Just two bachelors sharing a meal.
Amanda’s stomach gave another nervous lurch, and she caught herself up sharp with the reminder that she’d chosen this course. How had she expected it to be? Had she really thought it would be all smooth sailing once she was in the household?
The truth was that she hadn’t allowed herself to think about anything at all beyond getting the job. She’d been so focused on that, she hadn’t considered what it would be like to act a part every waking minute of every day. Now, as all the ramifications of her future came roaring into her mind, she appreciated just how difficult the task ahead would be. This wasn’t just about one evening of dodging inconvenient questions about her fictional past. This was about her entire life.
Suddenly, potential hazards were springing up in her mind like mushrooms popping out of the ground after a rain. He wanted her to go to his tailor for a new suit. How would she get out of that? And what about games and sports? She was all right when it came to games for girls—jacks, hop-score, jump-the-rope, that sort of thing—and she could play a decent, if not brilliant, game of rounders or croquet. But boys played football, cricket, and rugby, games she’d never played in her life. Lord Kenyon would surely expect her to know these games, to play them with his sons. He had the sort of strong and fluid grace that spoke of an athlete, and if he ever watched her pretend any sort of competence at boys’ sports, she’d be sunk. He’d undoubtedly played enough football and cricket at school to know a fraud when he saw one.
There were other hazards to consider. If there was ever occasion to dance, she’d have to remember to lead. And to stand whenever ladies entered a room. And pull out chairs for them, open doors, pick up handkerchiefs. And, of course, there were all the womanly things she’d have to avoid doing . . . oh God.
Amanda straightened away from the door in alarm as another thought struck her, a ghastly one she’d never considered until this moment. What about her menses? Mrs. Richmond would surely notice when that time came around. How could she ever hide her monthly cycle from the woman who did the laundry?
Amanda’s dread deepened, threatening to dissolve into panic. She leaned back against the door again, folded her arms over her tightly bound breasts, and took several deep, steadying breaths. She hadn’t come this far just to be outdone by trivialities. There were ways to cope with all these things, and she would just have to tackle each one as it came up. Otherwise, she’d be overwhelmed. For now, tonight’s dinner was the only thing she needed to worry about.
She started toward the kitchen to fetch the boys and tried to look on the bright side. It was only one meal, not a daily occurrence. All she had to do was make a few manly sounding remarks about the excellent joint of beef, force down a glass or two of port, and steer the conversation away from herself and her own checkered past. How hard could that be?
Chapter 7
She was almost there. Keeping the ends of the half-formed bow of her tie clenched tightly in her fingers so the blasted thing wouldn’t come undone, Amanda simultaneously tried to shove the wide loop of white silk in her right hand through the smaller loop at her throat. She then pulled the ends into the proper shape, tightening the knot as she tried to balance the proportions on both sides, then she lowered her hands and leaned back from the mirror to survey the results.
It was crooked. Again.
With an oath of exasperation, Amanda pulled at the ends to undo her latest pathetic attempt. Of all the things her father had taught her growing up, she wondered in aggravation, why hadn’t tying his ties been one of them?
Taking up the ends of white silk, she started again from the beginning. “Right end shorter than left,” she muttered, repeating for the sixth time what the old tailor in Petticoat Lane had told her when he’d sold her the secondhand clothes of her gentleman’s wardrobe. “Cross longer end over shorter end, then bring it up through the neck loop—”
“Having a problem?”
Startled, Amanda jumped, letting go of the ends of her tie, and she turned her head to find Colin watching her from the doorway to the nursery, grinning in unmistakable amusement.
“You are supposed to be getting ready for bed,” she told him severely, “not spying on me.”
“I am ready for bed,” he answered, gesturing to the flannel pajamas he was wearing as he crossed to her side. “And it’s not spying since I have to go through your room to get to mine.”
With no way to refute that very valid point, Amanda turned her attention back to her task. “Pull it tight,” she went on under her breath, suiting the action to the words. “Let the longer end hang down, fold the shorter end in half . . .”
She formed the bow again and tugged the ends into place. “Well?” she asked, turning toward the boy. “What do you think?”
Colin’s howl of laughter gave her the answer even before he spoke. “Awful. One side’s twice as big as the other.”
She returned her attention to the mirror. “It is, isn’t it?” she agreed dismally. “I fear I shall never be any good at bow ties. A four-in-hand is so much easier.”
“Do you want me to do it up for you?”
Surprised, she turned toward him. “Do you know how?”
“Of course. Owen and I both do. Samuel taught us.”
“Not your father?”
“He’s too busy to teach us things like that. Especially now.”
“Why now, especially?”
“Because he’s in the Commons.” Colin’s expression became dismal. “Once Parliament starts again, we’ll hardly ever see him.”
Amanda might have been relieved by that news, but the forlorn expression of the little boy beside her made that impossible, and she decided one of the things she’d have to talk with Lord Kenyon about at dinner was the lack of time he spent with his sons. “Being in Parliament is very important work,” she said, thinking to comfort the child, but even as the words came out of her mouth, she realized how lame they sounded.
“More important than us,” Colin muttered. “That’s sure.”
“I don’t think that’s true. The way he talks about you, he seems very fond of you and your brother. In fact . . .” She paused and took a breath, hoping she wasn’t about to utter a bald-faced lie to a child. “I think he loves you both very much.”
To her surprise, Colin nodded in agreement with that contention, though he didn’t seem much impressed by it. “He loves us, but he doesn’t want us around.”
“If that were the case, he’d have sent you off to school already.”
“The only reason he hasn’t is because he doesn’t think we’re ready yet. That’s why he decided to hire a tutor this time instead of another nanny. A tutor would bring us up to the mark, he said, and make us ready acad . . . acad . . .”
“Academically?” Amanda supplied.
“That’s it. He said that was important because if we weren’t ready, we’d fail our examinations and be sent home, and he didn’t want that to happen. I overheard him telling Samuel all about it, the night before we met you in the park.”
Amanda had a sneaking suspicion Colin had overheard that conversation because he’d had an ear to the keyhole, but now was not the time for a lecture on the immorality of eavesdropping. “So that’s why you don’t want a tutor,” she said instead. “But then, why do you keep driving nannies away?”
He looked away with a sulky frown and didn’t answer.
“Surely you know,” Amanda persisted, “the more nannies you drive off, the more you exasperate your father and the more likely school becomes?”
Colin shrugged, staring at the floor. “At least if we’re in trouble, he’s paying attention.” His voice was a mumble, and yet, the bitterness in it was unmistakable. “Otherwise, he can barely stand to look at us.”
Amanda had already appreciated that their father was a neglectful parent, but when she tried to imagine that he might feel animosity for his sons or resent their needs, she couldn’t form the picture. He’d worked himself into a profoun
d state of worry over the idea that he might have put his sons in danger by hiring someone he knew so little about. He was an inadequate parent, perhaps, but not an indifferent one. “I don’t think that’s true.”
“Yes, it is. We remind him of Mama, and he doesn’t like it. We look like her, you see.”
Amanda’s heart constricted with compassion. “I’m sorry,” she said, not knowing what else to say.
“Doesn’t matter.” Colin gave another shrug and looked up. His face gave nothing away, and yet, the very impassivity of his expression told her that he was much less indifferent than he wished to appear. “So,” he said, waving a hand toward her chest, “are you ever going to tie that thing?”
Amanda looked down in dismay at her still-undone neckwear.
“I’m not sure I can,” she confessed and looked at him. “Will you help me?”
“Maybe.” Colin tilted his head, considering, giving her a look far too shrewd for a boy of ten. “What have you got to trade?”
“Oh, so you want something in return? That’s not very gentlemanlike.”
“It’s not very gentlemanlike not to know how to tie a tie either.”
“If you ever do go to Harrow, I shall make sure the tutors there put you on the debating team. You’ll be excellent.”
He grinned. “Got any sweets?”
She had some Belgian pastilles in her drawer, but she wasn’t sure buying the child’s assistance with chocolate was a good idea. “You already had dessert,” she reminded. “Two helpings of Spotted Dick.”
“That was ages ago.”
“Two hours,” she corrected. “You’ll get much further with me if you don’t exaggerate.”
“Well, it seems longer. And besides, I’m hungry.” He glanced at the clock on her mantel. “You’ve only got seven minutes to get downstairs, or you’ll be late. Being late for dinner is very bad.”
“Well, yes, I know that, but—”
“Papa won’t like it. He hates when people are late.”
Amanda, desperate, capitulated. “I’ve got four chocolates,” she said, kneeling in front of the boy. “I will trade them for a lesson.”
“Done.” He picked up the ends of her tie and began manipulating the silk, explaining as he went, using similar instructions to the ones the tailor had given her, but when he’d finished, the results were clearly not satisfactory.
“Crooked,” Colin said, shaking his head and undoing the bow.
“I thought you knew how to do this,” she muttered, wondering if Colin had made her for a mug again.
“I do know how! But,” he added, frowning in concentration, “it’s harder when you do it on somebody else. There,” he added, tugging the ends into place and once again leaning back to study his handiwork. “Got it this time.”
She rose and turned to the mirror, and she didn’t know whether to be relieved that she now had a perfectly done bow tie or chagrined that a ten-year-old had tied it with more skill than she, and with far less effort.
“Second drawer of the chiffonier,” she said. “And you must share them with your brother,” she added as he tore to the other end of the room and opened the requisite drawer to retrieve the chocolate.
“Share what?” Owen asked, coming into the room.
Amanda pulled her black dinner jacket off the peg inside the open armoire. “Chocolates,” she explained, slipping the jacket on over her white shirt and white satin waistcoat. “Two for each of you.”
Owen’s face lit up at once. “Smashing!” he said, and joined his brother at the other end of the room as Amanda retrieved a linen handkerchief from the armoire and tucked it into her breast pocket, careful to leave the corner sticking out.
“Into bed, both of you,” she ordered, returning her attention to the boys and jerking a thumb toward their room.
They both nodded and moved toward their own room without voicing any objections, though whether that was because she’d managed to establish some semblance of authority over them or because their mouths were full of chocolate, she couldn’t be sure.
The second dressing gong boomed down below, the sound reverberating along the corridor and through the open doorway that led into the nursery, meaning she only had five minutes left, and she hastily followed both boys into their room.
“There,” she said a few minutes later, smoothing Owen’s counterpane over him before straightening away from the boy’s bed. “I will be having Samuel come up periodically to check on you,” she added over her shoulder as she started for the door, “so no mischief making while I’m gone.”
With that, she took up the lamp and reentered her own room. There, she gave herself one last glance in the mirror and made a token effort to smooth her hair. But she’d barely raked back the sides with a bit of pomade before the grandfather clock on the first floor began sounding the hour and she was forced to give up on her unruly curls as a lost cause. She wiped her hands on a spare handkerchief, cast the scrap of cambric aside, and ran for the door, but the chimes had long since died away by the time she had raced down the corridor, across the landing, down the three flights of stairs, and into the drawing room.
Lord Kenyon was already there, waiting for her, faultlessly attired in black evening clothes despite his lack of a valet. “Seton,” he greeted, taking a sip from the half-empty glass in his hand as Amanda skidded to a halt in front of him.
“Sorry I’m late,” she panted, trying to catch her breath.
“There’s no need for apologies. I already told you we’re not standing on ceremony tonight since it’s just the two of us. Sherry?” he asked, gesturing to the decanter and cordial glasses atop the nearby liquor cabinet.
Shaking her head in refusal, she sucked in another gasp of air. “I don’t think there’s time for it. I heard the clock chime the hour as I came down, so Samuel will be announcing dinner any second.”
“He already did. Not to worry,” he added at her sound of dismay. “I told him to delay ten minutes since you weren’t down yet. Have a drink,” he invited, turning to reach for the sherry decanter. “You look as if you need it.”
“You’re not upset?” she asked in puzzlement as he poured sherry for her.
He paused, giving her a surprised glance. “Should I be? Ten minutes is hardly long enough for Mrs. Richmond to start squawking about cold soup and overcooked meat.”
“I was given to understand that you detest unpunctuality.”
“Me?” He made a scoffing sound and set aside the decanter. “I don’t know where you heard that,” he said, held out her glass of sherry, and took another sip of his own. “I’m usually the last one down to dinner. Of course, that’s mainly because I can’t seem to keep a valet—”
“That scamp,” Amanda interrupted as she took her glass from his outstretched hand, half laughing at how easily Colin had tricked her out of her chocolates. “That conniving little scamp.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You are referring to one of my sons, I take it?”
“Colin.” She shook her head, still laughing a little, wondering just how long it would be before she could discern when that child was having her on.
“He’s the reason you came tearing in as if the house was on fire? Not that I’m surprised,” he added as she nodded. “He loves a good joke. As you ought to know by now,” he pointed out, lifting his glass.
She made a face at this reminder of what had happened earlier in the day. “He told me you hate it when people are late. I know, I know,” she went on, watching him shake his head as if amazed by her gullibility. “But it seemed quite logical to suppose he was telling the truth. You’re in the Commons. Surely you value punctuality. It must be quite inconvenient when Members are late for votes and things like that.”
“Well, it’s true that at Westminster one has to be on time for absolutely everything. It’s de rigueur. But here at home, I’m not so punctilious, much to Torquil’s dismay.”
“Is the duke such a stickler, then?”
“Terribly. But jus
t now, he’s at the country house in Hampshire, with the rest of the family. When he’s here, though, everyone jumps to attention.”
Amanda wasn’t sure she liked the sound of that. “Will he be coming to London often?”
“Well, he is in the Lords, so he’ll come when there’s an important vote on. But as I’m sure you know, those in the Lords don’t have to be present nearly as often as those in the Commons, so I don’t expect we’ll see much of him. As for the rest of the family, they won’t return to London until spring, when the season begins.”
“And will we go there?”
“To Hampshire? We might for a few days at Christmas, but I doubt I’ll have time to be away much more than that.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. By Christmas, she hoped to be much more at ease in her new role.
“My lord?” Samuel’s voice had them both turning toward the door. “Dinner is served.”
Amanda gulped down her sherry, set her glass aside, and fell in step with his lordship as they followed Samuel out of the drawing room and down the corridor.
“You see?” Lord Kenyon said as they entered an unexpectedly small dining room with an oval table set for two. “No standing on ceremony here, Seton. We’re not even in the formal dining room tonight.”
She glanced around, noting soft yellow walls, dark wood furnishings, and a definite lack of grandeur. She was also profoundly grateful for the soft, mellow dimness of candlelight. “Does the family often dine here when in residence?”
“For breakfast, always. Dinner, too, if we have no guests.” He pulled out a chair, and Amanda almost moved to take it, but caught herself in time and circled to the chair at his right hand instead.
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