The Game and the Governess (10 page)

The winner takes the first hand.

A
fter a bath that left him feeling less than clean, Ned moved quickly back down the corridor, careful to avoid anyone in the hall, and dodged his way into his third-floor room. There he rummaged in Turner’s trunk for his best coat and trousers.

It had been ages since Ned had to get dressed by himself, especially the intricate work of evening garb. He almost called for Danson twice while trying to fix a wrinkled cravat, but he muddled through—he had, after all, been in the army. No valets in the army. It had been a rule, apparently.

Ned and Turner had arrived at Puffington Arms in the early afternoon, but after settling the horses, finding Turner, giving him the necessary talking-to, and taking the most disgusting bath in the history of bathing, the afternoon was fading to evening, and he suspected that the Widcoates, fashionable as they tried to be, kept
country hours. Granted, no one had come to inform him of the time to be ready for tonight’s dinner, but he refused to be caught unawares.

He knew Turner’s game now. Ned would not let himself be shut out again.

Thus, Ned, dressed in Turner’s best suit of clothes and a clean shirt, found himself in the drawing room a full half hour early for dinner, while it was still being dusted by a harried maid.

“Better than being late,” he rationalized to the maid. She blinked at him, curtsied quickly, and left even faster.

Leaving Ned alone.

Strange, he thought. He had never really been left alone like this before.

Oh, he had been alone. Usually in his own quarters, while he slept. And even then, if he happened to
want
company, it was never that difficult to come across. But if he had been the earl at this moment, one of those girls or their chaperone, Mrs. Rye, would have come downstairs early “accidentally” to steal a fast five minutes alone with him. Or one or the other of the Widcoates would have rushed to assure he was well looked after and comfortable. At the very least, he would be well informed of the time of supper, and currently be upstairs getting dressed while Danson hovered over him, and Turner (who would be back to his secretarial role) tried to keep him informed of his own life.

But to be alone, with no one checking on him, no one wondering about him, no one clocking his movements . . . it was a rare thing. A strange thing.

The last time he had been alone like this would have
to have been when he was eleven or so, and not accountable to anyone except his mother. Before the old earl had found him, and a walk from the well in Hollyhock to his mother’s cottage could take ten minutes or, given the glory of the day’s weather and the leisure to idle, might well take thirty. There was a path, he remembered, that veered off the main road and through the woods, to a place where an eleven-year-old boy could lose himself in the wilderness for hours.

Of course, that was before he was somebody. A nobody could idle in the woods for a few minutes while his mother waited impatiently for water back home. An earl had no time for such foolish flights of fancy.

Well, what did one do with such time alone? He let his eyes roam over the bookshelf. Then his fingers, touching dust off the spines. When he pulled a tome off the shelf and pried it open (a proper boring volume titled
The Collected Ichthyology of the Central Counties
), it was easy to tell by the way the spine cracked that it had never been opened.

It was indicative of this place, he supposed. Puffington Arms had a feeling of being inflated and strained at the seams, stuffed with hot air—things he would have never taken note of if he had been the earl, feted and cosseted by the party members and looming duties at every turn. It was like seeing the strings of a puppet show and the paint wash of the thin board sets.

He really shouldn’t be left alone like this. It left one time to ruminate on such
boring
things.

Well, it was only going to last two weeks, Ned thought with resolute brightness. And whatever came his way, Ned would simply smile and say, “Brilliant!
Marvelous!” and then go about waiting for Turner to put off the women with his distinctly un-Ashby manners and looks, leaving Ned to collect female admirers in his wake.

He had four women to choose from in this very house. Five, if he included Mrs. Rye. Although the thought of pulling intimate secrets and tokens of love out of that toothy smile and mercenary gaze was less pleasing.

But still, he could find pleasure in the challenge, if not the prize. And he would—yes, he had a much better footing now than he did when they arrived, and with his policy of “Brilliant! Marvelous!” things should go much more smoothly.

Lucky Ned was nothing if not game.

Ned put himself into his normal good mood with thoughts like these, and thus, when the party began to arrive for supper some minutes later, he did not take notice of the slight surprise and unhappiness in Lady Widcoate’s voice when she said, “Oh, Mr. Turner. My
apologies
for this afternoon. Sir Nathan expected
you
to stay in town, is all. Nearer the business dealings. Are you sure you would still not be more comfortable there? I promise the earl will be very well taken care of in your absence. Our third floor has unfortunately the only rooms available at the moment and—”

“I promise, Lady Widcoate, I find the third-floor room brilliant. Marvelous.”

“Well, then. I will have another place at the table laid for you,” she answered brightly, though her smile did not reach her eyes.

But there was no call to be upset over Lady Wid
coate’s misunderstanding, or when they entered, over the titter of the Misses Rye, who quickly moved on to the other side of the room with Miss Benson, ignoring his wide smile. Nor did he mind much the harrumphing of Sir Nathan upon being introduced.

Sir Nathan, a thick-trunked man with blond hair going white and a ruddy complexion, had been in Hollyhock when their party had arrived, apparently, according to him, making some last-minute arrangements with a Mr. Fennick for “the earl’s” arrival and inspection of his late mother’s property.

“This earl of yours,” Sir Nathan said as an aside, “I have some slight remembrances of the boy, but what is the man like?”

Ned thought briefly about playing a joke on his friend Turner, in retaliation for Turner’s letting everyone think he was a valet this afternoon, but thought better of it. He would abide by the rules of the game and not impugn his friend’s character (or his own, come to think of it). No, he would play fair.

And, he decided, he would win.

“The earl is a great man,” Ned said confidently. “Saved my life on the battlefield on the Continent during the war. We were sent out to secure a flank, and he—”

“Oh, so he must hunt!” Sir Nathan waved his hand, cutting off Ned’s story sharply. “Being a crack shot in the war and all.”

“Er . . .” Ned began. “No more than the next man, I suppose.” In truth, Ned did not love hunting. Nor, to his knowledge, did Turner. Too many unhappily familiar sounds.

“Excellent!” Sir Nathan was saying, blithely unaware
of Ned’s discomfort. “We can go shooting. Granted, it’s a few weeks shy of pheasant season proper, but it’s my land, so who could care?” Sir Nathan slapped him on the back, happy to expound on a favorite topic. “I’ll have my Brown Besses cleaned. And I have one of those new Baker rifles, just for fun. And you can come along too, of course.”

Ned brightened, trying to be happy to be included, feelings about hunting aside. “Thank you, sir. I would—”

“You can load for us,” Sir Nathan said. Ned had to fight to keep his countenance. “It will be jolly good to have a loader again.”

“Surely a servant . . .”

Sir Nathan shook his round head. “No menservants to do the job, can’t ask a lady’s maid.” He caught Ned’s upturned brow and hastened to assure him, “We are perfectly able to afford menservants! Or, we would be. But the mine in Midville—when it opened up, it took all the local men away with better wages. That’s why the bathing retreat is so important, Mr. Turner. Return some sense of order to Hollyhock.”

“I see.”

“So . . . do you think the earl likely to agree to our scheme?” Sir Nathan leaned close, giving Ned a full dose of his impressively sour breath. “Letting us have the cottage, that is.”

Ned narrowed his eyes. In truth, he had thought very little about the cottage or Hollyhock. Not only since his arrival, but in the last half dozen years or so. Whether it remained in existence had mattered very little to him, except . . .

Except when Turner had approached him about selling, he had stalled on the subject before putting it out of his mind again.

“Well, I suppose it would be best that we take a look at the house first. That is the reason Tur—er, I set up this whole trip, after all,” Ned reasoned, holding his breath as he said it, forcing himself not to inhale.

Sir Nathan considered him with a slight cock of the head, making him look like nothing so much as a dog, but that could simply be the association with his breath. “I take it the earl relies upon your opinion.”

“That he does,” Ned said, with some mischievousness. “It is as if the earl’s brain is in my own head.”

“You know, the town has great plans for that bit of property,” Sir Nathan said conspiratorially. “Indeed, a few of us formed a consortium to handle the business. The old lady who owned the house would never give us the time of day, but if we manage to work this out . . . the town and the consortium will do rather well for themselves. And if anyone were to exert their influence over the earl . . . who is to say they cannot profit as well?”

Ned eyed the larger man and tried to seem unruffled. “And I assume that you are a member of this consortium?”

“Yes,” Sir Widcoate replied. “As I told you in my letters.”

“Interesting,” Ned mused, feeling he was teetering at the edge of a rabbit hole of Turner’s intentions. “Refresh my memory—what else did you mention in your letters?”

But any answer Sir Nathan was going to give was swallowed by the mercenary grin that lit his face
upon seeing the door open and John Turner enter the room, wearing Ned’s spotless evening kit and leading Countess Churzy on his arm.

“We met in the hall,” the countess said by way of explanation, giving Turner a serene smile before she removed herself from his arm and attached herself to her sister. Turner followed her with his gaze, but made his way over to Sir Nathan before the other ladies could descend on him.

“Sir Nathan!” he cried, with a smile and a short bow. “I doubt you remember me.”

“Of course I remember you, my lord!” Sir Nathan replied jovially, but with a hint of hardness behind it. “I’ve known you and your family since you were a lad.”

Turner smiled, letting his eye catch Ned’s as Sir Nathan moved to attach himself like a leech to the earl. If Ned didn’t know any better, he would say Turner was trying to provoke him.

Who was he kidding? Turner was
absolutely
trying to provoke him. But he wouldn’t fall for it. Instead, he gave his widest smile, and after flashing it to Turner, directed it at the ladies.

To her credit, Miss Benson blushed, as did Miss Clara Rye. Miss Minnie simply looked at him strangely, but two out of three wasn’t bad, and Ned felt perfectly comfortable moving over to the girls and giving them the full force of his charm.

But before he could bow and utter a word beyond “Good evening,” the door to the drawing room creaked open and admitted the last addition to the party.

“Good evening, my lord, my lady,” the little governess said coolly, as the children from the fields that
afternoon stood with rigid attention and more stillness than anyone under the age of ten should be able to achieve. They were kitted up much better too, having been cleaned and polished—likely cleaner than he was, as they had the benefit of the bathwater before he did.

“Rose! Henry!” Sir Nathan called out, forcing the rest of the room’s attention to turn to the newcomers. The governess held herself judiciously back, her eyes only flicking up once and never meeting his. It was as if their amused run-in in the hallway never occurred.

She must be quite the governess.

“Don’t dawdle, come forward and meet the earl!” Sir Nathan frowned, causing the two to jump in nervousness. A hand at each of their backs gave the smallest bit of pressure, and they advanced forward.

“My lord, these are my children,” Sir Nathan said gravely. “Henry, my heir—and Rose.”

“Yes, we happened to meet as we were riding in,” Turner offered graciously.

But Lady Widcoate did not receive it as graciously.

“Did you now?” she said, her smile becoming fixed and her eyes steely. “Miss Baker, you took it upon yourself to introduce my children to the Earl of Ashby?”

“My lady, I—”

“Actually, it was our fault. Mine and Mr. Turner’s,” Turner offered, with a nod to Ned. “I was relying on my memory to find our way here, and Turner fussily thought it better to ask directions and make sure we arrived at the right house. The children and their governess were taking a . . . constitutional along the road.”

“And your memory proved correct?” the Countess Churzy purred, shifting herself from her sister’s side to
Turner’s, all without moving her feet an inch. She really was an impressive hunter.

“It did,” Turner replied with a smile. “And Mr. Turner’s worry was for naught.”

The assembled party tittered with laughter. But if Turner thought Ned would let his hackles rise at something so banal as a good-natured ribbing, he was happy to prove him wrong.

“Yes, out of the two of us, I was always a bit more motherly,” Ned said with a smile. He was expecting a hearty laugh and denial from Turner at the very least. But perhaps his phrasing wasn’t the best, because his joke fell flat, and everyone in the room just stared at him as if he had grown a fourth head.

Except for the governess, who kept her head down. But from his position, he could see the compression of her mouth, and the . . . heat from her eyes. Her deeply squashed sense of anger.

Maybe it was because he was not used to being on the side of the room instead of in its center. Maybe it was because he had just told a flat joke and was forced to observe rather than engage. But regardless of the reason, Ned found himself
looking
at all the adults in the room. And the only one without a smile—scared, ecstatic, bemused, hopeful, false, or real—painted on their face was the governess.