The Game and the Governess (7 page)

“Lord Ashby, may I present to you Countess Churzy?” Lady Widcoate said graciously.

“Oh la!” the Countess laughed, a precise peal meant to entice. And from the look on Turner’s face, entice it did. “Surely, sister, we need not be so terribly formal? After all, the last time we saw each other, he was young
Ned Granville and I simply Leticia. Or Letty, as you too often called me.”

Of course!
Ned’s memory zipped back to the arrival of the new Lady Widcoate into the neighborhood. Her sister Leticia, then a gawkish thirteen or fourteen (meanwhile, he was a gawkish eleven or so), had come with her. He would be gone to live with his great-uncle in six months’ time, but if he remembered anything about the indelible Miss Leticia, it was her sneezing at flowers, her ability to always win at whist, and her insistence on
never
 being called Letty.

Which of course he had done. As often as possible.

But now—now no one could mistake her for a Letty. She’d grown too fine. Too knowing, if that smile had anything to say about it.

And far too focused on John Turner for Ned’s liking.

“Letty,” Turner breathed. “Of course. But I don’t think I should call you Letty anymore.”

“True, it never was my favorite nickname.” Her eyes sparkled as she came forward and took his arm before Turner even realized he’d offered it. “But I don’t suppose I mind it from old friends.”

“Indeed.” Turner smiled at her, his gaze never moving from her face as she guided him through the crowd of girls toward the house. “And you can call me . . .” His voice trailed off for a moment. Of course, Turner answering to Lord Ashby was one thing. Answering to “Ned” was quite another.

But, to his credit, Turner recovered with a tiny bit of finesse. “Well, I suppose you can call me whatever horrible name from childhood you like.”

She laughed at that, a light fall of music that had more honesty to it than her practiced peal from before. “You must be famished. Nothing like a spot of tea on the terrace after a long ride?”

“Nothing like it.” He grinned back.

As they reached the steps, eyes only for each other, Lady Widcoate called after them. “Oh, Lord Ashby! We shall have your rooms—”

But Turner simply waved a hand, as if his hostess was a bothersome gnat. “My man will handle everything, Lady Widcoate.”

And with that, under the eyes of Lady Widcoate, four female guests, and a half dozen maids, John Turner and Leticia, apparently now Countess Churzy, disappeared into the house.

“You see, Clara! Now, that’s how you snare an earl!” Mrs. Rye began immediately, causing her shaking daughter to practically vibrate with . . . some emotion only young ladies are capable of feeling, Ned supposed. “All that bloody foolery about your dresses!”

“She started it!” Minnie pointed to Clara.

“You’re the one who went into the mud, Minnie,” Henrietta piped up, unhelpfully.

The group continued bickering as they moved into the house, forcing Ned to call after them.

“Excuse me, Lady Widcoate? Lady Widcoate?” Ned tried as maidservants shuffled around him, moving back to their various tasks with more alacrity than he had supposed servants capable of. But his entreaties went unheard in the shuffle, as Lady Widcoate disappeared into the house.

“Excuse me,” he then tried of a young maid who
wielded an extremely unwieldy-looking broom, brushing the mud and dirt off the front steps. “I have never—that is . . . where are they going?”

The maid looked at him as if he had grown two heads. “They’re all following after the earl, ain’t they?”

“Well, yes, but Tur—, er, I should not leave the earl alone. After all, I’m his—”

“Best speak to the housekeeper, make your arrangements for your employer’s rooms quick then, if he needs you by his side.”

“Arrangements?” Ned asked. And he must have looked as bewildered as he felt because the girl gave him a bewildered look back.

“What your master prefers. Rooms facing east, a hot brick at night, all that bit. If he only eats beets. What your schedule will be for the next few days so you can fix it with what Lady Widcoate will want to do with ’im.”

“That’s the
valet’s
job.” Ned wrinkled his nose. Everything except the arrangement of schedule entirely fell under his valet Danson’s purview. Didn’t it?

“Yes . . .” the girl said, nonplussed as she struggled with the large broom.

“The valet is on his way—he is coming with the carriage and trunks. We rode ahead.” He gave a hard look to the footman. “I am the earl’s secretary. And I will thank you to remember it.”

The girl’s eyes went wide, and she ducked into a curtsy. “My apologies, Mr. Turner. The earl said you was his man, I think we all assumed . . .”

“Yes, well—don’t assume.” Ned frowned. “Do I look like a valet? Really?”

The maid gave him an assessing glance. “No, I suppose you don’t.” Ned felt his frame relax, until . . . “I’d expect an earl’s valet to be better kitted out. Anything else I can help you with, sir?”

“No,” Ned answered tersely.

The maid simply nodded. “Of course. Sir.”

“Thank you,” Ned said with a nod. And let his good nature return to him. After all, he had a number of ladies to impress with his affability, thus he should keep it intact and not let the servants’ misidentification irk him. There was a group of women in there, ripe for his picking. All he had to do was follow after them.

Of course it only took two steps before he was thwarted.

“You might want to see to your horse before you try to enter the house,” the maid called after him as she dragged the broom around the back of the manor. “Sir.”

Holy hell, he was still holding the reins of Turner’s mare. No groom had come forward to claim him, as they had for the “earl.”

He looked left and right and found himself alone outside the house. Alone, of course, except for the mare. “Damn it,” he cursed.

“The stables are around that way,” came a direct voice from behind him on the path.

Ned turned to see the governess and the two children from the field. Her pale face remained pinched, the corners of her mouth hard set, and the youths at her side had apparently worn themselves out playing in the field, given their subdued nature.

“Go around and you’ll see them—they are made up to look like a false Greek temple.” She directed, point
ing with an elegant gesture. “Come along Rose, Henry. We must wash up before your father returns from town.”

Ned gave a slight nod as the governess passed, taking the children inside. But she kept her gaze straight ahead.

Ned would have pondered it, had he nothing else in the whole of the world to care about. But, as Turner’s annoyed mare made a nip at his shoulder, Ned realized he had much more pressing issues than the governess’s sternness toward him.

He had a mare to drop off at the stables, and then . . .

He had a charm offensive to plan.

      4

The first hand is played.

T
he thing about a charm offensive is, it works best if played on an even field. Any offensive, really. The fields of Waterloo had a slight incline, and some have said it won Wellington the war. Or at least, Ned thought that was the case. In reality, Waterloo was a fairly hazy memory to him, and when he toured the fields a few years after—because touring battlefields you fought on was incredibly impressive to the ladies with him in the carriage—the landscape had been so altered as to be unrecognizable, even by Wellington himself.

But for a charm offensive in particular, an even field of battle is crucial. And Ned knew one thing for certain: the Widcoate house was not even. Not in the slightest.

He was getting
looks
. Or rather, he wasn’t getting looks. The looks that did come his way were glances, overviews. Not fully assessing looks. And when a glance held longer than a moment, it was—well, it was
mean
.

Take, for instance, when he walked into the house. After, of course, he’d dropped Turner’s mare off at the folly of Grecian ruin stables and checked on Abandon, making certain that he at least was being treated with the diligence reserved for a horse of his caliber. Indeed, he was, happily munching oats in his corner stall like the prince he knew himself to be.

To his credit, the lone groom came over, immediately taking the reins from Ned. “Sorry ’bout that,” the man said, with a thick Scottish accent. “The stallion looked a little jumpy, so I walked ’im first.”

Ned nodded, accepting the excuse. After all, Abandon likely had the finest breeding of the entire household, human or animal, and therefore was the most high-strung.

Once he had seen Turner’s mare situated (and made damn well sure that the mare received a bucket of oats equal in size to Abandon’s . . . even though Abandon was a larger animal and therefore should probably be given the greater share of oats, but still, it was the principle of the thing), he had repaired to the house, hoping to catch up with the group.

He strode into the house via the front door, wherein he received his first
look
from someone. It was the young maid, and the
look
was one of disapproval. Ned was determined to ignore it, but then he caught the maid looking down at the mud he’d tracked in from the stables.

Ned decided to ignore that too.

He found the party on the terrace, all sitting back and enjoying a respite of crisp lemonade and a good airing. Turner had a seat of importance, with Lady Widcoate
at his left and Countess Churzy at his right. The rest of the female coterie fell in some assembly around them, except for Minnie, who seemed eager to display her physical prowess and browbeat her nervous cousin—what was her name? Clara?—into playing bowls again.

When he cleared his throat and made his presence known . . . well, Ned got his second
look
. And his third, fourth, and fifth.

Finally, Turner managed to pull his attention away from the ladies of Puffington Arms long enough to turn around and see Ned.

That was his next
look
. And the last one Ned was going to take.

“My lord.” His voice was tight, trying to not let those words stumble against his tongue. “Might I have a word?”

“Is it important?” Lady Widcoate sniffed. “The earl has just arrived.”

“Yes, I know. I just arrived too.” Ned couldn’t help the snideness in his voice.

The entire terrace went still. And the
look
Ned got from Lady Widcoate far exceeded any that he had previously received.

“Oh, Fanny, let Ashby go,” Countess Churzy said with a laugh, smoothing everything over. “Men must have their secrets, and you can ply him with lemonade later.”

Turner stood and made a slight stiff bow to the ladies, then came to join Ned.

Ned led him around the side of the house, hopefully putting enough distance between them and prying ears. Then he walked another twenty steps.

“I think we’ve gone far enough away from prying ears,” Turner drawled.

“Multiply your steps by the number of women in the house,” Ned replied, “triple it, then maybe you’ll be out of earshot.”

“Still—what could have possibly happened in the last twenty minutes that necessitates this kind of subterfuge?”

“I cannot possibly imagine—maybe you choosing phrasing that makes the whole of Lady Widcoate’s house think I’m your valet?”

Turner blinked twice. Then he cracked a smile out of the corner of his mouth. “Me? Why, I would never do such a thing.”

“And yet you did.”

“But it would be in opposition to the rules laid down. I cannot denigrate you.”

“And yet you did.”

“Just like if you tried to force someone into recognizing you, the game would be forfeit.” Turner’s smile fell away. “And yet you did.”

Ned’s brow came down. “I did no such thing.”

“I beg your pardon, but the very first thing out of your mouth when Lady Widcoate commented on how I—the earl—had changed was, ‘Oh, do you really think so?’”

“That was not—”

“I can write to Rhys, have him weigh in as judge?” Turner replied, innocently. “If you cannot handle the wager, call the whole thing off. Just give me five thousand pounds. It is still early enough to explain our little trick, and likely be forgiven.”

“You must think very little of me if you imagine I’ll give up after twenty minutes.” Ned smiled as blandly as possible and knew it would get under Turner’s skin. “I have no intention of forfeiting. Adjustments are . . . to be expected. And as soon as you make it clear to the young ladies present that I am not your valet, and will be attending dinner and bowls and all the lovely pastimes they have dreamed up for you, everything will be fine.”

An even playing field, Ned thought. That was all he was asking for.

Turner looked into the distance for a moment. He took a breath, as if to gather his will, and then exhaled and submitted to the will of his superior. As always. “I suppose that is a reasonable request. And I shall try to phrase it in such a way that does not make you sound conceited and entitled.”

“Good.” Ned let the calm come over his shoulders again. Then, to himself, “Maybe that will stop the looks.”