight into the Duke of Faircliffe and almost dropped her china pail.

  “You,” she snarled before he could move out of the way. “Give us back our painting, you cad. You cannot ignore us when we’re right in front of your—”

  The duke turned sideways to slip between Marjorie and Elizabeth and entered the tea shop without looking back.

  “That unmitigated bloody bounder!” Chloe sputtered. “I will swing this pail right into his pretty face, and then we’ll see if that haughty, glacier-hearted bastard notices me!”

  “We’ll destroy him later,” Jacob said. “Bean needs us.”

  Determined that this treat would bring comfort and good cheer at last, the Wynchesters entered their home carefully cradling Bean’s favorite flavors of ice. They waved away help from the butler and carried their china dishes to the sick wing.

  The doctor met the siblings on the steps.

  Chloe’s lungs caught.

  The doctor’s eyes went soft at the sight of them. He shook his head.

  “No,” was all that scratched from her throat.

  The doctor’s kind face was full of sympathy. He let out a sigh. “Wynchester family, I am very sorry to inform you—”

  They hadn’t even been here.

  The china fell from Chloe’s hand.

  The dishes fell from all of her siblings’ hands. Shards of fine china splattered in brightly colored patches of Bean’s favorite ices all over the floor. The Wynchesters found each other, their arms wrapped around each other so tight it was impossible to tell where one’s tears ended, and another’s began.

  Not Bean.

  The unthinkable had happened.

  There would be no more strolls with Bean in Hyde Park, no visits to Gunter’s en famille, no lazy afternoons side-by-side with Bean with a good book, no more late-night sessions in the Planning Parlor as Bean outlined a clever new scheme, no more hugs when Chloe pulled off the impossible, no ceremonial re-hanging of the family portrait, followed by arranging themselves in their usual order with Bean at the center of the family.

  He wouldn’t be in the center anymore. He wouldn’t be there at all.

  Bean was gone.

  Forever.

  Chapter 10

  That Sunday, Chloe and her siblings sat side-by-side in a single pew. Alone in the cavernous church save for a few close friends, one solemn clergyman, and an elm coffin with a silver plate engraved with flowers and angels.

  Although the other pews only contained Mrs. Pine and a handful of Bean’s dearest friends, it felt like too much to take. Their presence made Bean’s absence real in a way Chloe could hardly bear to contemplate.

  She had thought if they avoided the outside world, if she didn’t have to talk about Bean’s death, if she didn’t have to admit the truth, then maybe she could pretend for a little while longer that they weren’t going to dig a hole in the earth and bury Bean inside.

  The Wynchesters were renowned for their ability to solve impossible missions. Yet here they were, broken. Unable to mend the most important mistake of all. Unable to bring back the person they loved most, the first person to love all of them and give them a home and a family.

  Chloe couldn’t bear to have strangers see her like this. Even worse would be to have people they knew catch them with tears on their faces, small and defeated.

  No one loved Bean as much as they did. Most appreciated him, respected him, were grateful to him, though there were a few who felt Bean hadn’t minded his place. Was too eager to poke his nose in where it wasn’t wanted and try to solve other people’s problems for them.

  Smallpox was the one villain even Bean could not vanquish.

  Some lords of the ton were resentful of Bean’s success. A rich foreigner achieving whatever he pleased, whilst they stared at their empty coffers. They outranked him with their English titles but were not better men. Those shriveled souls would not be sorry Bean was gone.

  Chloe was glad she and her commoner siblings need have nothing to do with a Polite Society like that.

  They didn’t understand that to the Wynchesters, Bean wasn’t like a father. He was their father. Who cared if he wasn’t
a nobleman? He was the greatest man they’d ever known. He’d given them more than a home. He’d given them unconditional love, a battle to fight, and the skills and means with which to help others. What could be more noble than that?

  Bean turned them into a family in every way that mattered. They weren’t all alone anymore. They were a cohesive group. Part of a team, with Bean as the fearless, indomitable leader who—

  No. He was not the leader anymore. They were no longer a cohesive group. They were six orphans, orphaned all over again, with a hole in their hearts and their home that no amount of time or money could ever fill. The person they most wished to cling to was about to be taken away forever.

  It was time.

  A rustle sounded in the rear of the black-draped church, as pages and bearers cloaked in black presented themselves. The funeral train would proceed to St. George’s Gardens for the burial service.

  To bury Bean. In the dirt. And cover him with a heavy stone.

  Chloe squeezed Marjorie’s hand.

  “The gentlemen will now accompany Baron Vanderbean to his final resting place,” said the clergyman, Mr. Hartwell. “Ladies, a carriage will take you home.”

  All six siblings rose to their feet, but they did not divide into two directions.

  They kept together as they exited the church, turning as one toward the elegant all-black processional coaches engaged to transport the deceased and his mourners to the cemetery. A pair of pure black horses pulled each carriage, with somber plumes of black ostrich feathers rising from each horse’s head-dress.

  “Ladies,” Mr. Hartwell said more emphatically, “I am certain your delicate sensibilities cannot manage a burial ceremony. That is why women do not attend funerals.”

  “I’d like to see you stop us,” Elizabeth growled.

  Startled, Mr. Hartwell took a step back and allowed them to continue.

  Marjorie, Chloe, and Elizabeth were dressed in black crape mourning gowns, shawls and gloves. Tommy was dressed in the same black gentlemen’s attire as her brothers. Clouds draped the sky in black, the air cold and thick with impending rain.