The Traveling Teacher

by Kirsten Osbourne

  The boys were grinning as they each hugged their father.

  “Good night, Father,” James said.

  “Goodnight, Father.” Henry turned and followed James, the two of them running down the hall toward the front of the manor.

  Harry’s gaze turned back to Taylor. “Now, where were we?”

  Taylor smiled. “I think we should wait with kisses like that until after the ceremony. You’ll get the special license?”

  “I suppose that would be very wise.” He brushed his lips across hers once more. “May I call you Taylor?”

  “Yes, of course. And I’ll call you Harry.” She wanted to add Potter, because he was the only Harry she had ever known, but she wasn’t feeling up to explaining. Thankfully, she had the entire Harry Potter series on her Kindle. She would use it as a read aloud during her teaching time with the boys.

  “Do you have a dress suitable to be married in?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t. I only have the dress you met me in, and two other dresses which are identical. Like the one I’m wearing.”

  He frowned. “I’ll have a seamstress come tomorrow. Perhaps we can have you in a proper dress in time for the wedding.”

  “I’d like that.” She wished she’d taken the time and money to have more dresses made before leaving, but she had been in a hurry. “And I’m off to sleep.”

  He nodded. “Sleep well.” After she’d left the room, he walked around his desk and sat down, staring straight ahead of him at nothing. What had made him think he should ask her to marry him? It didn’t seem to make sense to him, but he was happy he would no longer be hounded by people telling him to marry. And he would have the most beautiful woman in any situation at his side.

  Taylor had a fitting immediately after breakfast. How Harry had arranged for that to happen was beyond her. She looked over at the boys, who seemed to be waiting for her to teach them.

  “Why don’t you boys walk around the grounds singing your alphabet song?” she asked.

  James nodded, looking between her and the seamstress. “All right. When will our supplies be here?”

  Taylor looked over at Harry, who answered. “This afternoon. Don’t worry, boys. You have my complete support for this project.”

  Then Taylor stood on a stool, and she was measured from top to bottom.

  “Now when do we need this dress?” she asked in a French accent that sounded very fake to Taylor, who had spent a summer in Paris with a friend when she was in high school.

  Harry answered for her. “We marry in three days. I need this dress done then and hopefully a few more before the month is out. She’s going to need them for the season.”

  Taylor’s heart fluttered at the mention of the season. The idea of it both awed and frightened her. She wondered vaguely how she would have handled herself if she’d been sent back to London in the middle of the season. She probably would have lost her mind.

  The seamstress nodded. “Oui, Monsieur.”

  To Taylor’s eyes the woman looked slightly panicked, and it was all she could do not to laugh. Making a wedding dress in three days with no sewing machine wouldn’t be easy for anyone.

  It was almost lunchtime when the seamstress left.

  “We’re not having a large wedding, are we?”

  He shook his head. “The boys and a couple of friends will be all. I’m certain there’s no one you want to invite.”

  After thinking about it for a moment, she surprised him with her answer. “Maude.”

  “Maude? The cook?”

  “Yes. She gave me some very good advice about how to treat the boys the day I arrived. I’m not sure where I’d be standing without that advice.”

  “Well, it’s not common, but I don’t think it will hurt anything to invite her.” Harry rubbed the back of his neck. “Will you teach the boys after lunch?”

  “Yes, of course. I don’t want them to fall behind.” Judging by the state of the crops, she knew it was late summer or early autumn. The start of a school year was not the right time to get behind on anything.

  “All right.” He looked at her oddly but said nothing else about it.

  While they ate, the boys looked at her funny.

  “Are you still going to teach us?” James finally asked.

  “Of course I am. We told you that last night. We’ll do some arithmetic this afternoon until your supplies arrive. And I want us to look at something called blueprints, which are architect’s sketches of buildings before they’re made.”

  Harry looked at her oddly. “I’ve never heard that called a blueprint. Are you certain that’s the correct word?”

  Taylor wished—for the first time in her life—that she had an etymology dictionary with her, so she could look up when the word first came to be used. “It might be called something different in England,” she said softly.

  Harry seemed to take her answer for what it was worth. “I think I have the drawings that were made of this house before it was built in the library. Would you like me to find them?”

  “That would be wonderful and would help us a lot.” Taylor looked at the boys, who just kept staring back at her. They seemed to be waiting for her to spread her wings and fly away. “I’m excited for your materials to get here.”

  James nodded. “Are you going to make us build it the way you want it built?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “No, I’m going to make the two of you go through all the steps of building the structure. You will get to see how everything is supposed to be done, and I’ll check your work and make sure you’re building a structure big enough for us to use for your lessons.”

  Henry smiled. “That’s nice. I don’t want a lady telling me how to build something.”

  Taylor laughed. “You’re going to love women’s liberation. I promise.”

  Harry frowned at her, and she stopped talking about future things. Instead, she continued eating her lunch. After the meal, she took the boys up to the schoolroom, the three of them worked on drawing what they wanted the building to look like, and she used the picture to teach some basic math.

  They were almost finished with the drawing when Harry knocked on the door, carrying in a book that had drawings of the manor house inside it. She flipped through the pages with the boys. They each found their own room on the drawing, and they named a few of the other rooms they could recognize. A knock at the door told them the materials had been delivered.

  “Can we start building now?” James asked.

  Taylor smiled. “Why don’t we go and map out how much room we’ll need, and we’ll go from there.”

  Henry frowned. “What if we want to do something different than what you want?”

  “Then we’ll discuss it and see if it really makes sense to add it on.”

  James looked at her. “Is that your way of saying that you won’t let us do things you don’t want us to do?”

  “Not at all.” Taylor led the way as they went downstairs. Harry had already had the materials unloaded in the area of the log she’d sat on before. “This will be perfect!” She clapped her hands together in excitement. This is the type of teaching she’d always dreamed of. It just wasn’t possible with a roomful of students in the middle of Manhattan, though.

  As the boys pulled out different boards, they took four beams, and they mapped out the area they wanted to use.

  “Is this big enough?” James asked, looking at Taylor.

  “I think so. Let’s see.” She walked to the area of grass and sat down, folding her legs under her. “I think we’ll need a chalk board along the back wall.” She hated the idea of going back to a blackboard from dry erase markers. She hated the sound chalk made when you wrote on the chalkboard.

  The boys stepped into their “structure” and stood facing her, gauging the distance.

  “I think this is about right,” Henry said. “There’s room for our teacher, our chalkboard, and the two of us. What more do we need?”

  “A globe would be nice,” Ta
ylor said. “Then we can see where different countries are as we study them.”

  James frowned. “Why would we want to study about countries that aren’t England anyway?”

  “Because you need to understand the kind of lives other people have. You take things like clean water for granted, when there are places all over the world where you can’t drink water at all.” If memory served her, England had once been one of those places, but she’d have to look it up and see for herself.

  “So why don’t they just drink milk?” Henry asked.

  Taylor carefully answered the question, explaining about how the world was very different from their narrow focus. She had to smile to herself as she worked a social studies lesson into her day.

  When they had worked far later into the day than their school day should have taken, they finally called it a day.

  “Are we going to be gardeners when we’re done with our schoolroom?” Henry asked.

  “Absolutely. We want our building to look like it belongs on the grounds of a great manor house, don’t we? That means we need to paint it, and we need to landscape it. Oh, there’s so much to do yet.”

  “And this is school?” James asked skeptically.

  “What did you learn today?”

  Henry frowned at her. “We did our alphabet song this morning.”

  “And then we learned about sketching a house before you build it,” James said.

  “And we learned about people in South America and Africa who don’t have clean water,” Henry added.

  “And we did some arithmetic when we did the drawing,” James said. He stopped walking and looked at Taylor. “You must be a witch.”

  Taylor felt her heart speed up. Being a witch in this time period could end badly. “Why would you say that?”

  “Because you got us to learn and we liked it!” James said, shaking his head. “Wait ’til I tell Father.” He took off running, and his brother immediately ran after him.

  Taylor was still smiling when she got to the house and walked toward the stairs to ready herself for supper. She was halfway up when Harry called to her. “Taylor!”

  She turned and stood where she was for a moment, talking to him. “Yes?”

  “How did you manage to get my boys excited about learning? You should be teaching your teaching methods, not spending all day with the twins.”

  “I enjoy teaching your boys all day.” She smiled at him. “I’m going to go and get ready for supper.”

  He nodded, watching her climb the stairs. He couldn’t believe that she was from the future, but she was truly a woman like no other he had ever met. He wondered where she had come from.

  They married on Thursday morning. The wedding itself was performed right there in the house and was over much too quickly. Taylor kept glancing over at Harry as if she couldn’t believe she was actually marrying an earl. She was a Regency lady now. How strange.

  After the wedding, they had a wedding breakfast, and then the four of them piled into his open-air carriage and went for a drive.

  “What kind of carriage is this?” Taylor asked as they were driving at a sedate pace down a country road.

  “It’s called a break. They’re nice because they have plenty of room for a family.” Harry looked over at her as he answered. One of the servants drove the vehicle’s two horses, and she and Harry sat side-by-side, facing Henry and James.

  “I like it. I’ve never been in anything like this.” Of course the closest she’d come to a horse-drawn carriage was a ride around Central Park with a couple of friends. She was so much more used to cars.

  “How did you get from place to place?” Harry asked.

  “Maybe we should discuss that later,” Taylor suggested. She was trying hard to follow his edict about not talking about the future in front of his sons.

  “I would like that a great deal.” He turned back to the boys. “Do you feel like you’ve learned anything since Taylor has come to be your governess?”

  James nodded. “She’s tricky. She teaches us even when we don’t realize we’re being taught anything. It’s mean.”

  “How is that mean?” Taylor asked. “Should I always announce that a lesson is about to commence so you can start ignoring me?”

  Henry nodded emphatically. “That would be nice.”

  “Well, it’s not happening. I’m going to teach you whenever I can work it in. And you’re going to learn whether you like it or not.” Taylor shook her head at them.

  Harry just laughed. “Isn’t it nice to realize you’ve had a good day and it counts as a school day? And you don’t have any regrets?”

  James shrugged. “Would you come out to our new schoolroom we’re building, Father? We’d like you to see all the work we’ve done.”

  “I hope you’re not trying to turn my boys into common laborers,” Harry said with a grin, softly enough for only Taylor to hear. “I would love to see what you’ve done so far. I’m really proud of how well-behaved you boys have been for Taylor.”

  Henry looked back and forth between the two of them. “Are we supposed to call her Taylor? Or Mother?”

  “Which would you prefer to call me?” Taylor asked before Harry could respond. She wanted the boys to be comfortable with anything they called her.

  “I’d like to call you Mother,” James said softly. “There’s never been anyone I could do that with before.”

  Henry nodded, agreeing with his brother, which seemed to happen more often than not. The boys barely fought.

  “I’d like that,” Taylor said softly. “Please call me Mother, then.” She couldn’t believe how quickly she’d gained the boys’ trust. She wanted to get her hands on their previous governesses so she could give them a piece of her mind. Yes, she knew the boys had misbehaved, but when they were treated well, they didn’t seem to do that at all.

  Harry’s hand covered Taylor’s, and she looked at him with surprise. She hadn’t expected him to touch her at all with the boys around, but it felt good. Of course, it just made her more nervous about the night ahead. Her things had already been moved to his room, except the few things she’d kept on her person to keep the servants from spotting them.

  She wondered how long she’d be able to keep the Kindle in her possession before people found it. She was sure it wouldn’t take long if the housekeeping staff were good at their jobs. And they did seem to be.

  She turned her attention back to the beautiful English countryside. This country just seemed to call to her soul. She wouldn’t go back for anything.

  Five

  They had a big supper that night to celebrate the fact that Taylor and Harry had married. As they ate, the boys seemed odd still.

  “Are you worried now that we’re married?” she asked them.

  James shrugged. “Are we going to keep living here with you? Or are you going to send us away so you can have a new family?”

  Taylor exchanged a look with Harry before she answered them. “Well, I’m not sure what your father is planning, but if he sends you away, I’m going with you. There’s no way I’m going to give up having sons when I just got the two best ones in all of England!”

  Harry smiled. “I guess I can’t send you away if my wife is going to go after you. I’ll be keeping you forever, then.”

  “I guess you have to.” Henry starting eating normally after that. Apparently, the boys were satisfied with the answer.

  That night when Harry told the boys to go up to bed, Taylor got to her feet. “I have sons now, so I get to tuck you in. You like being tucked in, don’t you?”

  The boys simply shrugged. “Father said that you only get tucked in if you’re young enough to need a nurse, and we’re not anymore.”

  “Well, you have a mother, so you get tucked in again. Come along.” She started for the stairs, and she could hear the boys walking along behind her. Taking them to their room, she made sure each of them were tucked in bed before she kissed them each on the forehead. She was well aware the boys would probably r
ub the kiss off their foreheads, but she didn’t care. They were going to know what it was like to have a mother if it killed them all.

  She left the room and closed the door behind her, standing to listen to see if the boys said anything. She wasn’t disappointed.

  “She kissed my forehead. That was strange.”

  “None of the nurses ever did that. Did you like it?” It was hard to tell which boy was which because they sounded so much alike.

  “I did like it. I hope she does it every night.”

  “Me too.”

  Taylor wiped her tears away when she heard the conversation, but then she walked away. She wasn’t sure where she’d find her husband, but he couldn’t be too far away. She didn’t even know which room was his, which was odd, because she knew the entire family lived in the family wing.

  She looked over and saw him standing in a doorway, his arms folded across his chest, watching her. He looked so incredibly powerful standing there, his muscles thick under his shirt. She was sure he must do more work than just the paperwork that he admitted to.

  Staring at him, she couldn’t help but wonder what was going through his head. His dark hair looked a bit damp, and she wondered if he’d made use of the pitcher and bowl in his room. She was still having a hard time getting used to going without her daily shower. And baths were too much work for the servants in her mind. She’d have to take one soon, of course, but it was hard to not think about what all was involved.

  She walked toward him slowly, wondering why he was watching her the way he was. He seemed to truly enjoy watching her, and she was still in the dress she’d worn for their wedding many hours before.

  When she reached him, she stopped in front of him and stood on tiptoe to brush her lips against his. He smiled. “I had the servants prepare a bath for you. I just beg you won’t take too long.”

  She laughed softly. “A bath sounds lovely. Thank you.”

  “And you’ll be quick about it?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Just show me the tub, and I’ll be done quickly.”

  He grinned at her, taking her elbow and escorting her to the tub full of steaming water at the foot of his huge four poster bed. He kissed her softly and turned away. “Hurry.”