Never Gamble Your Heart (The Secret Society of Governess Spies #2)

Chapter 2

F rankie stood as still as a child caught with an illicit sweet, stunned by the improper touch. Jasper wasn’t wearing gloves, and his hand felt rough and warm on the skin above her own matching green gloves.

He towered over her, so dark and sinfully handsome that she instantly understood how he’d come by his reputation as a collector of lovers. His hair was inky black and cropped short. Heavy brows drew over a pair of insightful eyes that looked as if they could see into a person’s soul. His skin had been kissed by the sun, which was surely something a gentleman would not have allowed, but Frankie understood Jasper Jones was no gentleman. It was rumored he carried a blade on his person at all times, and that he had engaged in more than his share of lethal fights on his rise to the top.

“Do not underestimate him,” the Dove had cautioned her in the carriage the night before. “I have seen him charm men from their purses and women from their corsets, and he does an excellent job at passing among the gentry. But let me warn you: He is a wolf disguised as a sheep. No man is born a fishmonger’s son and becomes the person Jasper Jones is today without extraordinary cunning and ruthlessness.”

Frankie did not know the Dove’s true name, only that she owned Perdita’s Governess Agency, which hosted the most prestigious governess school in all of London, and that she used her governesses to spy on the ton to hold them accountable for their crimes. With the information her governesses collected, the Dove tipped off the police, who did not have the contacts or social standing to gather information on the ton ’s transgressions.

Although Frankie knew very little about the mysterious vigilante who’d sent her to be a governess in Mr. Jasper Jones’s house, she suspected plenty. She suspected the spymaster was as cunning and ruthless as Jasper Jones, but rather than using her skills to build an empire, she used them to deliver justice for the lower classes. Frankie was almost certain it was the Dove who was responsible for the sharp increase of reporting on upper-class crimes in the papers and the scandal sheets—Frankie had plotted them on a graph. Frankie also suspected her governess friend, Emily, was one of the Dove’s spies. It would explain why Emily had been placed in Lord Eastmoreland’s house earlier that summer, when the entire city was anxious to unveil the identity of a murderer targeting prostitutes in Bethnal Green.

A murderer who ended up having intimate ties with the Eastmorelands.

Still, even knowing how well-informed the Dove was, Frankie had been stunned when the night before, while she’d been crouching behind a rubbish bin outside Rockford’s, spying on every person who entered, the Dove had appeared at her side in the flesh—no longer a rumor or a ghost.

Frankie would not typically risk her reputation, even as a spinster, by spying on a gentleman’s club in the middle of the night, but she had been out of options. Rockford’s was the most prestigious gambling hell in all of London, and it was the last clue Frankie had that might lead to her missing sister.

Fidelia was eight years Frankie’s junior and her only sibling. Fidelia was expected to “come out” next Season and make a suitable match that would save the family from destitution now that their father was deceased, but three weeks ago she’d run away, leaving behind nothing but a one-sentence explanation: Lady Elizabeth Scarson has been caught up in something dastardly, and I must help .

Their mother had panicked and sent for Frankie, who had been working her first governess position to help support their family since she had failed to make a marriage match. Their mother had insisted that Frankie find her sister immediately, before her reputation was ruined. Their mother was telling everyone that Fidelia was visiting her aunt and “taking the sea air before the Season,” but the lie wouldn’t last forever. And if it were discovered that Fidelia had run off, unchaperoned, to God knew where…

Well, Frankie couldn’t let that happen.

A shiver tripped across Frankie’s skin, and she pulled her arm out of Jasper’s grasp. He easily released her, but he did not back away. He was so close that Frankie could feel the heat emanating from his body and smell the lingering traces of the shaving cream his valet had used on his face that morning. Frankie suddenly realized he was trying to intimidate her with his proximity. Well, that simply would not do!

Frankie lifted her chin and met his eyes. “If we are to establish an appropriate and successful employer and employee relationship, no matter how temporary, I must ask that you refrain from using your size as a form of intimidation.”

Jasper’s lips curled into a slow smile, but he took a step back. “I will admit that I have not had occasion to employ a governess before, and yet I am entirely certain you are different from most.”

Frankie flushed as she realized that once again, she was missing normal social cues. Her mother had spent a lifetime despairing of Frankie’s social blundering and ineptitude, never forgoing a chance to loudly bemoan how Frankie’s oddities had made finding a husband impossible. Frankie had accepted who and what she was a long time ago, but now she wished she’d tried a little harder to fit in. She needed to blend into her role so that she might accomplish her mission of spying on Jasper Jones.

Because Jasper Jones was the link to everything. Frankie was sure of it.

Frankie adored mathematics and puzzles, and she made a game out of routinely scanning the papers for patterns that others couldn’t see. In fact, a month ago she’d spent time cross-referencing attendance at balls and other events with the Evangelist murders, and had come very close to uncovering the killer’s identity.

During her avid consumption of newspapers and gossip rags, Frankie had recently noticed a new pattern emerging: a spate of hasty, high-profile weddings, but she simply had not thought much of it, not until their outspoken family friend, Lady Elizabeth Scarson, had become one of the brides—married off to an ill-suited man thrice her age—and Fidelia had run away.

Then, Frankie had begun looking at the pattern in earnest. While poring over gossip rag reports, she’d discovered that every single one of the grooms involved in the suspicious weddings, including Lady Elizabeth’s husband, was a member of the ton ’s most beloved gaming hell: Rockford’s.

Frankie had left the information with her governess friend, Emily, hoping she would share it with the Dove. If anyone had the power and influence to understand the pattern Frankie had found, it was the mysterious vigilante. But Frankie had never heard back from the Dove, so she’d had to take matters into her own hands.

After leaving her first governess position, Frankie had spent several weeks visiting her sister’s friends and subtly inquiring if Fidelia had written from the “seaside,” but none of them had heard from her. Lady Elizabeth Scarson was apparently holed up in the countryside with her new husband, not taking visitors, so her sister couldn’t be there.

Left with no other leads, Frankie had taken to spying outside Rockford’s. If Mr. Jasper Jones had anything to do with the strange weddings, Frankie would discover what it was, and then maybe she’d find her sister.

That was where the Dove had found her last night, materializing at her side like a shadow. A half-mourning veil had hidden the woman’s eyes, and she’d been concealed from throat to toe by a dark cloak.

What the Dove had proceeded to share with Frankie over the next half hour had changed everything.

“My deepest apologies, Mr. Jones.” Frankie pushed her spectacles up her nose and blinked with what she thought was a dramatic show of timidity. If she wanted to fulfill her end of the bargain she’d made with the Dove, she needed to appease his suspicions. Her mind raced as she imagined how a properly socialized lady would respond to him in such a situation, what her mother would say. “I desire only to see to my new duties.”

Jasper’s eyes flashed with amusement. “That looked as if it nearly choked you.”

She’d rather choke him.

“I accept your apology. I have two rules in my home, Miss Turner, whether you are a servant or not,” he added, cutting her off before she could protest. “First, entrance to my study is not allowed. No one may go in there; not even the butler.”

Frankie’s heart sped up and the next words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. “Why not?”

Jasper stared at her. “Are you certain you were sent by Perdita’s?”

Too late Frankie realized it was wholly inappropriate to question her employer’s decisions. “Oh, pardon me.” Frankie pushed at her hair. Holy Queen V! She couldn’t seem to stop bungling her role. Her father had always encouraged her natural tendency toward bluntness because he had found it amusing, while her mother had warned her time and again that it would land her in trouble one day. When Frankie had needed to find employ as a governess to support her family, she had not thought it would be so difficult to assimilate. As the genteel granddaughter of a baron, she was not so lowly ranked as a servant, but that did not mean she could speak her mind to her employers. “My apologies. I am indeed from Perdita’s, and I assure you that as a Perdita girl I am more than capable of guiding Cecelia’s education. I am excellent at mathematics.”

Jasper shifted a step back, allowing her more breathing space. “That is well and good, although I do not know what Cecelia will ever need mathematics for.”

Frankie was going to faint dead away.

“My second rule is that you must not fall in love with me.”

Frankie’s mouth popped open. “ Pardon me ?”

Jasper grinned in such a wicked way that despite Frankie’s dislike of the man, a tingly sensation worked its way down her nerves. “Both sexes tend to desire me. It is a curse I have learned to live with. However, romantic entanglements create tension I neither care for nor have the time to deal with. It is best if you know straight away that I do not liaise with my staff. No exceptions.”

Frankie did not know if she was astonished by his declaration or uproariously amused. “I can assure you, Mr. Jones, that I would never fall in love with you. Ever. ” She should have stopped there, but her tongue was faster than her brain. “You are the last person I would give my heart to, just behind the cat food cart man who has invented a language comprised entirely of belches. Indeed, the chances I would desire your company beyond mundane employer interactions are”—she paused as she rapidly calculated the numbers in her head—“one in six million.”

That devilish grin returned to his face and an odd dipping thing happened to Frankie’s stomach. “You remember that, Miss Turner. I assure you that whatever you have heard of my reputation has been watered down. I am all the things they say I am, and more. There will never be one woman for me, or marriage, or any of the other fanciful things people tell themselves when they fall in love with me. Consider yourself warned.”

The conceit of the man was without compare! Frankie had once imagined herself in love with a boy who’d acted as if he knew the answers to why the stars fell and how heaven looked, but even his arrogance paled in comparison to Jasper Jones’s.

“Mr. Jones, I do hope it will not wound your ego when I prove to be entirely unaffected by your—” As words failed her, she waved her palm in a circle in front of her to encompass all of him.

Jasper tugged his coat into place and went to step around her. Before he left the room, he bent his mouth to her ear and said in a low, shivery voice, “You already are.”