A Governess Should Never… Wager a Duke (The Governess Chronicles #4.5)

Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

“Her clothes are made genteelly but with dignity… I hope not inconsistently with her station in life.”

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

Elizabeth Appleton. 1815.

T he drab brown or the snuff brown?

Charlotte held up her two finest teaching gowns and perused them. Hideous, both of them, but the snuff in particular had become so loose on her, she resembled an empty flour sack.

“The left one,” mumbled her uncle from the tatty sofa within her bedchamber. “It brings out the green of your eyes.”

“Thank you, Marmaduke.” So she folded the drab and thrust it to her portmanteau along with two other frightful frocks – a dismal grey and a dingy corbeau – although considering her garden abutted one of the duke’s paddocks, she could always nip back home for another gown. “Next…”

Two petticoats, three pairs of stockings, stays…

“Will you bring me back a present from your travels?” asked her uncle.

No matter how many times she’d told him about her being a governess, dearest Marmaduke never remembered and instead thought her leaving to gad around London or visit the coast for some air.

“What would you like?”

Two brown ribbons, Mama’s hairbrush, the necklace Marcus had gifted her on her sixteenth birthday, three combs…

“A cat. A black one.”

Charlotte blinked, twisted and took a step forw–

A drop of water landed on her nose. She shifted the bucket with her foot. “Why a cat?”

Uncle scratched his white beard with gnarled fingers, hair standing in tufts. Today he wore a banyan of jonquil yellow. “I kept one in India and I do believe I rather like them.”

Fair enough.

And for once she may be able to grant his wish as there were numerous cats in the barn, and numerous mice, not that he’d likely remember by Christmas. She sighed and went to stand beside him, placing a soft hand to his shoulder. “I shall try my best, dearest Marmaduke.”

He seized her fingers and squeezed. “Thank you, Mary.”

Charlotte closed her eyes against the twinge of tears as he often called her by her late mother’s name, his sister.

“Although,” he continued, “I don’t see why you have to wear such shabby gowns. I’ve pots of money.” He frowned. “Somewhere.”

Biting her lip, she crouched in front of him. If there had been any money, it was all gone now. A meagre pension from the Royal Society was the sum total. “No matter, Uncle. I wouldn’t want to get ink all over expensive silk gowns, would I?”

“S’pose,” he muttered, patting her fingers with blue-veined hands.

She rose to buss his forehead and resumed packing. Marmaduke had once been a great explorer, travelling the world – Brazil and India – but as his hair had whitened, so his mind had started to drift.

At first, he’d lived with a cousin, but two years ago Marmaduke had been dropped off by the stagecoach at her then employer’s abode in the next valley, scared, confused and alone, a note in his trembling hands stating that the cousin was to marry and there was no room for him.

With his lapses of memory, a nurse was required, and she knew some would send him to an asylum. But he was gentle and kind, and during her childhood he’d always brought her a present from his travels – maps and shawls. In more lucid moments, he was a joy to talk to and she wished she could spend more time with him. His nurse, Hannah Munro, however, was a good companion for him, with family in Ambleside; all of which meant Charlotte refused to sell this house to Marcus, who likely just wanted direct access to the River Rothay which ran along the boundary.

Why she wasn’t sure.

Perchance he was panning for gold.

A knock came and their lone maid-of-all-work poked her head around the door. “A lady to see you, Miss. A young lady.”

Charlotte frowned. “A young–”

“I hope you don’t mind!” And a diminutive storm of blond curls and white skirts rushed into her bedchamber trailed by a harassed-looking lady’s maid. “But I couldn’t wait to meet you, Miss Webster. A governess! Just what I need!”

Charlotte had not seen Dinah Lovecott for all of six years. She’d certainly grown and gained some boldness at that school. “Well, we should enact a formal introduction, would you not agree?”

The young lady paused, blue eyes wide and comely as a doll’s. “Oh. Yes, of course.” Her lips pursed but she gave a credible curtsey. “Please excuse my interruption but when I heard the news, I thought to come and see you straight away. I am Miss Dinah Lovecott, the Duke of Shawdale’s ward.”

“And I am Miss Webster. This is my uncle, Mr Wainwright.”

Marmaduke rose to unsteady legs and bowed with a cavalier flourish.

“Yes. We met last week,” declared Dinah with a further curtsey to Charlotte’s uncle. “Looking for someone called Martha in my guardian’s rose garden.”

Charlotte groaned. For some reason that she had yet to deduce, Marmaduke made a regular habit of absconding from the house to wander the duke’s rose garden calling for some unknown woman. Most often clad in only his nightshirt.

“Did you find her?” Uncle asked, hands rubbing together.

“No one was there, Mr Wainwright.”

“Harrumph.” And he rose to toddle from the bedchamber.

“Well, Miss Lovecott,” Charlotte began, “I am pleased you are so eager for lessons.”

In point of fact, never in all her years of being a governess had a pupil appeared so enthusiastic.

“Er…” Dinah’s retroussé nose waggled. “Well…I mean, I am, of course. But it’s more…more that I’m planning to write a book about being a governess.”

Charlotte blinked. “An instructional guide for our profession?”

“Oh, no!” Dinah held dainty hands to heart. “A novel of…romance, the trials of a working woman, glamorous balls and grand dinners and dukes and…romance. Like Pride and Prejudice or…or that other one. But with more dukes…and more romance.”

Charlotte’s lips wobbled.

Little wonder Marcus had choked in his stiff cravat, but if being a governess had taught her anything, it was that the more one denied a young girl, the more they wanted.

“Well, I will try to impart what I can, but a governess’ life rarely includes glamorous balls or grand dinners.” Or romance. “Indeed, a fictional governess novel of romance might be rather difficult as the day-to-day just involves…lessons.”

“Oh…” Dinah’s lashes batted, rosebud lips pursing – she was ridiculously pretty. “But do you not work for haughty yet dashingly handsome dukes or…or arrogant yet dashingly handsome gentlemen, like Mr Darcy?”

She wished.

“More like Mr Collins, I’m afraid.”

“Eugh.”

“Well, help me gather my clothes and we can chat about the school you attended. Did you enjoy it?”

Or did Marcus pack you off there against your will?

“I adored it!” Dinah prodded at the drab brown in Charlotte’s portmanteau with curiosity. “It’s so…quiet here in Ambleside, especially the winter. Did you not find it lonesome growing up here?”

“No, not that I recall.” But then she’d had Marcus. They’d stomped the crags and fells, breathing in the fresh air whipped up from the lakes, and run to the waterfalls close to town, cooling their toes in the pools during warm summers. She missed her fell walks, she realised. The freedom of tramping around, wind buffeting her skirts.

Perchance there would be time this Christmas if snow held off.

It would come though.

Snow always came in the Lakes. It was just a question of when.

“Does your guardian still walk or ride the hills?” Charlotte asked, nosiness getting the better of her.

Incredulous eyes gazed up. “Not that I know of, Miss.”

“Attend the Ambleside fairs?”

A shake of head.

“The annual Christmas Ball?”

“Is there one?”

Charlotte perched upon the bed and folded her four handkerchiefs. “When I was young, a Christmas Ball was held at your guardian’s manor house each and every year. All the gentry were invited.”

“Were they? Did you attend, Miss Webster?” The girl wandered to the wardrobe and peered in.

“Twice. The last when I was seventeen. It was…magical.” She smoothed her grey skirts, recalled Marcus spinning her around, hazel eyes ardent and… “I believe it’s now held at Mr Fitzwilliam’s manor instead.”

“So are you attending this year?”

“No. A governess does not…” She paused, tapped her lip.

What better way to show Marcus what he was missing than to attend the Christmas Ball? And he was bound to have received an invitation. Not only that, but Dinah was old enough for a first social foray – it would be an excellent lesson.

“Miss?”

“Yes, Dinah?”

“I think you should pack this also.”

Charlotte turned to the exquisite russet gown held up by her new charge that had been a thank you present from Mr and Mrs Cadwalader in London.

With a grin, she hastened over to feel the delicate silk.

Her first event decided.

Marcus scratched his quill nib beneath the name of Mrs Brockbank. A widow for five years, she’d not paid rent for five months. His lily-livered steward kept making excuses for her – broken leg, poor harvest, deceased husband – and yet one could hardly let tenants live scot-free.

A month should be enough for Mrs Brockbank to find new lodgings.

He totted up the rents and came up sixpence short.

Damnation, and he resumed counting again to–

Squeals of laughter from the corridor.

Disrupting his numerical tabulation. He scowled.

Resumed cou–

There it was again. Dinah’s squeal of mirth and Charlotte’s husky chuckle.

She bloody haunted him. In fact, when he’d returned home earlier, he’d sworn her face had materialised in the large brass door knocker, those green eyes flashing.

With a grumble, he re-embarked at the top figure to sum–

A clanging echoed through his house, like…chains dragging across a floor.

Giggling.

More chains.

He shoved hands through his hair.

Giggling.

Chains.

“Could you not be quiet!” he bawled. “Some of us have work.”

Silence.

Giggling.

Chains.

He slammed the ledgers shut, stormed to the door, threw it open and glared.

A chain dropped from a stilled hand to clang upon the floorboards and resonate through his skull.

“Sorry, Cousin Marcus,” whispered an un-sorry Dinah. He knew she was un-sorry as her lips quivered with suppressed mirth and her feet waggled about like her father’s always had when he’d been fibbing to the Eton housemaster.

“Sorry, Your Grace,” simpered an un-sorry Charlotte. He knew she was un-sorry as she never simpered. “Are we disturbing you?”

Yes, they damn well were. Charlotte’s auburn hair had partially fallen with whatever exertions were taking place, chest rising sharply in that hellishly unpleasant gown.

“What on earth are you doing?”

Charlotte straightened. “My portmanteau lock broke, so we had to bind it shut with a chain but it’s too heavy to carry so we are dragging it.”

“I employ footmen for that, no?”

“They are helping Mrs Mossop with the decorations.”

He narrowed his eyes. “ Decorations ?”

“Just a few, Cousin Marcus.” Dinah batted her lashes, hands in a clasp of prayer. “Pleeeaaaase.”

Devil take it, the girl would have London at her pink slippers in three years.

He strode forward; they stepped back.

Was he that much of an ogre?

Hefting the bloody portmanteau to his shoulder, he stifled a groan as it weighed more than his red-lacquered Chinoiserie desk, but refusing to show any unducal sign of discomfort, he stomped down the corridor with it, booted the schoolroom door open and dropped it to the bench.

“Er…” murmured Charlotte. “I actually wanted it in my bedchamber.”

He muttered, hefted it to the other shoulder, then stomped across the corridor with it, booted the bedchamber door open and dropped it to the floor.

Twisting, he noted Charlotte’s eyes were riveted to his neck. His bare neck as he’d cast his cravat aside earlier in the eve when ledger calculations had caused a certain excess of perspiration.

“Forgive my state of déshabillé. I was not expecting to be disturbed by chains and giggling.”

Dinah giggled.

Charlotte curtseyed. “You are forgiven, Your Grace.”

Inhaling deeply, he stabbed a finger out. “A word concerning the schoolroom, Miss Webster.” He strode out, back along the corridor to his room and shoved the door wide.

She shilly-shallied in the corridor outside.

“If you would? My time is expensive.”

“But a governess should never…enter a duke’s bedchamber,” she at last spluttered.

“This is not my bedchamber. This is my second study. Thus, I can work before sleep. I moved the actual bed to the valet’s room.”

“How…industrious,” came a mumble as she stepped into his second study and peered around. “It’s most…” She trailed off to an exhalation.

Frowning, he peered around also. What was wrong with it?

Shelves with ledgers. Folders. Deeds. Maps of the estate with the lands circled that he’d still to acquire. Including Charlotte’s house.

“Most what?”

She wandered to the bookshelves, placed a finger to the spines of books concerning business. “Do you never read for pleasure anymore?”

“No.”

“Dinah says you never go walking the fells either.”

“No. Do you?”

A wry smile pulled at her lips. “A governess rarely has leisure time, Your Grace. And when I happen to have a day free, I return home to visit Marmaduke.”

“Doubtless he misses you when you are working.”

Her smile dimmed. “I do not know. Time… Time has no meaning for him anymore. A blessing and a curse. But his mind oft lives in the past. Some days, I am a little girl, other days my mother.” She twisted. “Do you recall when we climbed Wansfell Pike on the longest day of the year?”

How could he forget?

The view of Lake Windermere and the fells spread before them had been stupendous, hues of every imaginable green, the waters glittering beneath the ever-shifting skies. Charlotte had been just seventeen and stood upon the summit like a pagan goddess, wind loosening her hair to a stream of chestnut and fire.

“No.”

“Shame.”

“I wanted to inform you,” he abruptly stated, “that your chamber and the schoolroom will be moved. To a differing floor than that of my own quarters.”

“I remember your mother moving them down so she could have you close by her and not shut away on the gloomy third floor.”

“Times change.”

She skewered him with green eyes, evoking that day on the summit – the grass had been scant but mountain sorrel and wild thyme had festooned the edges of the shepherd’s path to the top.

“Yes, they do,” she whispered. “But never so much as that year we climbed Wansfell Pike.”

Marcus comprehended her meaning. For that same year, with just over two decades to his name, he’d left for London. To gain some experience of society.

“Good night, Miss Webster.”

She returned a seemingly sad smile. “Then I shall leave you in your tedium.”

The cheek of the saucebox!

“My ledger summing,” he drawled, staring down his nose at her, “is not tedious.”

A quirk of brow. “I wasn’t referring to the ledgers.” And she swished – if one could swish in dreary grey skirts – to the open door but then turned. “Oh, and we have our first Christmastide event two nights hence.”

Damn. He thought she might have forgotten about all that.

“We are to attend the Ambleside Christmas Ball at Fitzwilliam’s.” She stalked back to him and leaned near – musky heliotrope causing the hair upon his bare nape to stand on end. “So don’t forget your starched cravat.” And after a pat on the arm, she stalked back to the door and closed it softly behind her.

He prowled to his desk, shoved himself to his chair and glared at the open ledger.

Began to count.

The inked digits darted like restless fruit flies on spoiled apples and he slammed the ledger shut.

Shoved his elbows to the leather inlay and thrust fingers through his hair.

“The Christmas Ball,” he growled. “A past best forgot.”