Amanda sighed and stopped walking, then turned to lean back against the wall of the building beside her. Who was he? He was a man with a smashing job to offer, and she was an idiot for letting her temper get the better of her.
Now, she was worse off than before. To obtain those letters of character for Adam Seton, she’d sacrificed her only current source of income by offering future lessons free of charge in exchange. Though she’d muffed her interview, her obligation to Mrs. Finch and Mr. Mackenzie remained.
In addition to the money she’d sacrificed, there was also her wasted time—four days of practicing a deeper voice and a manly walk and trying to grow accustomed to the strange, rather salacious sensation of wearing trousers. And though casting aside a corset had seemed so liberating on the first day, after four days without one, her back ached. And if all that wasn’t enough to put her thoroughly out of sorts, she’d cut off all her hair.
Amanda straightened away from the wall and doffed her hat to rake a hand through what little remained of her once plentiful mane, and as the cropped strands slid through her fingers, she felt an absurd desire to cry.
She’d abandoned every shred of her femininity and for what? So that her temper and her tongue could cost her a job. On the other hand, did she really want to work for a man like him? An image of Lord Kenyon’s pale eyes, so icy and remote, flashed through her mind, and his voice, so well-bred and dismissive, echoed back to her.
My sons are the grandsons of a marquess and the nephews of a duke.
“Oh, well, the nephews of a duke,” she muttered, her desire to weep giving way to renewed irritation. “My word and la-di-da.”
Their lineage was all very well, but those boys were also absolute hellions. Even their father had admitted as much, and the newspaper accounts she’d read over the weekend had only reinforced the truth of his assessment. The notorious antics of Lord Kenyon’s sons, she’d discovered, were widely known to the gossip columnists, who had devoted a great deal of space in the Saturday editions to gleeful speculations about what the twins might have done to drive not only their latest nanny but also their father’s valet out of the household.
Her encounter in the park with the boys had given Amanda an impression that differed somewhat from the general understanding, but then, she was aided by years of experience. She’d been around enough children to know that very few were lost causes. The twins, she felt, could be helped to straighten out, but that task would prove almost impossible if something wasn’t done before they reached adolescence.
Either way, they weren’t her concern, since she hadn’t gotten the job. With that reminder, Amanda shoved aside any inclinations to anger or self-pity and chose to look on the bright side. Selling the locks of her hair would recoup some of the money she’d spent. More important, her disguise had worked. She’d prepared for the possibility that Lord Kenyon would see through her straightaway, and the fact that he hadn’t done so showed she could apply for other tutoring positions. Not at the agencies, of course, for she’d visited those multiple times already, and she didn’t want to risk that someone would recognize her. But she could look through the newspaper advertisements for tutoring posts. Unlike governesses, good tutors were a rare and sought-after commodity. A job offer could still come her way, as long as no one looked too closely into her father’s academic credentials.
Amanda settled the brown derby back onto her head and resumed walking, her determination renewed. When she reached New Oxford Street, an omnibus was just pulling up to the corner, but she did not join the queue waiting to board. Instead, she turned in the opposite direction, toward the entrance to the park and the Marble Arch, where dozens of newspaper sellers plied their trade.
She stopped in front of the first one she came to. “How many of the evening dailies do you have for sale?” she asked the elderly man on the other side of the stacks.
“Let me see . . .” He looked down, rubbing the tips of his gnarled fingers over his thick gray mustache as he began counting. “Nine . . . ten . . .” He looked up. “Twelve, altogether.”
Amanda hesitated, doing some quick arithmetic, reminding herself that she’d already spent more than she ought. If this mad idea to find work as a male tutor didn’t succeed, she’d be destitute long before the new year.
The man stirred, looking past her shoulder, and when she glanced back, Amanda realized a queue was forming behind her.
“Which ones ye be wanting, sir?”
That question snapped her attention back to the newspaper seller in front of her, and she had the sudden desire to laugh.
Sir.
Hell, if that wasn’t an encouraging sign from the heavens, she’d eat her brown felt derby. And stone broke in January or stone broke in September, did it really matter much either way?
Amanda took a deep breath and reached into the breast pocket of her jacket. “I’ll take them all.”
Mr. Partridge lasted less than three days. Hired Tuesday night, he was gone by Friday morning, and though his stated reason for leaving was the sudden illness of a relative, Jamie felt certain a pair of angelic-faced, red-haired devils had more to do with his departure than the influenza visited upon some distant cousin.
Jamie looked up from the man’s resignation letter to the grim faces of Samuel and Mrs. Richmond. “It seems we shall have to begin again.”
“Perhaps . . .” Mrs. Richmond gave a cough. “Perhaps he could be persuaded to come back when his cousin is better. It might only be a few days.”
“Or it might be weeks,” Samuel pointed out. “If there’s a sick cousin at all.”
Either way, Jamie knew waiting weeks for the man’s unlikely return was not a viable option. And even if it were, what could be done with the twins in the meantime? He was supposed to be departing this evening for a three-week tour of Yorkshire.
Sending the boys to Ravenwood would have been ideal, for there was far more to occupy their mischief-making minds at Torquil’s estate than there was here in London. But the duke had flatly refused to consider the idea of having his nephews down to Hampshire without at least a nanny to accompany them, a refusal for which Jamie could not blame him. And for his own part, he was far too busy for a jaunt to Hampshire. He’d won his seat in the Commons by the slimmest of margins, and he needed to spend his time before the next Parliamentary session on work, not play. He couldn’t postpone his trip north, for he had visited his constituents in Yorkshire only once since his by-election a year ago, and he certainly did not have the time to go off with the boys for punting and tennis at Ravenwood. Hell, he hadn’t yet managed to carve out the time to find himself a new valet, much less go on another exhaustive hunt for someone to watch the boys.
“Samuel is right, Mrs. Richmond,” he said, putting aside Mr. Partridge’s letter. “Someone must be found immediately.”
“You’ll hear no argument from me, my lord,” the cook replied. “Perhaps another visit to the agencies?”
But Jamie knew that wasn’t likely to accomplish much. The morning following his interviews, he’d called upon the agencies again, but they’d been able to offer no additional candidates for his consideration and left with little choice, he’d hired the pedantic Mr. Partridge.
“I will pay another call at the agencies before I leave,” he promised without much hope. “My train for Yorkshire doesn’t depart until five o’clock.”
“You’re still going north then?” Mrs. Richmond glanced at Samuel, then back at Jamie, her dismay obvious. “You don’t think it might be best to postpone the trip, given the circumstances?”
Jamie shook his head. “I’ve postponed one visit to my home district because of the twins. I can’t afford to do so again. I have a duty to my constituents, Mrs. Richmond.”
“Your constituents?” The cook’s frustration was obvious, but before Jamie was obligated to reprimand her and receive what was likely to be her resignation in response, Samuel tactfully intervened.
“What about taking the boys with you to York?”
he suggested. “Your father’s servants could take charge of them for a bit, couldn’t they?”
Just the idea of having his sons anywhere near his own father without being there himself left Jamie cold. “That’s not possible.”
“What about the other applicants you interviewed on Tuesday?” Mrs. Richmond asked. “Was there not at least one acceptable candidate besides Mr. Partridge?”
At once, a pale face with intense hazel eyes came into Jamie’s mind.
I may be young, but I’m a very good teacher.
“No,” he answered. “Not even one.”
The faces of the two servants made it clear they thought he was being far too punctilious. “Perhaps the agencies have some new candidates,” he said and stood up. “Have my driver fetch the carriage, Samuel, and bring my luggage down, would you?”
A few hours later, however, it was clear that Jamie’s hope of finding a tutor before his departure north would go unfulfilled. Tutors qualified to prepare boys for public school were not only rare, he was told, but were also in great demand. Such men could, it was pointed out to him with tiresome frequency, pick and choose their pupils, and though Jamie was never told straight out that no qualified tutor would want to take on his sons, the inference was clear, and by late afternoon, he was forced to admit defeat.
Out of time, he telephoned the house at Upper Brook Street and informed Mrs. Richmond that he had been unsuccessful, and that she and Samuel would be required to supervise the twins until he returned from Yorkshire. He softened the blow with a raise in their wages and a pledge to shorten his trip from three weeks to two, but as his carriage took him to Victoria Station, Jamie feared it would not even be one before he received a telegram from Torquil informing him that both servants had resigned, the twins had been fetched to Ravenwood, and that he would be expected to come to Hampshire and retrieve them immediately.
He stared out the window as his carriage made its way along the Holborn Road, his mind working to find some way of circumventing that possibility.
He could ring Merrick’s and have them send along another nanny, of course, but he still felt quite strongly that hiring a tutor was the best solution. And what competent nanny would agree to a post that was only temporary?
He could begin perusing the Situations Wanted advertisements in the papers, though he doubted worthy applicants would need to insert such advertisements. He could write to various acquaintances, inquire if they knew of any possible candidates for the post. He could also write to Harrow for recommendations. Eton, too—but only if things got truly desperate. All that took time, however, and he needed someone now, not weeks in the future.
His carriage came to an abrupt stop. Lost in his own contemplations, Jamie paid little heed at first, but as the minutes ticked by and the vehicle did not move, he opened the window and stuck his head out.
All he could see ahead was a solid line of hansom cabs, broughams, omnibuses, and dog carts, each vehicle as motionless as his own. He wasn’t worried, for his train didn’t depart for forty minutes yet, so Jamie drew back inside the carriage and closed the window. But as he relaxed again in his seat, the street sign painted on the corner caught his attention, and he paused.
Red Lion Street.
The name was familiar, though he wasn’t sure quite why, for this was Bloomsbury, a section of London he seldom had cause to visit. Here, artists, émigrés, and bohemians existed alongside respectable, solidly middle-class families, and none of these mingled much with gentlemen of his station. He doubted he’d ever set foot in Red Lion Street in his entire life, so why should the name strike such a familiar chord?
As if in answer to that question, the words of Adam Seton came back to him.
I reside in Red Lion Street, Bloomsbury.
The carriage jerked into motion again, rolling past the corner, but Mr. Seton’s voice continued to echo through Jamie’s mind.
Number twelve. Write to me there if you change your mind.
He wasn’t changing his mind. Leave his boys to be managed by a boy of seventeen, one so unqualified it was laughable?
Mathematics and geometry . . . French and German . . . can you think of a better way to explain physics to a pair of children?
With an oath, Jamie reached up and pounded on the ceiling for his driver to stop the carriage. Moments later, he found himself walking beside a row of terrace houses, where the front stoops were indifferently whitewashed and chalk drawings of children’s hop-score games littered the sidewalk.
Number twelve was a tall, narrow structure of soot-dusted red brick and dark blue shutters, with window boxes of purple asters and curtains of white Nottingham lace. Stepping around a group of girls playing jump-the-rope, Jamie ascended the front steps and tapped the knocker, wondering if he was following the dictates of fate, or if desperation was making him soft in the head.
The door was opened by a thin, henna-haired woman of about fifty. “I’ve no rooms to let just now,” she began, then stopped, her eyes widening in surprise as her gaze traveled slowly down over Jamie’s well-cut clothes.
“I should like to see Mr. Seton,” he said, holding out his card. “If he is receiving this afternoon?”
“Mr. Seton?” The landlady looked up, frowning as if the name were not familiar. “Mr. Seton, you say?”
“Mr. Adam Seton. I was given to understand he lives here?”
She blinked several times, but just as Jamie began to think the whole thing a great joke, perhaps concocted by Rex at his expense, her brow cleared. “Oh, Mr. Seton!”
“He does live here, then?”
“Why, yes, of course.” She laughed, touching one hand to her forehead as she took his card with the other. “He’s not in at present, Mr.—”
She broke off to glance at the card, then back at him. “Your . . . ahem . . . your lordship,” she amended. “I am sorry, but as I said, Mr. Seton is out.”
Jamie pulled out his watch, considering. Ten minutes to Victoria, five to secure a porter, five more to find his seat. He could afford to spare a few minutes. “I may wait, I trust?”
“Oh, my lord, I don’t know when Mr. Seton will be back. He could be hours yet.”
“I realize that.”
With a little laugh and a shrug, the landlady stepped back to allow him in, then led him through a doorway to the right of the foyer into an overcrowded parlor of maroon velvet draperies, mahogany furniture, and Benares brasses. An upright piano stood in one corner, and a pair of scraggy-looking potted ferns struggled for survival in the dim light of the room’s only window.
“Do sit down, please, my lord.”
Jamie did so, settling onto one end of a faded crimson velvet settee. Removing his hat, he gestured to the instrument in the corner as she took a seat on the settee opposite him. “Mr. Seton is teaching you piano, I understand. And French and German?”
“Why . . . umm . . . yes.” Her voice had a strange inflection. It might have been amusement, though he couldn’t imagine what she’d find amusing about his question. “Yes, yes, he is. Would you care for tea?”
He shook his head. “Thank you, but I should not wish to impose upon your hospitality, madam. Tell me, is Mr. Seton a good teacher, do you think?”
The amusement vanished, and she wriggled a little in her chair, rather as a child might do when caught misbehaving, making Jamie wonder if Mr. Seton’s assurance of his abilities had been nothing but empty boasting.
Mrs. Finch’s reply, however, when it came, was quite unequivocal. “He is very good. Patient, kind. Never a sharp word.”
“And is he a man of good character? Respectable and honest?”
“Oh yes. Always pays on time, quiet, sober.”
“Does he do well with children? Do you know?”
“Oh yes, my lord. The children are always coming ’round asking Mr.—ahem—Mr. Seton for help with their lessons, and that’s a good sign, isn’t it?”
He had no chance to ask another question, for the sound of the front door opening
intervened.
“Ah,” Mrs. Finch said, turning to look over her shoulder to the open doorway. “That’ll be Mr. Seton now, I expect.”
Sure enough, the object of their conversation appeared, but he moved past the doorway without a sideways glance, making the floorboards creak as he headed for the stairs.
“Mr. Seton?” Mrs. Finch called after him. “You have a visitor.”
The creaking stopped. After a few seconds, it resumed, and a moment later, the younger man appeared in the doorway, his eyes widening at the sight of Jamie. “Lord Kenyon? What are you doing here?”
Mrs. Finch spoke before he could reply. “Isn’t it obvious, dear boy? He’s come to see you.” She glanced back and forth between them, then stood up. “I’ll leave you to it, then,” she said, chuckling as she left the room, though Jamie couldn’t see what she found so amusing. He had no time to consider the question, however, for Seton spoke again, returning his attention to the matter at hand.
“Why are you here, my lord?”
Rather wondering that himself, Jamie rose, studying the boy in front of him. Seton’s credentials were laughably lowbrow, his experience almost nonexistent, and the scope of his academic knowledge open to question. His suit—the same ill-fitting one he’d worn the other day—was no longer grass stained, but it was every bit as worn as Jamie remembered. In addition, the knot of his tie was hopelessly crooked, and his cuff, peeking out from his jacket sleeve, was stained with ink. On the other hand, his ease with the twins the other day had been unmistakable. Other children seemed to get on well with him, if Mrs. Finch could be believed. And Colin and Owen couldn’t very well torment and hound out of the house the same fellow who’d shown them how to properly fly a kite, could they? He might last awhile—at least until Jamie returned from Yorkshire and could find someone more qualified.
“Lord Kenyon?”
“I’m here because there’s a question I forgot to ask you the other day. Tell me, Mr. Seton—” Jamie broke off and took a deep breath, hoping he wasn’t making a dreadful mistake. “How’s your Latin?”
Governess Gone Rogue Page 5
