A Governess Should Never... Tempt a Prizefighter

by Emily Windsor

  “Miss Griffin.” Her fluttering fingers were captured within his hands, coarse and strong. Then they tensed and were swiftly drawn away. “Even pugilists manage to marry, you realise. Often quite successfully as well. Most of the fellows will bring their wives, except for a scant few who remain bachelors, or like me are widowers, and Nobbler Nick always brings his sister to these events. We are quite…civilised.”

  Matilda bit her lip and closed her eyes.

  What a nitterwit.

  “I can only apologise for my presumption, Sir.”

  “A not unnatural one.” He grinned, displaying those white teeth. “I should have worded my request better, and I am sure this will hold no trepidation for a lady such as you. After all, you must have attended many a society event.”

  “Yes, but I… I tended to keep to the edges.”

  Seth gaped. “Never say you are a wallflower, Miss Griffin. I shall not believe it.”

  “More like a cauliflower, Mr Hawkins. Rather bland – only the head is of interest and liable to stunted growth.” She sighed. “My parents did not attend a plethora of society events and so only when I acquired my guardian was I obliged to. But Astwood’s acquaintances were all whiskerless cubs in silly coats or aged libertines with gout, and my talk…bored them. I apologise for this coarseness but believe my prospective betrothed solely wished to marry me for my plenteous bosom.”

  A strangled grunt left Seth’s lips, but employing all restraint, he did not lower his gaze.

  “I’m sure other attributes appealed,” he bit out. Many came to mind but he desperately needed to change the subject. “Do I have a deal – new dresses in return for a hostess?”

  She held out a hand as though a wagering lord. “You do, Mr Hawkins. I believe men handshake their accord before a fight. Shall we do the same?”

  Her skin was ice-cold but soft as silk within his own; not the same in the slightest. “They do indeed. And now for one last room.”

  Ushering her from the salon, he then strode for the ornate door with stout ironware at the end of the passageway. Miss Griffin trailed behind – the brush of skirt and scent of flower.

  “This was once the music room but it’s been converted.” Seth twisted the worn handle and swished an arm for her to enter.

  He followed, closed the door and collided into the back of her as she’d halted not two steps inside.

  A gasp… “A library! But…what a library. Oh!”

  Seth strode to the circular reading table with its leather baize and tray of liquors to shut the book he’d been reading last night after dinner, shoving it to the shelf beneath.

  “How do you like it?”

  “I thought…” Eyes that rivalled the brimming decanters glimmered. “It’s beautiful, Mr Hawkins.”

  “Most of the books just came with the house.” He downplayed it, yet ’twas one of the reasons he’d bought the place, in truth. Noblemen had libraries as old as their lineage, collected over decades, so such a treasure for a man like Seth was not to be missed. “But they were scattered willy-nilly amongst the rooms, stacked beneath table legs and holding doors open. I decided to collate them.”

  He himself was not able to invent stanzas of metred perfection, spin tales or write of jungle adventures, but Seth appreciated and savoured every written word, and indeed, he’d dreamed of a library when young.

  Miss Griffin moistened her lips, and his jaw twitched, an involuntary tremor coursing within.

  “May I?” she asked.

  At his nod, she took a run for the nearest shelf and brushed a finger reverently over the book spines.

  Seth shuddered and watched as her lips unconsciously curved in utter delight.

  Those gold-rimmed spectacles highlighted her sherry eyes, and her skin shone pure against hair so intense a black, it drew you in like a cloudless night. Her retroussé nose wrinkled as she removed a volume of poetry from the shelf, flicked through the pages and paused…

  “‘I wandered lonely as a Cloud

  That floats on high o’er Vales and Hills,’”

  Miss Griffin grinned, and he could not resist continuing…

  “‘When all at once I saw a crowd,

  A host, of golden Daffodils;’”

  She twitched an eyebrow and he cleared his throat.

  “My mother’s favourite,” he excused in a deep voice.

  With a suspicious eye, she nodded and wandered over the rugs.

  His daughter also enjoyed this library but remained too young for many of the writings – philosophies, histories and some ancient bawdy plays he’d unearthed in a trunk. All these treasures he’d piled here when the construction works for the Academy had taken place, and only when those had been completed had he sat with a cabinet maker and pencil, sketching designs and scouring library plans.

  Central to one wall was a magnificent oval window overlooking the park, allowing plentiful light to fall upon the chesterfield reading sofa. Slanting away and protecting the contents from that same light, shelves of chestnut at differing heights were crammed with books.

  The cabinet maker had stated that locked glass doors were all the dash, but Seth could not contend with the idea of thrusting books behind barrier and key, as though too precious to touch and read.

  Miss Griffin perused the shelves with an enchanted eye, until turning. “May I…borrow this one for my chambers? I promise not to damage it.”

  His eyes flickered to the book clenched tightly in her hands as though he might wrest it from her at any given moment.

  “Certainly. Take anything here you can use or read.”

  “Thank you. I…I do believe, Mr Hawkins, that serendipity herself was guiding me when I wrote my application letter to you. I’m so glad its verbosity gained me an interview.”

  He opened his mouth to explain that actually he’d been as desperate as a flower girl with a cart full of blooms at six of an eve, but Miss Griffin beamed, book now pressed to her bosom.

  Serendipity indeed.

  Chapter Seven

  “What could be more interesting than an elegant and unaffected letter?”

  Private Education: A Practical Plan for the Studies of Young Ladies.

  Elizabeth Appleton. 1815.

  “Do you think my pa handsome, Miss Griffin?”

  “Er…” Matilda had vowed to respond to all of Chloe’s questions most truthfully but hadn’t been forewarned of this one. “Miss Chloe Hawkins, please concentrate on your letter writing.”

  The grouching blond mop of hair fell upon the paper once more, ink smudging the edges, table, fingers and floor.

  Matilda sneaked a peek at Miss Appleton’s tome for some ripe advice, but there was naught as regards awkward questions about handsome employers.

  Ink blots, however, were a severe wrongdoing and to be punished with a sharp reprimand.

  For two days now, they had followed the routine laid out in this book, plodding through Mrs Trimmer’s Ancient History – which even Matilda had discreetly yawned at – and reading aloud Grammar of Geography, which certainly imparted no lust for travel. The spine of Salzmann’s Elements of Morality remained unbroken and Matilda had considered poking around the library for more edifying material.

  Lessons on one’s deportment had proved more successful as Chloe was a graceful girl with a cheerful disposition, despite having rehearsed another fifty-six curtsies.

  A knock on the door and Betty bustled in. “Elevenses, me darlins. Sponge cake with vanilla cream, gingerbread, Oliver biscuits and a pot of tea.” Betty flumped on the sofa, wiggling her toes in the air. “Phew, me aching feet. How’s the lessons goin’?”

  “We are practising the art of letter composition this morning, and Chloe is writing a missive to her friend. Are you ready to read it aloud, dear? Then we may have tea.”

  The quill was all too keenly thrust down and her charge breathed deep.

  “My dearest acquaintance Modesty–”

  Betty snorted. “That poor girl. It ain’t decent to bur
den yer child so.”

  “My dearest acquaintance Modesty,” Chloe repeated with a glare, “no doubt you will anticipate the purport of this epistle–”

  “Piss wot?” Betty whispered, eyes gleaming.

  “Epistle,” bawled Chloe, “which is to ask…” She glanced up. “I think this next bit flows better…do you fancy melting a bob on a jaunt to Bullock’s gaff next week to see the stuff snaffled from Napoleon? It’ll be a lumping great jape and Pa might buy us ices. Love Chlo. P.S. There’s even Napoleon’s own carriage…with a bed in it!”

  Matilda briefly closed her eyes.

  Thus far they’d only covered the opening pleasantries of letter composition as the entirety could not be taught in a single morning. But the remainder showed creative promise.

  “A carriage with a bed in it, are yer sure?” Betty quizzed, swiping a slice of gingerbread.

  “Yes!” cried Chloe. “And it’s bulletproof!”

  Matilda shook her head. What a vivid imagination.

  “Have you visited Bullock’s Museum before, Miss Griffin?”

  Well, no.

  That particular museum had opened its doors before her parents had died but her father had considered it vulgar – a harem-scarem collection of goods shoved together in order to titillate the public without any academic relevance whatsoever. The ostentatious Egyptian Hall in particular – although never actually viewed – had been disapproved of.

  Yet she knew it held Birds of Paradise specimens from the Moluccas…

  “No, but it does sound interesting. I hear it also has an armoury, a collection of Captain Cook’s treasures and many preserved mammal exhibits from Africa.”

  “Go on with yer. Sounds a bit lifeless to me,” declared Betty, dipping her fingers in the sugar bowl to extract three lumps. “But yer should ask Mr H to take yer both soonish, as Mick says they’ve a busy one next week, and then yer’ll be stuck in reading Mrs Tiresome’s tedious toes till Judgement Day.”

  “Tomes, you mean?”

  “I know wot I said.”

  “No time to waste,” wailed Chloe, flopping on the sofa next to Betty. “But which one of us should ask him?”

  Two pairs of eyes lanced in Matilda’s direction. She peered behind. No one else there.

  “Me? But… Mr Hawkins would be far more amenable to you, Chloe.”

  A shake of the head, her young charge’s mouth crammed with biscuits, crumbs cascading, and Matilda debated whether she herself had the tenacity for this type of employment.

  “Yer’ll have more chance of success, Miss Griffin,” Betty cooed. “It needs a governess’s stern touch. He’s in the Academy’s main room.” And she winked.

  Winked?

  “Well, maybe I’ll ask at dinner.”

  “He’ll have made plans by then, Miss Griffin,” lamented Chloe.

  “In that case, I shall attempt to find Mr Hawkins at luncheon.”

  Shaking her head, Betty poured the slopped tea from saucer to cup. “He’ll be in the basement then.”

  “Well I…”

  “Have no worry, the Academy’ll be empty at this time of day. All the nobs are busy shopping for horses, Hessians or whores.”

  Matilda was fighting a battle of decorum doomed to fail in this household.

  The housekeeper wafted a silver teaspoon. “And as me da used to say to Ma when he fancied a jig, ‘No time like the present.’”

  Matilda was fairly sure that a jig was not the Celtic dance she was familiar with.

  “If you think so…”

  Two heads nodded in utter complicity.

  “Shall I fetch a shawl though? Saffron is rather–”

  “Perfect,” said Betty with a grin. “Yer look like an egg yolk.”

  Trusting Mr Hawkins would not scramble her wits, Matilda stalked for the door with determined intent. It was true that Chloe had worked hard and deserved a day out, but snooping over her shoulder she noted the troublesome twosome sharing a satisfied nod.

  She’d been outmanoeuvred by a sly-boots of a housekeeper and a girl of thirteen.

  Some days, she was a woeful governess.

  Right, left, left, right…

  Seth found the repetition of walloping the stuffing out of the pads nailed to the Academy wall quite soothing.

  It appeased his frustration over Liam, who’d punched a fist through an ale-house window, punctured the ire that had expanded when Lord Dunton had broken the weighing machine by using it as a swing, and placated his worries over the packed schedule for this week.

  Although a laborious time of it was in fact welcome, in order to distract his thoughts from the tempting trail of scented buttercups about the place.

  A faint “ahem” came from behind.

  “No tea, Betty. I’m busy.”

  Then again, when had Betty ever cleared her throat in a delicate ladylike manner to claim his attention? Which could only mean…

  He twisted and sherry eyes widened to the rims of her spectacles.

  Not surprising, as solely loose breeches clad his body – no shirt or cravat. And though as a prizefighter he’d fought in this same garb before a braying crowd of thousands, he felt as naked as a shorn sheep in February.

  “Miss Griffin…” He stalked to the clothes peg in the corner, wrestled into a shirt and wiped his brow with a towel. “You should not be here.”

  “Betty and Chloe said…”

  Hmm. Did they now. “Well, if you prefer, I can dress first?”

  But she’d rediscovered her governess mien, shoulders rigid and eyes cleaved to the ceiling.

  “No, no. I just…” Her stare arrowed to his face. “Chloe would like to attend Bullock’s Museum and I concur that the idea is a splendid one, enabling a better understanding of French carriage workmanship.” She allowed a lone blink. “According to my educative guide, museums promote a shared experience without which…” His governess waffled on, her eyes watering from the strain of their fixed position. “And although books are essential for one’s learning, a museum places feathers on the drawings, so to speak.” She twisted her hands in a dress of saffron. “So, you see, we wondered if you might escort us.” Miss Griffin breathed at last.

  Seth considered his week: meetings with investors, two new fighters to initiate, Liam Whelan to sort out, two dukes and an earl who wished for individual sparring sessions with himself, and Prinny now desired an exhibition of pugilism for some nob from Spain in under a week.

  “It would be my pleasure. Any particular day?”

  “Tomorrow at ten?”

  “Fine.”

  “Good.”

  “Good.”

  She peered with concern at the bars upon the walls, frowned at the empty ring and blinked at the broken wooden A-frame which supported two seats for weighing purposes.

  “Do you wish to view the Academy whilst no one is here?”

  “Oh, would you mind?”

  Yes. No. He’d no idea. Only that she plucked his wits like a crow at the gibbet.

  “Certainly not.”

  They paraded the Academy as though strolling Hyde Park – admiring the ring in place of the Serpentine, the boxing gloves in place of the roses and the drawings of disrobed fighters in place of preening stallions on Rotten Row.

  She grimaced at some, peeped at others and gawped at most.

  “I am in awe, Sir. All this built from nothing. You have worked so awfully hard. I hear the love in your voice for this Academy, see the pride in your eyes. It is all quite splendid.”

  A prickling warmth seeped within.

  Blood, sweat, tears and his heart had gone into this club.

  “When I first envisaged it, I did not want a dingy backroom with sawdust on the floor and peeling paint, but an open airy place that the flash swell– er, aristocrats would enjoy practising in. I wanted flawless carpentry and exclusive patronage.”

  He gazed around – at the brown velvet curtains draping oblong windows, the immaculate washing tubs and the pristine dumb-bells positione
d in their racks.

  All those evenings he’d sat alone while Chloe had slept, he’d sketched, then resketched, the most practical layout and the luxuries with which he would furbish it, and with his prizefighting money, determination and a little investment, it had all come to fruition.

  “And is your patronage exclusive?” Matilda asked. “I should imagine so with this level of exquisiteness.”

  Mr Hawkins stretched his fingers wide, doubtless to ease the aches amassed from toiling all those years. “It began slow. Merchants and gentlemen who’d seen me fight, but then my name became synonymous with focus of one’s mind when sparring, and, as you say, the craftsmanship of the decor. That in turn encouraged the higher echelons of the Ton to give it a try. They never left.”

  Synonymous.

  Echelons.

  Such a broad vocabulary for a man who declared he’d not had time for learning.

  Set to become a coal heaver, her employer had instead built a fine Academy with dedication, resolve and, no doubt, quite a few sleepless nights. All whilst raising a delightful daughter alone.

  Mr Hawkins, she was beginning to realise, was quite a man…in every which way.

  To her shame, she had observed him for quite some time as he’d thumped that set of pads, the stark hue of his olive-toned skin in contrast to a gentleman’s pallor, the brawn of his back rippling and tensing – as barbaric and savage as she had ever imagined, but also innate and sensuous.

  Then he’d spun.

  Carved marble turned mortal flesh, but with a sprinkling of dark hair. Almighty shoulders and that musculus abdominis – so flat and toned.

  Once she would have bemoaned the heroines of a Gothic novel who melted at the sight of a masculine forearm, but Mr Hawkins’ torso was surely deserving of some slight puddling – a natural reaction to a prime male displaying his feathers.

  A mere biological response.

  “Well, thank you for the wonderful tour. I am most impressed but should return to the schoolroom and tell Chloe the good news about Bullock’s.”