“They’re asleep just now,” Amanda said, taking the tray, “but I have no doubt they’re dreaming of fresh deviltry for me at this very moment.”
“I wish I could disagree,” the rotund little woman said with a sigh, “but I’m afraid you’re right. Still, it’s good you know what you’re facing. And they’re fine boys, Mr. Seton, honestly—not a hint of true malevolence or wickedness in either of them. They are a bit wild, no denying it, but if you can stick it, they’ll settle down, I’m sure. Give them a chance. Don’t let them scare you off.”
Amanda smiled. “I’m not easily intimidated, I assure you.”
With that, she returned upstairs. After verifying the boys were still sound asleep, Amanda ate her meal in the nursery, and after Mrs. Richmond had brought up her cleaned suit, she took it into her room and prepared for bed.
She hung the pieces of her suit on the pegs in the wall beside the armoire, then set the lamp on the table closest to her bed, putting the matchbox beside it at the ready. She took the precaution of locking the door into the boys’ room before she changed into her pajamas, then she unlocked it again and extinguished the light. Moving carefully in the dark, she walked to the bed, pulled back the sheets, and slid between them.
Her first day posing as a man, she thought, smiling as she settled more comfortably into the mattress, and she’d gotten through it with no one the wiser. And her unexpected shower notwithstanding, the boys had been surprisingly cooperative so far. Perhaps this was going to be an easier post than she had feared.
That thought had barely gone through her head when Amanda felt a strange tickling sensation along her ankle, and her smile vanished as she came to the awful realization that something was in the bed with her, something small and slimy and very much alive.
With an involuntary shriek, Amanda tore back the sheets and leaped out of bed.
Through the closed door into the boys’ room came a stifled but unmistakable slew of giggles, but she paid little heed as she hopped up and down on one foot, frantically shaking the other to remove whatever blasted creature was clinging to her ankle, as she reached for the matches. She lit the lamp, raised it high, and took a long, sweeping glance over the floor, but there was no sign of the insect that had invaded her sheets. It was only when she turned toward the bed that Amanda realized precisely what had been crawling up her leg.
“Ugh,” she muttered, her lip curling in disgust. “Slugs.”
About two dozen of the repugnant little creatures were wriggling and squirming their way across the bed. Others, less fortunate than their fellows, had been squished by her body weight, and their flattened gray corpses were smeared over the sheet. She twisted, lifting one arm to glance at her backside, a glance that confirmed her flannel pajamas were in a condition similar to that of her sheets.
“Oh,” she breathed, outraged. “Those little devils.”
More giggles sounded from the other room, and Amanda stiffened. She turned toward the door and saw that it had been opened a crack. Two faces, one above the other, could be seen through the opening, but after a second, the door closed again amid another bout, louder this time, of boyish laughter.
As the latch clicked, Amanda’s outrage dissolved, giving way to a very different emotion, one that many of her former pupils would have recognized in the narrowing of her eyes and the lift of her chin.
“Oh, the game’s on, now, gentlemen,” she vowed, returning her attention to the bed, setting her jaw grimly as she stared at the still-squirming slugs. “The game is on. And by God, I’m going to win it.”
Chapter 5
As a young man, Jamie had been a rebel, prone to all manner of wild impulses, but he’d come to believe himself transformed by the passage of years. He’d come to think that love, marriage, and fatherhood had changed him into a man of maturity and good sense, but as the evening train carried him north to Yorkshire, he began to wonder if the cavalier, reckless ways of his youth were indeed truly behind him.
This sudden predisposition to question his own character was due, of course, to his hiring of Adam Seton. It had seemed his best—his only—option at the time, but now, five hours later when the deed was done and he was over two hundred miles away, he found himself plagued by doubts.
Seton was only seventeen, and though he had seemed mature for his age, one couldn’t be sure that was really so. When Jamie thought of himself at seventeen, he knew he’d been anything but mature.
Even worse, Jamie didn’t really know anything about the fellow, except that his father was American, a fact that was hardly reassuring. Seton’s letters of character had been laughably insignificant, his manner decidedly impertinent, and the quality of his teaching open to question. Granted, his landlady seemed satisfied with his tutoring abilities, but was that assessment worth a damn?
Perhaps his doubts came from the fact that he’d never hired anyone to watch his boys who hadn’t been thoroughly vetted by an employment agency. In addition, he’d always conducted much more thorough interviews than the one he’d given Seton, and as Jamie stared past his reflection in the window to the inky blackness beyond, all sorts of heretofore unimagined consequences of his hasty decision this evening began running through his head.
He tried to tell himself he was getting worked up over nothing, but the farther the train carried him from London, the greater his worry became, and by the time his train reached York, hiring Seton seemed less like the only possible option and more like the rash impulse of a desperate man.
Or, worse, a selfish one.
Jamie moved in his seat, guilt stirring inside him. Hiring someone to watch over one’s children wasn’t something to be done on the spur of the moment. It ought to be a carefully considered decision, but in the rush to get on with his own plans, he hadn’t bothered with any of that.
Is school really the best solution? Or is it simply the most expedient?
Rex’s question of a week ago came echoing back, taunting him because he knew it was a valid one. Upon losing Nanny Hornsby, his first thought had been to reach for the easiest, quickest answer to his problem, and while it was true that he hadn’t actually sent the boys away to school, the course he’d chosen instead had also been one primarily of expedience. If anything happened . . .
Sudden, unreasoning fear clenched his guts.
He closed his eyes. He was being fanciful, even absurd. In addition to Seton, there were two servants in the house. When he’d telephoned Mrs. Richmond from Victoria Station, he’d instructed that she and Samuel keep a close eye not only on the boys, but also the new tutor. Still, Jamie couldn’t help wondering now how conscientious in their duty the servants would be.
He’d already taken advantage of every scrap of goodwill they possessed, pressing them into service as substitute nannies every time the need had arisen. Rather than keep close watch over Seton and the boys, wouldn’t these two long-suffering servants be more inclined to enjoy a respite from that responsibility and stay well away from the nursery as much as they could?
The train slowed, coming into York Railway Station, and Jamie opened his eyes again, relieved by the distraction. Telling himself to stop imagining things, he donned his hat and coat and pulled his dispatch case from the rack overhead. When the train stopped, he exited the carriage, stepped down onto the crowded platform, and secured a porter.
“I’m transferring to Knaresborough,” he explained. “Which platform?”
“Platform five, sir,” the porter answered, jerking one thumb over his shoulder to the building behind them. “Straight across the station and to the right. Train departs in forty minutes.” He paused, glancing over Jamie with a practiced eye. “First-class carriages are at the front.”
Jamie nodded. “What about my trunk? I’ve no valet with me.”
“If you bought a through ticket, your trunk should be transferred automatically. But,” he added as Jamie pulled his luggage ticket and half a crown from his pocket and held them out, “I would be happy to supervise its trans
fer personally, sir,” he said, taking both from Jamie’s hand.
“Excellent. Thank you.”
The porter pocketed the tip, noted the luggage number, then handed the ticket back, touched his cap, and turned to carry out his promise while Jamie entered the station. After crossing the crowded main foyer, he turned to the right and made his way toward Platform 5, pausing along the way for a cup of tea and a hot cross bun in the station’s refreshment room.
The train was already in by the time he arrived at Platform 5. He boarded one of the first-class carriages and shoved his dispatch case into the overhead rack, but he’d barely settled into his seat before a newspaper kiosk caught his eye through the window. Perhaps he ought to get a paper? It would be a welcome distraction from the absurd and groundless fears whispering to his imagination.
He glanced at the kiosk again, but when he read the headline of the newspaper on display, he knew reading it would prove no distraction at all. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Second child goes missing in West End. No ransom demanded. Scotland Yard baffled.
With a curse, Jamie jumped to his feet and reached for his dispatch case.
He managed to exit the train before it pulled out, but it was too late to retrieve his trunk. Adjourning to the ticket office, he requested that his trunk be shipped from the station at Knaresborough to his London residence, then he paid over the required fee and asked about return trains to London. Informed that the earliest one departed at eight o’clock the following morning, Jamie bought a return ticket and adjourned to the Royal Station Hotel, where he secured a room and telegraphed Lord Weston and Lord Malvers, his most influential supporters in his district, that a family emergency had arisen at home and that any speeches, glad-handing, and political meetings would have to be rescheduled. He also sent word to Rolleston, informing his father that their first joint tour of the estates would also have to wait.
Rolleston would be livid, of course, and Malvers, a cantankerous old devil, wouldn’t like it either, but their opinions on the subject were not what caused Jamie to spend an anxious, sleepless night. His brain insisted upon envisioning his sons in all manner of ghastly circumstances, each more awful than the last, making sleep impossible.
The following day, he arrived back at Upper Brook Street in the early afternoon, tired, disheveled, and worried sick, and when he entered the nursery, the sight that met his eyes only seemed to confirm all his worst fears, for Mr. Seton was tied to Colin’s desk with a gag in his mouth. The twins were nowhere in sight.
Heart in his throat, Jamie crossed the nursery. “For God’s sake, what’s happened?” he demanded, sliding the gag forward and pulling it from between Seton’s teeth. “Have the boys been kidnapped?”
“Kidnapped?” Seton echoed, his voice hoarse from the gag. “Are you joking?” He gave a laugh. “God help any kidnapper that ever got hold of those two.”
That point, Jamie was forced to admit, had some validity. “But where are they?”
“Oh, I’m sure they’re somewhere about the house,” Seton replied in obvious chagrin. “Crowing about how clever they’ve been, no doubt, and having a jolly good laugh at my expense.”
Jamie shut his eyes for a moment, filled with profound relief. “The twins tied you up?”
“Well, I certainly didn’t do it to myself,” Seton muttered, sounding so testy that Jamie almost smiled. He caught it back, however, reminding himself sternly that his sons’ tying up their tutor was not something to laugh about.
Seton certainly didn’t seem to find it amusing. Gold sparks glittered unmistakably in those dark, hazel-green eyes, and a frown had drawn his severe black brows together, marring the almost feminine smoothness of his forehead.
It wouldn’t do for Seton to quit in a huff, especially since it was becoming clear to Jamie that his worries had been overblown. “I will discipline the boys for this, I promise you.”
“No, please don’t interfere.” Seton shook his head, signs of temper abating. “I would prefer you leave this to me, my lord. They have to be made to understand that I am quite willing to discipline them when necessary, and that I don’t need to go running to you for help in order to do it.”
Jamie could have pointed out that his help was just what Seton did need at this particular moment, but he refrained. “How did this come about?” he asked instead, circling the desk and kneeling down to begin freeing the other man from his bonds. “How could you allow them to do this to you?”
“They wanted to play Cowboys and Indians. They promised faithfully that they would do their lessons for the rest of the day without complaint, if we played the game first.” Seton paused to give Jamie a rueful look over his shoulder. “And if I’d play the part of the cowboy.”
Jamie gave him a pitying look in return. “And you agreed to that?”
“To gain their undivided attention for the entire day without a battle, one game seemed a small price to pay. And I thought it would provide the opportunity for a history and geography lesson about the American West.”
“Except that you agreed to be the cowboy. Don’t you know in that game, the cowboy is always the one captured and tied up?”
“Of course I know that.” Seton scowled. “I’m not a complete dolt.”
The current circumstances left that declaration open to question, but again, Jamie decided it was best to employ tact and continued his task without replying.
“I thought it wouldn’t matter, you see,” Seton went on, sounding a bit defensive in the wake of Jamie’s silence. “As long as they tied me to Colin’s desk, rather than Owen’s, I was sure I’d have a clear means of escape.”
Jamie paused to study the two desks before him, but he couldn’t see what form of escape Colin’s desk might provide that Owen’s did not. The oak seats, hinged oak tops, and wrought iron frames appeared identical. Both seemed quite sturdy and were securely bolted to the floor. “Sorry, but I don’t follow.”
“Colin’s desk is beside the bellpull. If they did a flit after tying me up, I’d just catch the pull between my teeth and give it a tug, which would summon Mrs. Richmond or Samuel, who could then untie me.”
“Ah.” Enlightened, Jamie glanced up at the wall beside Colin’s desk, and he almost laughed out loud as he saw why the tutor’s plan had gone astray. The silk rope of the bellpull was considerably shorter than it ought to have been, well out of reach of Seton’s teeth, and when Jamie glanced around, the stepladder against the wall and the scissors and tasseled length of rope on the floor nearby told the rest of the tale.
“Your plan,” he managed, grinning behind the tutor’s back, “doesn’t seem to have worked so well.”
“Don’t I know it.” Seton stirred in his seat, straining against his bonds. “Just untie me, my lord, if you please, so I can find those scamps and return the favor.”
“I admire your tenacity, Seton,” Jamie answered as he complied. “Most of your predecessors would be thinking to hand in their notice just about now.”
“Over this?” Seton made a sound of derision. “This isn’t as bad as—”
“As bad as what?” Jamie asked, looking up again, feeling a hint of alarm. “What else have the twins done to you?”
“It’s not important. Just get these damned ropes off.”
“I’m trying, but the knots are tight.” Pausing again, he leaned back, retrieved the scissors, and began working the blades back and forth to cut through the thick strands of rope, careful to avoid cutting the other man in the process. “If I’d known they would take it into their heads to start tying people up,” he muttered as he worked, “I’d never have taught them to make sailor’s knots on the boat.”
“You have a boat?”
“Torquil does. The Cavanaughs are a sailing family.”
“How lucky for me,” Seton replied tartly. “What are you doing here anyway?” he added, ignoring Jamie’s answering chuckle. “I thought you were to be gone a fortnight.”
“That was my intention, but I c
ouldn’t rid myself of the nagging fear that I’d put my children at risk by leaving them in the care of a complete stranger with somewhat dubious references. So, I changed my plans and came home.”
“My references are not dubious! You met my landlady yourself. And—” He broke off, twisting his head to stare at Jamie over one shoulder, shaking back the unruly curls that had fallen over his forehead. “Wait. What do you mean, you feared you’d put the boys at risk? You thought they might be in danger?” Clearly nonplussed by that idea, he blinked. “From me?”
It did seem terribly melodramatic now. “Let’s just say I began to wonder if I’d been a bit precipitate in my decision to hire you. I’m quite relieved to find my fears of danger unfounded. At least as far as the twins are concerned. I must confess,” he added, “in all the ghastly scenarios I envisioned on the train coming back, I never imagined you as the one in jeopardy.”
Seton looked away with a sniff. “I deserve your ridicule, I daresay, for allowing them to trick me this way. But it won’t happen again, that I can promise you.”
That was a vow Jamie had heard from many nannies over the years, but he didn’t say so. Instead, he concentrated on his task, and after a few more saws with the scissors, he succeeded in freeing Seton from his bonds.
The tutor gave a sigh of relief, slid out from behind the small desk, and turned to face Jamie, rubbing his wrists to restore circulation to his hands. “Thank you. Now, I’d best find those sons of yours. My lesson on American history might have been scrapped, but I also had a jolly good science lesson planned for this afternoon, one it took Samuel some trouble to help me arrange, and I’ve no intention of letting our efforts there go to waste.”
“That’s all very well, but I don’t see that you’ll be able to teach them anything if they are able to gain the upper hand with you as easily as they’ve done today. I won’t be here to step in and rescue you every time they play a trick, you know.”
Governess Gone Rogue Page 8
