The Governess Gambit

by Erica Ridley

  Once Bean was tucked safely into the hearse, the funeral furnisher, Mr. Quincey, turned to the siblings, his voice thick with emotion.

  “My family business would not exist if Baron Vanderbean had not helped my father when he needed aid most.” Mr. Quincey’s voice cracked. “We are forever grateful to him. He was one of the best men I have ever known.”

  That sounded exactly like Bean.

  The siblings exchanged shimmering glances.

  Mr. Quincey cleared his throat. “You will not be receiving a bill for these services. Thanks to your father, our business is more profitable than we dreamed.”

  “Nonetheless, you deserve compensation for your labor,” Jacob said. “Bean would not want us to take advantage of anyone. Please let us pay you in his honor.”

  “We thank you for your kind offer and all of your effort,” Chloe added. “If ever you need anything, please don’t hesitate to come to us. We are at your service, just as Bean was.”

  Mr. Quincey gave a jerky nod. “I wouldn’t expect less from a Wynchester,” he said gruffly. “No one has ever heard you say no to someone in need.”

  He turned before they could respond and strode further down the processional to guide the attendants into their carriages.

  Isaiah, their black-liveried tiger, helped Chloe into the coach meant for the Wynchesters. The six siblings settled themselves in the same order as their family portrait.

  Just like the portrait, Bean was missing.

  The painting would come home. The Wynchesters would see to that. But Bean never would. He’d been stolen from them permanently.

  They exchanged bleak glances.

  “I should have been there for him,” Chloe blurted out. “Not teaching French, five miles away—”

  “I never left the house,” said Elizabeth, “and I couldn’t see him either. We were banned from the sickroom.”

  “Protecting us,” Graham said, his voice rough. “Down to his last breath.”

  “So very Bean,” Tommy said softly. “A Puckish angel to the end.”

  Bells were ringing as they filed out of the carriage. A cold rain had begun to fall.

  The siblings followed the coffin to a large hole in the earth. Jacob, Graham, and Tommy joined the pall-bearers. Elizabeth, Chloe, and Marjorie hung behind.

  Chloe couldn’t look at the coffin. Didn’t want to see her siblings and the other pall-bearers lower Bean into a gaping hole or pile dirt on top of him.

  Just knowing it was going to happen compressed her stomach into a tiny little ball.

  But she couldn’t walk away from Bean until she absolutely had to. He had never left Chloe behind. It hurt to abandon him.

  Mr. Hartwell began the funeral sermon.

  She tried not to think what life would be like without Bean. He’d provided well for them, of course. He always did.

  Years ago, he’d created “Horace” and “Honoria,” his fictitious heir and heiress. A baron, even one from Balcovia, a small foreign principality in the Low Countries, had far more status than a group of orphans. Avenues that were denied to Chloe and her siblings welcomed Horace and Honoria with open arms. It gave them access they would not otherwise have.

  Whilst Bean was alive, they’d had little use for the fiction, but now that he was gone, that, too, would have to change. Marjorie would teach the siblings how to forge the supposed heir and heiress’s signatures. If a personal appearance was required, Tommy could impersonate either Horace or Honoria. Bean would no longer be there to sweep in and save the day. But they weren’t completely on their own.

  Bean had made additional bequests.

  He’d provided small fortunes for all of them. Each would earn a respectable annuity in the five-percents. Not that the siblings needed the money. Bean’s will stipulated that every expense would be fully covered, for any sibling or any client.

  He had also created an even larger trust, the interest of which was to be used for orphans. That was the entire direction: For orphans. The “how” was up to the Wynchesters.

  Chloe shifted her weight on the uneven grass.

  Countless other sums had gone to this person or that charity, with a generous annuity set aside for each of the servants.

  And he’d left the novel he was currently reading… to Chloe.

  Her eyes grew moist and a crooked smile came unbidden to her lips. He hadn’t mentioned the novel by name. The testament had been written years before he’d fallen ill. But Bean had been confident he and Chloe would still be reading together and exchanging books.

  He was sharing his with her one last time.

  A loud sniff behind her caused Chloe to glance over her shoulder. She jumped, startled.

  The cemetery was no longer empty. The small family-only service was now flanked by a growing crowd.

  The mourners were all of the people Bean had helped over the decades. From titled peers to working people who had interacted with him and come away the richer for it.

  Chloe exchanged awed glances with her siblings. They had only told a handful of close friends, but word had got out, perhaps through the funeral furnisher’s staff or those at the church. The silent support was overwhelming. It was as though all of these people were saying, We loved him, too.

  We feel your pain.

  You are not alone.

  As soon as the service ended, they came one by one to pay their respects. Mrs. Pine enveloped her in a fierce hug. It was almost Chloe’s undoing.

  “I’m sorry I stopped going to the school,” she choked against Mrs. Pine’s maternal shoulder. “I’ve not forgotten Dot or the other girls. We will rescue them. I promise.”

  “I know you will.” Mrs. Pine hugged Chloe harder. “I have never doubted you for even a moment.”

  When the final flower had been laid and the last mourner was gone, the six Wynchester siblings were alone once again.

  They hovered in a protective circle around Bean’s grave as the final bells rang.

  “Goodbye, Bean,” Tommy said quietly. “I love you.”

  “I’ll miss you forever,” whispered Elizabeth.

  “We all will.” Graham’s voice was rough.

  “We’ll get our painting back,” Chloe vowed. “Puck & Family will be reunited again, I swear it.”

  “No matter what it takes,” Marjorie agreed fervently.

  “But first,” said Jacob, “we’ll save the children, just as we promised we would.”

  Graham nodded and swallowed. “We do it for Bean.”

  They touched their hands to their hearts, then lifted their fingers to the sky, where the closest man they’d ever had to a father must be smiling down on them with pride.

  “For Bean!” they chorused as one.

  They met each other’s eyes.

  It was time to plan a rescue.

  Chapter 11

  One week later, Chloe strode into her house with her bonnet a sodden mess and her lips pressed tight.

  Elizabeth leaned on her sword stick. “No?”

  “No,” Chloe growled.

  Ever since she’d returned from her “unauthorized holiday,” Miss Spranklin had been more demanding than ever. There was rarely an opportunity for Chloe to dash to the necessary, much less break into Miss Spranklin’s office at the opposite side of the school.

  With the aid of several glowing—if forged—personal recommendations, Tommy had managed to infiltrate the school as a “hired” dancing-master, on condition that she provide the headmistress with the first fortnight of services for free in order to prove her skills.

  Chloe hoped Miss Spranklin’s greed would give Tommy opportunities to distract her so Chloe could break into the study.

  Jacob poked his head over the staircase banister and called, “Come up to the Planning Parlor.”

  Tommy handed the butler her coat and top hat, then followed Chloe and Elizabeth up the stairs.

  The Planning Parlor didn’t feel the same without Bean. His chair was empty. The space on the wall where the family port
rait should be was empty.

  Chloe wouldn’t think about any of that. She had sworn to Bean that she would put a stop to Miss Spranklin’s abhorrent practices, and Chloe fully intended to keep that promise.

  “Another hard day at work?” Jacob asked.

  She looked at him sharply. What had he meant by that? Was it an innocuous question? Or did sweet, sensitive Jacob think less of Chloe because she was still getting up and doing what must be done, despite slogging through a whirlpool of grief?

  Chloe struggled with the answers to those questions. Every time she presented herself at the school, she wondered if she should be able to. If she was upset enough. If she truly loved Bean and missed him as much as her siblings did, wouldn’t she be home in her bed, unable to face the day?

  But every morning when she stared up at her canopy, tempted to pull the covers over her head and stay underneath until the darkness finally passed, she told herself this was how she proved she loved Bean. By functioning. By carrying on. By doing the things he was no longer here to do but would have had faith that she could manage.

  She wouldn’t disappoint him. Not then, and not now.

  Once the girls employed with garnished wages were free of their unethical contracts, once the children forced to labor as unpaid servants were out from under Miss Spranklin’s unyielding thumb, then Chloe would take a breath.

  But only then. Only when she kept her promise to Bean.

  Marjorie entered the Planning Parlor and took her seat next to Elizabeth.

  Chloe frowned. “Where’s Graham?”

  Jacob shrugged. “Out.”

  “He’s gone all day just as long as you and Tommy,” Elizabeth said. “Sometimes longer.”

  Chloe lifted a shoulder. “He’ll be here. Let’s get started.”

  “Did you find anything at the school?” Jacob asked.

  “No,” Chloe answered. “Getting Tommy hired is a double-edged sword. Now there are two of us with an excuse to roam the corridors. But in exchange for that access, Miss Spranklin now has more free time to spend in her office—which is where we want to be.”

  “How will you get her out of there?” Elizabeth asked.

  “We can’t,” Tommy said simply. “We’ve tried everything. She’s either breathing down our necks or locking herself inside the room we need to break into.”

  “Which gives us no choice,” Chloe finished, “but to switch plans to our contingency.”

  Marjorie made a face. “Musicale?”

  Chloe nodded grimly. “Musicale.”

  “It adds a lot of risk factors,” Elizabeth said slowly. “More witnesses—”

  “Adult witnesses,” Jacob added.

  “—a tight timeline—”

  “One and a half hours exactly,” Tommy confirmed. “Not all of the girls have a song they can play at the pianoforte.”

  “—a chaotic environment...” Elizabeth continued.

  “Precisely what we’re counting on,” Chloe said. “Miss Spranklin will be holding court in the main salon at the front of the building. She is the face of the school. She must be there to reassure parents and coax money out of prospective clients.”

  “This is our one chance,” Tommy said. “We will have ninety minutes. We have to make each moment count. And we need to cover Chloe so she can sneak out of the salon.”

  Her siblings nodded. “Just tell us what to do.”

  Chloe’s chest filled with pride. A Wynchester never gave up just because the odds were impossible. A Wynchester did the impossible anyway.

  “We have two days to prepare,” Chloe began. “Tommy will be on the dais with Miss Spranklin. The headmistress wishes to show off and will dance a short reel with Tommy and the elder children whilst the most competent musician plays her piece at the pianoforte.”

  “I’m the first line of defense,” Tommy explained. “I’ll be physically closest to Miss Spranklin, therefore best able to distract her from noticing Chloe’s absence.”

  “But she’s tricky,” Chloe continued. “Which is why we need Elizabeth to—”

  Graham burst through the door with his cravat askew and his black curls in disarray, likely from being smushed beneath a top hat for unknown hours.

  “Where were you?” Marjorie asked.

  “In Benson.” He flopped into his armchair. “I tracked down—”

  “You went to Benson and back?” Jacob repeated. “In one day?”

  Elizabeth arched a brow. “I thought you said Faircliffe was a horrid human for becoming more efficient after his father’s death.”

  “Faircliffe is a horrid human,” Graham muttered. “But maybe not for that.”

  “I understand,” Chloe said softly. Not everyone responded to grief in the same way. “What took you to Benson?”

  Her brother’s brown eyes were grateful. “No plan without a contingency. Mrs. Pine cannot travel far from the orphanage, so I wanted to approach Dot’s new ‘family.’ If they genuinely were good people, they’d want to pay the penalty to dissolve Dot’s contract, and possibly even bring legal proceedings against Miss Spranklin.”

  “I’m sensing a ‘but,’” Elizabeth murmured.

  Graham made a face. “I had to present myself in my guise as a parent of one of the children, so I couldn’t tell them Dot was a fugitive and I knew where she was being harbored. In fact, I couldn’t even say her name. Any mention of ‘that orphan’ upsets their ‘real’ daughter. They sent her away for a reason.”

  “Poor Dot,” Chloe whispered.

  Mrs. Pine had believed she was giving the girl the chance of a lifetime, just like Chloe and Tommy. Instead, Dot had been submerged into one untenable situation after another.

  “Dot’s ‘family’ is satisfied with their choices,” Graham said tightly. “Miss Spranklin’s school has a reputation for providing structure and discipline, which is what they feel Dot is missing in her life. They think she should be grateful for this generous opportunity.”

  “The only thing Dot is missing,” Elizabeth ground out, “is someone who loves her.”

  “No,” Chloe said softly. “She has that, no thanks to them.”

  “I spent the week interviewing parents and guardians,” Graham continued. “It’s more of the same. Miss Spranklin targets those who care more about status and discipline than their children’s happiness.”

  “That explains why she doesn’t allow visitors,” Jacob said. “And why the Christmas and summer holidays are so short. It eliminates families who want to see their children. Didn’t Dot say most of the girls are left there year-round?”

  “It also explains why the musicale is so important,” Chloe added. “It gives the parents and guardians a chance to assure themselves they’ve done the right thing, and that their charges are just fine in Miss Spranklin’s care.”

  Tommy nodded. “It lets them look like they care, without actually requiring them to take an active interest in their wards’ lives. Especially the girls who were orphaned and fell upon the benevolence of a parish or a distant relative. They’re able to pat themselves on the back for having done the ‘right’ thing.”

  “We will do the right thing,” Chloe said fiercely.

  It could have been any one of the Wynchester siblings in a contract with someone like Miss Spranklin instead of being adopted by Bean. They’d been loved and given every advantage, not browbeaten and exploited. Miss Spranklin wasn’t just stealing the wages from her charges—she was stealing years of their lives. Entire childhoods spent in servitude to a woman who only cared about herself.

  “It’s worse,” Graham said. “The ‘employment’ she finds for them is at much lower wages than the usual rate. The new owners don’t know the lies Miss Spranklin has told, and the girls themselves don’t realize how deeply they’ve been taken advantage of, both at the school and in their new homes. And thanks to the deeply affordable wages, their new employers have no incentive to question their luck.”

  “They know it’s unethical,” Chloe said slowly, “but
they don’t know it’s illegal.”

  “Is it illegal?” Tommy asked.

  “I suppose the girls ‘agree’ to their new circumstance,” Graham said.

  “Girls who cannot read and have no other options,” Chloe scoffed.

  These were plights Parliament ought to pay attention to. Children and the poor. Instead, the House of Lords cared so little that their sessions could meet quorum with only three souls present.

  Chloe clenched her teeth. “Teaching girls marketable skills is commendable. Exploiting them until they drop of exhaustion is contemptible. Sending paying parents false reports is unethical and illegal.” She smiled, triumphant. “It’s fraud.”

  All she needed was proof from Miss Spranklin’s office. Once they could prove the letters home were forgeries and that girls Miss Spranklin was contractually obligated to educate were being sent to work with garnished wages instead, the Wynchesters wouldn’t just shut down the school.

  They could send Miss Spranklin to gaol.

  Chapter 12

  “Ready to dance?” Chloe asked.

  Tommy’s eyes glittered wickedly. “For Bean, I’m ready for anything.”

  “Marjorie will be here soon.” She had gone for reinforcements an hour earlier. “Is everyone else in place?”

  “Even the rats are ready,” Tommy promised.

  Chloe grinned back at her. “Let the game begin.”

  Throngs of parents, guardians, and hopefuls filled the entryway of the Spranklin Seminary for Girls. Even though the windows were open and the fire unlit in the salon hosting the musicale, the air was already overwarm from so many bodies in one place.

  This plan had to work. Not just because it was their final opportunity. Construction laborers arrived in the morning, and Miss Spranklin was in the salon signing up new students to fill the additional rooms.

  The plan had to work because if it didn’t... it would be Chloe’s fault. She was the one who had chosen her own family over the plight of these girls. It had only been for a week, but that was little comfort when their lives were hell, either stuck in the scullery of the school where they should be learning, or off indentured to a family without ever seeing a farthing of their wages.