“You are Miss St. James, I presume,” he said, peeling off his dirty gloves and tossing them into his hat before placing both on a side table. He needed a moment to compose his thoughts.
She rose to her feet. “Indeed, my lord. I am Miss St. James.”
Defaulting to caustic humor to mask the rather surprising effect the girl was having on him, Winn said, “I apologize for the disorder of my house. I have not yet replaced my housekeeper—whom these three ran off last week and my butler, just this morning, eloped with their former worthless governess. You haven’t by chance taken a fancy to one of the footmen, the stable lads, or the chimney sweep, have you, Miss St. James? Frankly, another elopement will bring this house down around my ears.”
Her lips quirked but she did not smile. “I have not met the footmen, nor the stable lads, and charming as chimney sweeps can be, I feel that I am safe in saying that my marital prospects and aspirations are all equally absent at the moment.”
“Good, good,” he said. Then he turned his gaze toward the three children who sat like dirty-faced cherubs at her feet. She was like a snake charmer he’d seen once in India. “The three of you, get your coats, go into the garden. Do not go beyond the garden. Do not invite any passersby into the garden and do not come back into the house until you have been fetched by a maid. While you are in the garden, do not climb anything in it that would require you to go higher from the ground than the top of your own head when standing flat-footed next to it. Is that clear?”
All three of them nodded and shuffled out and, no doubt, all three of them would disobey. More hedonistic, obstinate and willful creatures he had never encountered. And yet he loved them so fiercely it made his chest ache. He hadn’t even known them until a little more than a month ago. His brother and sister-in-law had been sailing back from Spain with them when they’d all taken a fever aboard ship. The children, miraculously, had survived. Most of the adults on board had perished. The captain of the ship, one of the survivors who had been hastily promoted from the ranks, had delivered them to his doorstep per his brother’s dying instructions. What had occurred in their young lives prior to the deaths of their parents was really anyone’s guess. His brother had never been the most responsible of men, he’d also certainly never been the most faithful of men. And while Winn had no proof of it, and there was no one left alive he could ask, he strongly suspected that his brother hadn’t planned to stay in England with his wife and children. Rather, he’d thought to foist them off on family and go on his merry way. It seemed the most likely of scenarios.
“You are rather deep in thought, my lord,” the would-be governess mused, drawing him from his reverie. She was reaching for her discarded pelisse, clearly intent on escaping his unfortunate version of Bedlam.
“Contemplating what manner of mayhem they shall wreak next,” he answered and crossed the room to the chair opposite hers. “Please sit, Miss St. James, so that I may as well. I’ve never been more tired in my life.”
She paused, pelisse in hand, as if weighing her options. Finally, after a lengthy pause, she replaced it and faced him, then seated herself once more. “I assume you have been in pursuit of your runaway servants?”
He grimaced. “More accurately, I was in pursuit of the family silver they lined their pockets with before they fled. I should have known from the second that governess—if ever she’d been one in her life, I will eat my hat—showed up here that she would be nothing but trouble. Governesses don’t look like that!”
Miss St. James blinked at him. “And how do governesses look, my lord?”
Realizing that he might have offended her, Winn backed off from that. “Rest easy. Governesses can be very attractive women. They simply tend to be a bit more… buttoned up, as it were. And less painted. Miss Guinn looked rather like she’d stepped fresh off the boards at Drury Lane.”
“Then why in heaven’s name did you employ her, my lord?”
That was a very good question. “Desperation, Miss St. James. I mistakenly thought any governess would be better than no governess, at least in the short term. Especially for little girls who’d just lost their mother. Having been a boy myself, albeit a hundred years ago it seems, I felt I could get on well enough with William. But Charlotte and Claudia are a different matter. I know nothing of little girls.” The very idea of seeing such creatures to adulthood was terrifying to him. It was tears and sobs one minute, screams and flying crockery the next, then they’d sit and braid one another’s hair. Though to be fair, Claudia did more of the braiding than Charlotte. She simply tied knots that resulted in a repeat of the tears and sobs.
“Well, my lord, I’m afraid you’ll have to learn. A governess is no substitute for family. They need you, and they need to feel that their place here with you is a permanent one. You cannot give them that by dragging in one disreputable woman after another to care for them.” Her words might have been harsh, but they were uttered in a mild tone. Still, the reproach was gentle but present nonetheless.
“I don’t mean to drag in any more disreputable women, Miss St. James. I mean to drag you in, metaphorically speaking, of course,” he said. From what he’d seen of her brief interactions with the children, she was well worth her weight in gold if not more. “I’ll pay you double your last position. Triple, if need be.”
“That is a very generous offer, my lord.”
He grinned. “It isn’t. It’s a desperate offer and we both know it. I don’t know what to do with them, Miss St. James. Not a clue. But clearly, you do and that is invaluable to me at this time.”
She eyed him like he was a specimen on display, as if she were picking apart every flaw and cataloguing every detail to determine how he functioned and worked. It was decidedly uncomfortable. Her perusal continued as he fought the urge to squirm beneath her steady gaze.
At last, she said, “It isn’t only about the money, my lord. I was led to believe that this household was headed by a much older man… as it stands, it would be very inappropriate for me to reside here with a single man of your age and no hint of a chaperone, not even a housekeeper. While I might be a governess by position, I have been gently reared enough, at least in the last years, to be aware of how that might appear to others.”
“Then I’ll buy you the house next door,” he said. “You can staff it to your heart’s content. Just do not leave me alone with those bloodthirsty, hell-spawned, and utterly precious children.”
“I cannot do that and I cannot allow you to do that,” she said, and there was a note in her voice that might have been regret. Then her eyes widened and she added, “But perhaps there is a way forward if we are a bit creative. I could be their governess, if not a governess in residence. I would continue to live at the Darrow School and would take a carriage daily to and from this house. I would work eight hours daily, except for Sundays which I will have off and I would take a half-day on Saturday that will usually be comprised of an outing for the children. And I will teach the children, but I will also teach you.”
“Teach me?” he asked, somewhat shocked at the suggestion. “I assure you, Miss St. James, despite my current state of readiness for a lunatic’s asylum, I can read. In four languages, no less.”
“That is an excellent achievement, my lord, but your literacy was never in question. Your education will be on how to conduct yourself with the children so that they do not get the upper hand… again. Assuming we can wrest it back from them to start,” she explained pertly.
“I told them to go in the garden and they did. Does that not signify that I have the upper hand?”
She clucked her tongue at him like he was some poor, misguided fool. Though he supposed in some way that was true. What did he know of children, after all? His father had been so disinterested in both him and his brother that the man had been little better than a stranger to him. “Because it served their purposes to do so, my lord. Not because you demanded it. You really do understand nothing about them!”
There was a ring of truth to
the statement that he could not deny. “Very well. Ten hours a day. Two hours instruction for me in the evenings and eight hours instructional time with the children because, I daresay, they need that much. After a while, those hours can be revisited, but their education has been terribly neglected and I cannot even fathom why.”
“I think perhaps they have never had a very good governess,” Miss St. James posited.
“And are you?”
“I am not a good governess, my lord. I am one of the best governesses,” she said. “Isn’t that why you sent to the Darrow School, after all?”
“So it is, Miss St. James. So it is. Do we have a bargain?”
She considered it, her expression thoughtful and cautious. At last, she stuck out her hand to shake as one would with a business partner.
Bemused, Winn accepted it. But nothing could have prepared him for the jolt of it, for the pure sensation of heat and light and want that swamped him like a wave. And she felt it, too. It was obvious in the way she quickly drew back her hand and looked at him with a new kind of caution.
Almost immediately, she rose and reached for her pelisse. There was no hesitation this time, only determination. She took several steps away from him before shrugging into it. With one last glance in his direction, she said matter of factly, “We have a bargain, my lord. I will send you a bill for my services, to be paid one month in advance and I will begin on Monday.”
Winn had risen himself by this point, finally recovered from the moment where a simple touch of her hand had rendered him utterly dumb. “Good day, Miss St. James. I shall endeavor to keep myself and all three of the children alive and in one piece until you return.”
She smirked. “I’m certain you shall prevail. Good day, my lord.”
When she had gone, Winn considered what had just transpired. It was not such a bad thing for her not to reside in his home. In truth, Miss Calliope St. James was far too beautiful, far too tempting, and far too innocent. Women like her were a kind of trouble he hadn’t the time or inclination for at the moment. There was more than enough disorder in his life already.
But she did certainly make a pretty picture, he thought. With her nut brown hair and her sparkling eyes, she was just the sort of girl who might have caught his eye across a ballroom. If he’d been in the market for a bride, which he certainly was not. Heaven knew she was more tempting by half than any of the wretched, giggling misses that all the matchmaking mamas put in his path. Their shrill voices and silliness set his teeth on edge.
Getting to his feet once more, Winn stepped out into the corridor. “Who is the most senior footman here?”
“I am, my lord,” one of the men said. “I’ve been here for seven years.”
Winn nodded. “And your experience prior?”
“I worked in my father’s shop.”
“You can read?” Winn asked.
“Aye, my lord. Read, write and do sums,” the man said proudly.
“Your name?”
“John, my lord.”
“Your last name, John,” Winn said and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“It’s Foster, my lord.”
“Well, John Foster, you’ve been promoted to butler, temporarily of course. I’ll send round to one of my estates to have someone sent up who can show you the butlerly ropes, so to speak, and we’ll progress from there. I don’t suppose you have any female relatives who are qualified to be a housekeeper, do you?”
“My aunt, my lord. Recently widowed and eager for the job. She’s worked as a housemaid for many years, and then as a housekeeper in a smaller household.”
“While married?” Winn asked. It wasn’t entirely unheard of, but it was unusual.
“Her husband was in the army, my lord, and they had no children,” the footman-turned-butler explained. “He died nigh on ten years past.”
“Right. Send for her. I’ll meet her tomorrow morning promptly at ten and we’ll decide from there whether or not she will suit.”
John Foster nodded vigorously. “Certainly, my lord. I’ll send her a note round now… then I’ll find the master list of the silver and compare it to what’s left behind so we can let the proper authorities know precisely what’s been taken.”
“I’m the proper authority, Foster. I may hire a runner but, for now, I just want to know what that bastard absconded with.”
“Yes, my lord.”
With that, Winn walked away, feeling marginally more in charge of his household. Or at least he did until he heard the shouting from the garden. Cursing under his breath, he took the shortest route outside and found the children hanging from tree limbs like monkeys. All of them so high up it made his heart leap straight to his throat and then drop back down into his stomach.
Rather than tell them to get down, he walked over, placed his hands on little Charlotte’s waist and lifted her down. Once her small feet were firmly on the ground, he went to Claudia and handed her down as well. William had already begun to climb down but was still high enough that he and Winn were eye to eye. “Your job, William, is to protect your sisters. If they are engaging in a behavior where they could be injured, you should try to stop them, not indulge in it yourself.”
“Claudia is the oldest!” he protested.
“So she is, and she should have known better, as well. But little Charlotte is only three years old,” he said.
“I’m six,” the little girl protested.
“You’re four,” Claudia corrected. “You’re four, William is seven and I’m ten. If you really cared for us, you’d be able to remember that!”
Winn sighed heavily. “It isn’t about caring, Claudia. It’s about walking into this garden and seeing the lot of you risking life and limb by doing the very thing you’d been expressly warned against. All of you are to go to your rooms and remain there until the dinner hour.”
“Fine,” Claudia said, and spun around, her skirts swishing about her shins as she marched into the house. It seemed females of every age had mastered the trick of making an exit.
Turning to little Charlotte, he saw her eyes welling with tears. Then her thumb popped out of her mouth and she began to wail. Loudly and enthusiastically. After only a moment, she turned and ran after her sister. William followed suit, stomping after them until Winn was alone in the garden.
Alone. It seemed that he was forever winding up alone to clean up the messes left by others. The fewer people he allowed in his world, the fewer people he would have to clean up after. Unsettled by the maudlin turn of his thoughts, Winn shook his head to clear it. He was tired. More than simply tired, in fact.
Exhausted beyond measure, infuriated by his brother, his former butler, his former governess, his housekeeper and even the children who were now upstairs plotting his downfall, he sank onto a nearby bench and put his head in his hands. He wanted to drink enough brandy that he wouldn’t be able to speak coherently for three days. But he wouldn’t. Because he couldn’t. Because like always, it was on his shoulders to be the responsible one, to be the one who cleaned up his brother’s messes. Damn, damn and double damn.
Chapter Two
“That is a very unorthodox solution. Typically speaking, we provide governesses in residence,” Miss Euphemia Darrow said. “Though, I daresay that under the circumstances, it is the best option for everyone involved.”
Calliope recalled the moment in the drawing room when the Earl of Montgomery had shaken her hand. It wasn’t the best option. Not in the least, but she couldn’t say that. Admitting to such wayward thoughts and feelings for a man she’d just met, a man who’d been interviewing her as a prospective employee as much as she’d been interviewing him as a prospective employer, well—it was hardly the sort of thing one admitted to their mentor and idol. What on earth would Effie think of her? “I do hope you’re right. The children are a bit incorrigible, but very sweet. I think they are a little lost right now. So much in their lives has changed, after all.” Not just theirs, but his as well… Lord Winn Hamilton, Earl of Mon
tgomery. He’d lost his father recently enough that it hadn’t even been known to Effie. And now, he’d lost his brother and sister-in-law. Yet he didn’t strike her as a man terribly bereaved. He struck her more as a man at the end of his tether, as if he were simply waiting for one more thing to go wrong so that he might snap. Of course, Callie knew well just how deeply grief could be buried. She’d had years of experience doing just that.
“Indeed,” Effie said. Her gaze shifted to one of sympathy and she patted Callie’s hand. “And if anyone understands loss, upheaval and change, Callie, it would be you. I can’t imagine that there is another girl in this school who would be a better fit for that position and those poor children.”
Callie considered it. “They were very sweet, but they do not recognize boundaries. Nor, I daresay, do they recognize anyone’s right to place boundaries upon them. But they aren’t bad. And I do believe that he cares deeply for them. He’s just muddling through, however, and they know it.”
Effie laughed at that. “There is no danger greater than having a child in your presence that knows you haven’t a clue what you are doing. When I first brought Willa and Lilly here, why, it is a wonder the whole place didn’t simply collapse under the weight of chaos and upheaval. But we muddled through eventually. I daresay he will, as well. But I am very confused as to why we didn’t know he was a young and single man.”
“His father passed away very recently, I understand,” Callie answered.
“He told you that?”
Callie blushed. “No. He did not. I asked our servants and they are clearly more keen on current affairs and current gossip than we are. His father passed away only a few weeks before the children were deposited on his doorstep, which I believe has been a matter of weeks, as well. So he’s only been the Earl of Montgomery for a very short time. I imagine that is where our misinformation arose from.”
“It must be terribly difficult to face such upheaval in the midst of such bereavement,” Effie reflected.
What Happens in Piccadilly Page 2
