Trappings.
Struck by the word, Amanda stared at her reflection. Her hair, her skirt, her corset, her cameo pin—these were just trappings, and yet, the very fact that she was wearing them made her vulnerable to hazards men seldom faced. Had she been a man, she would not have lost a job or been ruined by a love affair. She would not have been imposed upon by an employer. Men were expected to have physical desires, permitted to have lovers. Women, she’d learned the hard way, were not.
The trappings of her wardrobe denoted in a glance not only her gender, but also her place in the world, one that could not be altered in any significant way by her own actions and initiative. Her affair with Lord Halsbury had been a stupid mistake, but even had she not made it, her choices in life would still have been far more limited than any man’s. However intelligent she was, or how educated, or how hardworking, she could not change the fact that she was female, nor that the world thought females inferior.
How unfortunate that a woman can’t be a tutor.
Viscount Galbraith’s words echoed through her mind as she stared at herself in the mirror. Only a man could teach truly challenging subjects. Only a man, she thought, lifting one hand to touch her hair, was safe from a male employer’s advances.
Only a man . . .
Suddenly, Amanda was yanking out hairpins and combs, her hands shaking as she sent corkscrews of midnight black tumbling around her shoulders. When all her hair was down, she cast the pins and combs aside, and as they scattered across the marble surface of the washstand, she had the strange, exhilarating sensation that she was casting off chains.
She returned her attention to the mirror, set her jaw, and reached into the sewing basket. But then her hand stilled, and her courage faltered.
It’s impossible hair, she shouted silently to her reflection, trying to bolster her resolve. I’ve never liked it.
She was ruined, she reminded herself. Ruined, shamed, and nearly destitute. This was no time for silly feminine sentiments about her hair.
Amanda took a deep breath and grabbed the scissors.
Chapter 2
Everyone in society knew that James St. Clair, born the second son of the Marquess of Rolleston, had always been the bad seed of his family, nothing but trouble from the day of his birth. As a boy, he’d been told time and again by his father that he’d never amount to anything, and he’d spent his entire youth proving the old man right. Before the age of twenty, he’d managed to get himself sent down—and due to his father’s influence, reinstated—by both Harrow and Cambridge, expelled by both White’s and Boodle’s, and disinherited by his parent at least half a dozen times. After university, he’d put his education to what he deemed its best use by brawling and drinking his way through every London pub from South Kensington to Spitalfields and becoming proficient at every form of cards and dice the gaming hells could offer.
But when he was twenty-one, and despite his father’s predictions about his future, Jamie somehow managed to achieve one great success. He won the hand of Lady Patricia Cavanaugh, the sister of the Duke of Torquil, who’d been the prize catch of the season the year she debuted, and in marrying her, Jamie at last redeemed himself in the marquess’s eyes.
The irony, of course, was that he’d never given a damn about earning his father’s good opinion because his father was a prize bastard. Truth be told, if he had ever considered Rolleston’s wishes when choosing his bride, he’d have married a cancan dancer in a music hall and really done the old man in. Falling in love with the sister of a duke had been completely unintentional, but for Pat’s sake, he’d set himself on the straight and narrow path. And when she had presented him with twin sons of his own, Jamie had vowed to be a very different parent from the cruel, vicious man who had sired him.
A decade later, however, his beloved Pat was three years in her grave, and without her, Jamie felt as soulless and empty as he had before she’d entered his life. And despite his vow to be a better father than his own, Jamie’s sons were proving to be every bit as wild and ungovernable as he’d been at their age. In fact, as Jamie surveyed the latest carnage done to the nursery, he feared they might even be worse.
“Where in blazes did they get red paint?” he asked, turning to Samuel, who was standing nearby with a rag and a tin of turpentine. “After that business with Nanny Hornsby and the frog, they were supposed to be confined to the nursery for a full week, and to my knowledge there’s no paint in the nursery.”
“I’m so very sorry, sir,” the footman burst out. “I was with them, of course, but then the bell rang, and Mrs. Richmond had gone to the butcher’s, so I had to go down. It was Lady Tattinger at the door, inquiring after the Duchess. I told her their Graces had already left for the country, but you know how the baroness rattles on and on, and I couldn’t get away—”
“Yes, yes,” Jamie cut in and waved a hand to the red streaks all over the white plaster walls. “But the paint, Samuel? Where did they get the paint?”
“I gave it to them, I’m afraid. They wanted to play clock golf when their nursery confinement was over,” he rushed on before Jamie could reply. “But when I fetched the set from the attic, I saw that the paint was coming off the numbers, and I suggested we spend the afternoon repainting them. It’s something for them to do, you see, sir, and they’re best if they have things to do. But we’d barely begun when the bell rang, and I went down . . . I was only gone a few minutes . . . I never thought . . . I never dreamed . . .” He paused again, lifting his chin and squaring his shoulders, looking suddenly younger than his twenty-five years. “Shall I pack my things and go, sir?”
“You think I intend to dismiss you?” Jamie shook his head, appalled by the very idea. “God, no. With those boys of mine, I need all the help I can muster. No, Samuel, your job is safe, you may be sure.”
The footman didn’t seem quite as relieved by that news as he perhaps ought to have been. “Thank you, sir.”
“As for this mess, cease your attempts to clean it up. We shall have the boys do it. Fitting punishment, I say.”
“Begging your pardon, sir, but I’m not sure putting turpentine in their hands is the best idea. After the firecrackers . . .”
His voice trailed away, and Jamie’s mind immediately began envisioning a second Great Fire of London. “I see your point,” he said hastily. “Find a painter and arrange to have the job properly done.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“Where are the boys now?” He glanced toward the doorway that led to the nursery bedrooms. “In their room?”
“Oh no, sir, I couldn’t have them up here.” Samuel waved his rag in the air. “Not with the fumes.”
“Quite,” Jamie agreed, leaning back as the acrid scent of turpentine hit his nostrils. “They must be with Mr. Hoskins?”
“No, sir. You see, Mr. Hoskins is . . . um . . . that is, he . . .”
The footman paused, and Jamie noted the servant’s apologetic expression with growing dismay. “Good God, Samuel, you’re not telling me my valet’s gone off as well?”
The footman’s silence gave him his answer.
“What did they do to him this time?” Jamie demanded. “Itching powder again? Or an emetic in his tea, perhaps?”
“My lord, I don’t believe it was anything the boys did. Not any one thing in particular, I mean. Mr. Hoskins did leave a note, I understand, before he departed, and he might have explained his reasons there.”
“Explanations don’t matter, I suppose. We both know the true reason he’s gone.” Samuel, he noted, did not attempt to dispute this contention. “The boys are with Mrs. Richmond, then?”
“Yes, my lord. I asked her to serve their high tea down in the kitchens. Eating up here would be terribly unappetizing.”
Jamie glanced at the gruesome red streaks on the walls and was glad Torquil wasn’t here to see the latest damage to the ducal residence. “It would be no more than they deserve.”
“Perhaps, but it wouldn’t be healthy, sir.”<
br />
Given the turpentine fumes in the air, Jamie couldn’t help but agree. “They shan’t be able to sleep up here tonight, I suppose. You’d best make a room ready elsewhere.”
“Yes, sir. What do you mean to do—about the boys, I mean?”
“I suppose I must do something,” he muttered, looking forward to the prospect with the same degree of joy he usually reserved for visits to the dentist. “What, I’m sure I don’t know, for no form of punishment ever seems effective.” He paused, sacrificing pride and forcing a smile. “You know my sons as well as anyone, Samuel. I’d welcome your suggestions.”
The footman lifted his hands and let them fall in a helpless gesture that spoke more eloquently than any words.
Not surprised, Jamie gave a sigh. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”
He departed the nursery and went to the kitchens, where he found the twins wolfing down veal ham pie, Scotch eggs, and fat rascals with their usual hungry enthusiasm—displaying, he was chagrined to note, not a whit of concern over their earlier ruination of the nursery room walls or the fact that they’d managed to cause the departure of two servants within less than twenty-four hours.
He stepped into the kitchen with a decided stomp of his boots, and at the sound, his sons looked up from their evening meal. One glance at his face, and forks clattered to plates, and their happy abandon vanished.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” he said with his most severe frown, folding his arms. “I understand you’ve had quite a busy day, writing letters to newspapers—”
“How do you know about the newspaper, Papa?” Colin interrupted.
“Don’t interrupt,” he ordered, in no mood to be sidetracked. “I know about that letter because I find out everything you do, gentlemen. I know about the frogs you put in Mrs. Hornsby’s hatbox that led her to quit. I know about the damage you did to the nursery room walls. And I know that your antics have now lost me my valet.”
They hung their heads, but as much as he wanted to believe this display of regret was genuine, Jamie had been down this road far too many times to fool himself with that sort of wishful thinking. Unfolding his arms, he started across the room toward the table where they sat.
Giving a nod to Mrs. Richmond, who was standing by the stove nearby, he pulled out an empty chair across from his sons. Still with no idea of what he was going to say or do, he sat down, but as he studied their bent heads, all he could think of was how closely their bright, carroty hair resembled Pat’s, and how much better a parent she’d always been than he.
“Do the two of you know what you’ve done?” he asked at last, and the inanity of the question made him wince. “Do you know,” he went on, trying again, “how much trouble you’re in?”
They both nodded, but they did not look up nor reply, and Jamie was once again at a loss.
He had to impose some sort of punishment. He thought back to his own boyhood and all the times he’d been called to his father’s study, of all the times he’d stood, bent over, staring at the floor with gritted teeth, the only sound in the room the snap of a willow switch against his bare ass. Physical punishment was the only kind he’d known as a boy, and he refused to consider visiting that sort of cruelty upon his sons, but what else was there? What could he do that he hadn’t already tried?
Inadequacy swamped Jamie suddenly, inadequacy and despair.
I can’t do this, Pat, he thought. I can’t do this without you.
But even as that thought went through his head, he knew he did not have a choice. “Why?” he asked, trying to gain time with the question so that his mind could come up with some alternative to his father’s willow switch and his own failed methods of discipline. “What were you thinking? Why would you deface the walls of the nursery in such a way?”
“We didn’t mean to deface anything,” Owen mumbled, staring at his plate. “We just wanted to paint the walls.”
“But why?”
“It’s red paint, Papa,” Colin said as if that were explanation enough, but when Jamie, baffled, didn’t reply, Colin looked up, his blue eyes glistening. “Red was Mama’s favorite color.”
A memory flashed through Jamie’s mind before he could push it away, a memory of watching Pat dress for a ball. Half a dozen years ago it must have been, and nothing special about the event to mark it in his memory, and yet he could still recall every detail of the moment—Pat’s stunning red gown, her copper-and-ginger curls glinting in the lamplight, her adorable freckled face as she’d looked over her shoulder, and her merry laughter at the maid’s dour comment that redheads weren’t supposed to wear red.
Really, Parker, don’t you know by now I never do what I’m supposed to?
Pain twisted in Jamie’s heart like a knife, and he jerked to his feet, feeling a sudden, desperate need to get away. “Well, don’t do anything like that again,” he muttered, and turned away before either of the twins could discern what he felt. They’d suffered enough already; they didn’t need to see his pain.
He walked to the stove where Mrs. Richmond was dishing toad-in-the-hole onto plates, and he worked to regain a sense of equilibrium. “My valet has left my service, Samuel tells me. Did he leave a letter of resignation?”
“He did, my lord.” She set down her spoon, pulled the letter from her apron pocket, and handed it to him.
He glanced through it, and though the twins were not the stated reason the valet had given for departing his employ, Jamie suspected Hoskins’s desire about wanting a post with Continental travel was nothing but an excuse.
“As you know, Mrs. Richmond,” he said, folding the letter and putting it in his breast pocket, “I’m leaving tomorrow for Lord Windermere’s house party in Kent. With Nanny Hornsby gone, I hope you will be willing to assist Samuel with the boys in my absence?”
“Of course, my lord,” she answered, but only a fool would believe she sounded the least bit willing.
For Jamie, however, any affirmative answer was enough. “Thank you,” he said, and turned to depart, but her voice stopped him before he reached the doorway.
“My lord?”
He paused, looking over his shoulder. “Yes?”
“When . . .” The stout little woman gave a cough. “When might we expect a new nanny to arrive, if I may ask?”
Jamie cast a glance over his shoulder and found both his sons watching him.
“I’m not hiring another nanny,” he said, returning his attention to the cook as shouts of happy relief rose up behind him.
Mrs. Richmond, however, did not share the boys’ elated opinion of this news. “No nanny?” she murmured, going a bit pale.
“I’ve decided a tutor is what’s called for. A stern fellow,” he added, noting with some satisfaction that his sons’ shouts of joy had faded into apprehensive silence. “A strict disciplinarian, to whom I shall give a very free hand. He’ll make those sons of mine toe the line, Mrs. Richmond, you may be sure. Applicants are coming to be interviewed for the post on Tuesday, and someone will be hired by the end of the day.”
“Tuesday?” The cook swallowed hard. “It’ll take as long as that?”
“Only because I have to be away. It’s only four days.”
“A long four days, my lord.”
“We shall have to muddle through as best we can.”
He turned away, but as he departed, he did not miss Mrs. Richmond’s reply, uttered in a low voice behind his back.
“Easy for you to say. You won’t be here. You’re never here.”
Most men would dismiss a servant for such impertinence, but Jamie couldn’t afford that luxury. He needed all the help he could get. Besides, he’d never thought it right to punish people for telling the truth.
For Jamie, the next few days proved quite productive. In the relaxing atmosphere of the country, with a bit of excellent trout fishing and grouse hunting to soften his stance, Colonel Forrester had agreed to support Jamie’s education bill when the Commons reconvened.
Colonel Forrester was not the o
nly one who had enjoyed Windermere’s hospitality. For Jamie, it was a welcome respite from his usual grinding workload, but he had no illusions that Samuel and Mrs. Richmond were enjoying a similarly pleasant interlude, and upon his return Monday afternoon, he was relieved to discover that neither of his two remaining servants had decided to depart the household during his absence.
Nonetheless, Jamie did not want to push his luck. Immediately upon his return, he began paying calls at various London employment agencies. He spent all of Tuesday interviewing applicants, determined to engage a tutor before the end of the day, but by late afternoon, he feared his goal might have been a bit unrealistic.
Despite the newspaper advertisement inserted by Galbraith on his behalf and the efforts of the agencies, only twelve men came to be interviewed, underscoring the fact that his sons had something of a reputation. Worse, after interviewing nearly all of them, Jamie had not found one he’d even consider hiring.
Some were so timid that sending them up to the nursery would be like sending lambs to the slaughter. Others were too elderly and frail to keep up with his energetic young sons, others were painfully inept, and still others were far too much like his own father for his liking. One, in fact, described teaching methods so vicious that it gave Jamie chills to think he’d ever been in charge of anyone’s children.
And then, of course, there were the ones so dull they put a body to sleep.
“Lord Kenyon?”
Jamie gave a start at the sound of his name and opened his eyes to find the portly man opposite giving him a quizzical stare across the desk. “Yes, quite so, Mr. Partridge,” he agreed hastily, though he had no idea what he was agreeing with. “I’m sure you’re right.”
“Repetition is the key to learning Latin, my lord, as you surely are aware. Adduco, adducere, adduxi—”
Governess Gone Rogue Page 3
