Rules for a Proper Governess

by Jennifer Ashley

  Oh, but it was, Bertie thought. Only the play was real, and the curtain, final. Mr. McBride knew that too, she sensed, despite his jokes.

  “You are, however, correct that I would like to recess briefly to gather my thoughts,” the judge said. “Bailiff, please see that Mr. Small does not leave.”

  The judge rose, and everyone scrambled to their feet. The judge disappeared through the door into his inner sanctum, the journalists rushed away, and the rest of the watchers filed out, talking excitedly.

  Bertie looked over the railing at Mr. McBride, who’d sat down, pushing his wig askew as he rubbed the sunshine-colored hair beneath it. The animation went out of his body as the courtroom emptied, as though he were a marionette whose strings had been cut.

  He glanced around and up, but not at Bertie. Mr. McBride looked at no one and nothing.

  Bertie was struck by how empty his face was. His eyes were a strange shade of gray, clear like a stormy morning. As Bertie watched, those eyes filled with a vast sadness, the likes of which Bertie had never seen before. His mouth moved a little, as though he whispered something, but Bertie couldn’t hear what he said.

  Bertie remained fixed in place instead of nipping off for some ale, her hand on the gallery’s wooden railing. She couldn’t take her eyes off the man below, who’d changed so incredibly the moment his performance had finished.

  Mr. McBride didn’t leave his bench until the judge returned, and the courtroom started up again. Then he got to his feet, life flowing back into his body, becoming the eloquent, arrogant man with the beautiful voice once more.

  The judge signaled for him to begin. Mr. McBride summed up his case so charmingly that all hung on his words. The jury went out and returned very quickly with their verdict about Ruthie, Not guilty.

  Ruthie was free. Bertie had hoped for a miracle, and Mr. McBride had provided one.

  After much hugging, Ruthie left Bertie and went home with her mum. Bertie found her dad and Jeffrey waiting for her outside the pub across the street. They were furious. Jacko was Jeffrey’s best mate, and Jacko had just been arrested for murder and taken away by the police.

  “’E’s to blame,” Jeffrey said darkly, jerking his chin at Mr. McBride, who was walking out of the Old Bailey, dressed now in a normal suit and coat. Once again, Bertie noted how Mr. McBride had changed from a man who commanded a room to a man who looked tired of life.

  The afternoon was cold, darkening with the coming winter night. Bertie rubbed her hands together in her too-thin gloves and suggested that her dad and Jeffrey take her into the pub and buy her a half.

  “Not yet,” Bertie’s dad said. “Just teach ’im a lesson, Bertie. Go on now, girl.”

  Girl, when she was twenty-six years old. “Leave him alone,” she said. “He saved Ruthie.”

  “But got Jacko arrested,” Jeffrey growled. “Whose side are you on?”

  “Jacko killed the woman,” Bertie said. “He’s a villain; he always was. I say good on Ruthie.”

  Jeffrey grabbed Bertie by the shoulder and pushed her into the shadows of the passage beside the pub. He wouldn’t hit her in public—he’d take her somewhere unseen to do that—but his hand clamped down hard. “Jacko is my best friend,” Jeffrey said, his breath already heavy with gin. “You get over to that fiend of a Scottish barrister and fetch us a souvenir. We deserve it. The traitorous bastard was supposed to take Jacko’s part.”

  Jeffrey’s grip hurt. Bertie knew if she protested too much, both Jeffrey and her dad would let her have it. But she couldn’t do this.

  “That fiend of a Scottish barrister is very smart,” she argued. “He’ll catch me, then I’ll be in the cell with Jacko, waiting to go before the magistrate.”

  Bertie’s dad leaned in, his breath already reeking as well. “You just do it, Roberta. You’re like a ghost—he’ll never know. And if he does see you, you know what to do. Now get out there, before I take my hand to you.”

  They weren’t going to leave it. In their minds, Mr. McBride was the villain of the piece and deserved to be punished. If Bertie refused, her dad would drag her away and thrash her until she gave in. If Mr. McBride went home while Bertie was taking her beating, her dad would make her wait here every afternoon until Mr. McBride returned for another case.

  Either way, Bertie was doing this. One way would simply be less painful than the other.

  Bertie jerked free of Jeffrey’s hold. “All right,” she snapped. “I’ll do it. But you’d better be ready. He’s no fool.”

  “Like I said, he’ll never see ya,” her dad said. “You’ve got the touch. Go on with you.”

  Bertie stumbled when her dad pushed her between the shoulder blades, but she righted herself and squared her shoulders. Taking a deep breath, she walked steadily toward where Mr. McBride stood waiting, his sad face and empty eyes focused on something far, far from the crowded streets of the City of London.

  Sinclair McBride pulled his coat close against the icy wind and drew his hat down over his eyes.

  Remember Sir Percival Montague, Daisy? he asked the gray sky. Well, I potted him good today. Old Monty was nearly rubbing his hands, wanting to pronounce sentence of death on that poor girl. Bloody imbecile. She was no more guilty than a newborn kitten.

  The sky grew darker, rain coming with the night. So damnably cold here, not like the blistering heat of North Africa, where Sinclair had done his army time. His younger brother, Steven, was always trying to talk Sinclair into traveling with him—Spain, Egypt, back to Rome at least, where winters were balmy.

  But there was the question of Andrew and Caitriona, Sinclair’s very interesting children. Sinclair couldn’t bring himself to foist them on Elliot and Juliana while he traveled the world. His brother and sister-in-law were starting their own family, their own life, and needed time alone. Take them with me? Sinclair had to smile. Wouldn’t that be an adventure?

  Sinclair imagined his two terrifying bairns on trains, carriages, carts, all the way to Italy. No, not the best answer.

  Thinking about Andrew and Cat helped him avoid the one thought Sinclair had been trying to banish all day. Now as he stood in the cold, waiting for his coachman to bring the landau, the thought came unbidden.

  Seven years to this day you left me, Daisy.

  Margaret McBride, Maggie or Daisy to those closest to her, had died of a fever that threatened to take Sinclair’s children as well. Seven years ago today.

  My friends and family expect me to move on, can you believe it? But they’ve not had the loves of their lives ripped away from them, have they? They wouldn’t say such bloody daft things if they had.

  “Moving on” sounded like forgetting all about Maggie, his wife, his lover, his helpmeet, his best friend. And I’ll never do that.

  Maggie didn’t answer. She never did. But it didn’t matter. The comfort Sinclair drew from talking to her, out loud or inside his head, was some days the only thing that kept him sane.

  When you’re ready for me to move on, I know you’ll tell me. Another gust of wind had Sinclair grabbing for his hat and clenching his teeth. Where the devil was Richards with the coach? I trust you, Daisy . . .

  The crowd was thick, everyone in London going home for the night. Sinclair held on to his hat as he was buffeted. Richards was taking a damn long time. Sinclair wasn’t usually in a rush, but tonight was bloody cold, and the rain was starting to come down in earnest.

  A shove and a thump sent Sinclair a swift step forward. A young woman had stumbled into him, her shoes skidding on the wet pavement. She struggled to keep her feet, and Sinclair put a steadying hand under her arm.

  “Easy now, lass,” Sinclair said.

  She looked up at him . . . and everything stopped. Sinclair saw a dark hat covered with bright blue violets, then eyes of the same blue—clear and warm in this swirl of gray. The young woman’s face was round, her nose slightly tip-tilte
d, her red lips curving into a charming smile.

  He’d never seen her before, and at the same time, Sinclair felt a jolt rock him, as though he’d been waiting for years for this encounter. The two of them stood together in a warm stillness, removed from the rest of the world as it rushed around them.

  “I’m that sorry, mister,” the young woman was saying. “Some bloke put his elbow right in me back, and me feet went clean out from under me. You all right?”

  “I’m whole.” Sinclair forced himself back to the cold of the real world, and studied her with his professional assessment, honed by a long career of watching criminals. She wasn’t a street girl. Game girls had a desperate look, and were too eager to be seductive. Want me to make ya feel better, lamb? was the cleanest of the offers Sinclair had gotten as he strode through London’s streets.

  This young woman was working-class, probably on her way home after a long day’s drudgery. She wasn’t dirty, but the sleeves of her velvet jacket were frayed at the cuffs, her gloves threadbare and much mended. Poor, but making the best of it.

  Still, she didn’t have the downtrodden appearance many factory women had. Her smile was sunny, as though telling the world things could be better if given a chance.

  “Well, that’s good,” she said. “’Night, mister. Sweet dreams.”

  Another smile, and in the sudden flare of an approaching light, all Sinclair could see were her eyes.

  Deep and blue, like the depths of the ocean. The Mediterranean could be that color. Sinclair remembered southern Italy and its shores from his leave time, when he’d been in the army and traveling the world. He’d known peace there.

  This young woman with her blue eyes was beautiful, with a beauty that went beyond her shabby clothes and working-class grin. She was a vision of light in the darkness, in a place where darkness had lasted too long.

  Someone else shoved him, and Sinclair turned to step out of the way. When he looked back for the young woman, she was gone. He blinked at the empty space where she’d been, then lifted his gaze and spied her slipping through the crowd, the violets on her hat bobbing.

  The detail of her ridiculous hat kept Sinclair from believing he’d dreamed her. But of course he hadn’t. Visions of beautiful women were of golden-haired sirens with perfect bodies, strumming on lyres perhaps, luring men to their dooms. Sirens didn’t have lopsided smiles and plump faces, and blue eyes that pulled Sinclair out of his despair, if only for a moment.

  But she was gone now, vision or no, and Sinclair needed to go home. Andrew and Cat would have locked their new governess into the cellar by now, or accidentally burned down the house. Or both.

  They didn’t mean to be bad, his little ones . . . Well, mostly they didn’t. One of the governesses had claimed that Andrew was possessed by the devil. She’d even offered to contact a priest she knew who could have him exorcised. That governess hadn’t lasted more than an hour.

  A clock struck. Sinclair, out of habit, reached for his watch to compare the time. His watch always ran a few minutes fast and having it repaired made no difference. Buying a new watch was out of the question, because Daisy had given him this one . . .

  Which was no longer in his pocket.

  Reality rushed back at Sinclair with an icy slap. His gaze went to the violet-covered hat as it disappeared around a corner.

  Good God, how stupid had he been? He hadn’t pegged the young woman as a pickpocket, because pickpockets usually didn’t stop for a chat. They stole and slipped away before the victim was aware.

  Her bad luck someone had tripped her. Or had it been luck?

  All this went through his head as Sinclair whirled around and strode after the woman, his feet moving faster and faster as he went. Gone was any thought of finding his coach and going home. Nothing mattered but getting that watch back. Sinclair would find the young woman and take it away from her, even if he had to chase her to the ends of the earth.

  Chapter 2

  Basher McBride was coming after her. Bertie had twigged he was much too smart not to notice if she lifted his timepiece, but she’d told herself not to be a coward. Now she knew her folly, because he was chasing her, and he’d have her nicked in a heartbeat. She should have stuck with taking his handkerchief and been done.

  But she’d wanted Mr. McBride to look at her. To see those eyes, gray like the sky before dawn, to hear his rumbling voice. She’d warmed all over when the syllables had poured onto her—Easy now, lass.

  She’d lingered too long to admire him, and now he was coming. Bertie picked up her pace and dashed around another corner. She knew London better than most, and she could lead him on a merry chase. And if Bertie couldn’t shake him . . . well, she’d know where to run.

  She scooted into the backstreets behind the grim walls of Newgate, ducking into the warrens and winding streets, lanes so narrow they blotted out the last streaks of light in the sky.

  These passages were filled with trash, rats, and layabouts. A few of the men lolling in their gin-soaked stupor tried to grab Bertie’s skirts as she went by, but Bertie expertly twitched away from them and kept on running.

  Bertie risked a dash across Aldersgate Street and back into the narrower lanes beyond. She jumped over a vagrant who looked to be far gone on opium, her bootheels clicking on the hard-packed street.

  And wasn’t it just her luck? The Scottish bloke was keeping up with her. A swift glance behind her as she rounded a corner showed McBride running after her, his body moving with athletic competence as he ducked and swerved around carts, dung, and vermin, both human and rodent.

  Bertie’s breath was coming fast, her corset too tight to keep this up for long. Blast the man. He should be giving up by now, toddling off to his comfortable home in Mayfair or Belgrave Square or wherever he laid his pristine head to rest.

  She remembered how he’d stood straight and tall in front of the judge, taunting the old misery, turning the verdict around to surprise them all. Basher McBride’s arrogance had rolled off him, with even the judge grudgingly conceding to him.

  But then, as soon as his performance was over, all that arrogance drained out of him, leaving Mr. McBride an empty shell. Until now, of course. His energy was back, focused on chasing Bertie and dragging her off to a constable.

  Not that, never that. Bertie didn’t particularly want to finish her life at the end of a noose. The jury might be sympathetic that Bertie was forced to pickpocket by her father—if they believed her—but that would only mean she’d be transported across the ocean to someplace she knew nothing about or locked up in a grim and terrifying prison.

  She should have been able to slip away from him by now, but Mr. McBride was keeping her in sight, whichever passage she took. Bertie knew she’d have to lure him to The Trap, whether she liked it or not, or she’d never get away from him.

  That’s how she thought of it—The Trap—with capital Ts outlining the jaws of it. No one escaped it, not easily anyway. Mr. McBride was smart—he’d run the other way as soon as he saw what was what, and leave Bertie alone.

  “Oi!” she shouted when she was within three feet of the place. “It’s Bertie! I’m coming in!”

  A door in a squalid wall in a dark alley swung open, and Bertie leapt over the doorsill. She swept up her skirts as she landed, careful not to turn her ankles in the rubble.

  Beyond the door was an empty space where a house had stood, pulled down or fallen down long ago. The lot was surrounded on four sides by other buildings that soared five and six stories to the sky. No windows faced the place, nothing to reveal the secrets of the inner emptiness. The space was lit right now with a fire built in the remains of an old stove, and with lanterns of the men and boys who liked to gather here.

  The Trap was to be used in dire emergency, when a pursuer became too keen or bullies from another neighborhood strayed too close. The men and boys who made The Trap their haven were usually
armed, usually drunk, and always ready to have a go at whoever was mad enough to come through the door.

  Bertie fled through the lot, which was strewn with stones and broken bottles, skirting the pile of old rubbish in the middle. A smaller door led out the other side to another passage, where Bertie could slip away and go home.

  She turned around to take one last look at her handsome Mr. McBride, to glimpse him again before he sensibly fled.

  Except, he wasn’t sensibly fleeing. Mr. McBride came on inside, firelight shining on his light-colored hair, his hat gone who knew where. He showed no fear about the toughs who were converging on him, and when he spotted Bertie on the other side of the lot, he roared, with a voice that rang like a warrior’s, “Stop her!”

  The toughs blinked, not used to victims who didn’t scramble away from them in terror. Mr. McBride started around them, straight for Bertie. The lads came out of their shocked state by the time McBride was halfway past the mound of junk, then they struck.

  “Aw, bloody hell!” McBride’s rich Scots rang out, and he grabbed a rusted iron bar from the pile. Before Bertie’s stunned eyes, Mr. McBride turned to face the onslaught and started fighting back.

  The youths and men charging him had knives, clubs, or coshes. Mr. McBride parried their blows, thrusting and beating at them as they beat on him. Iron rang against steel, and one of the youths cursed as his knife went flying. Mr. McBride had the advantage against the knives, having chosen a bar long enough to keep them back. When they figured out how to get under Mr. McBride’s reach, however . . .

  They were going to kill him.

  These toughs were thieves, murderers, or the sons of such. They’d killed before, wrapping up a body and tipping it into the Thames, with the police none the wiser. Never mind that Mr. McBride was obviously a toff in his fine clothes—they’d kill him, strip him, divide up the spoils, and go for a gin.

  Why the devil didn’t he just run?

  Bertie came pounding back to him. She dove around the flailing bars, earning her curses from the youths yelling at her to get out of the way, and closed her hands around Mr. McBride’s arm. She found beneath the expensive cloth strength that matched the iron bar he wielded. Mr. McBride started to shake her off, but Bertie dug deeper.