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

Chapter 16

J asper entered the sitting room, and every one of his senses tingled with foreboding. Cecelia was wearing a gown the color of mud and smiling at him with far too much innocence in her wide, brown eyes. Lady Evelyn was seated on the blue settee, her back as straight as a billiard’s cue stick. An enormous plum-colored hat was pinned on her head, its brim festooned with heaps of flowers, berries, and feathers.

“Lady Evelyn,” he said, inclining his head. “Cecelia, how may I assist you?”

“I was hoping you might join me and Lady Evelyn for tea.”

“I am sorry, Cece, but there are matters that require my attention at present. My regrets, Lady Evelyn.”

Jasper was about to take his leave when Cecelia snatched his sleeve and said, “At least let me fetch you a tea cake.”

Jasper was not hungry, but it seemed important to Cecelia that he try her cake, so he nodded and waited for her to make a roundabout trip past the windows where she glanced anxiously outside, to the silver tray artfully stacked with a delectable assortment of treats.

Lady Evelyn gave him a catlike smile ripe with equal amounts of scorn and desire, and Jasper had a sudden flash of insight about how she would be in bed: she would think herself better than him and she would hate degrading herself while simultaneously loving every moment.

He could not think of a worse bed partner.

Cecelia tripped over a hatbox that had been left on the floor and went flying, landing heavily on her hands and knees. Jasper was already halfway across the room to help her up when she jumped to her feet, pointed at the floor, and screamed. A little brown mouse had chosen that moment to scamper across the carpet. It stopped not two feet from Lady Evelyn and stood on its hind legs and twitched its whiskers, no doubt smelling the sweets on the tray above.

Cecelia threw her hands in the air, screamed as if the house were burning down, and raced from the room. Her exit would have left Jasper and Lady Evelyn alone together if Lady Evelyn had not also risen with extraordinary haste, lifted the hems of her gown, and hurried after Cecelia with surprising speed.

There was a scuffle in the hallway, another shriek, and the crash of a tray on tile.

“What now?” Jasper roared as he strode to the doorway.

In the corridor was the human equivalent of a carriage crash: In her mad dash to escape, Cecelia had bumped into Frankie just outside the drawing room, who had tumbled into the maid returning with a second tray of tiny sandwiches. Lady Evelyn had tripped and stumbled over all three of them. Four women lay in various positions on the floor with sandwich dressings scattered across the tile, the silver tray still rattling in a circle as it settled to the floor.

Frankie’s spectacles had gone flying and she began crawling around on the floor feeling with her hands to try and find them, so Jasper went to her first. He plucked the lenses from the debris of triangle bread slices and cucumber coins and handed them to her. She slid them onto her face while he grasped her by the elbows and hauled her to her feet. “Are you hurt anywhere?”

“No.”

He brushed a cucumber slice off her shoulder. “If you wanted tea, you could have asked.”

“Oh, Mr. Jones,” she whispered, stricken. “How can you even jest about this?”

“They’re a few dropped sandwiches.” He released her elbows when he realized he was still holding them and turned to find the maid struggling to her feet and both Cecelia and Lady Evelyn staring at them; Cecelia with a frown, Lady Evelyn with ugly anger.

Jasper extended his hand to Lady Evelyn while Cecelia vaulted to her feet and stamped her foot. “This is a disaster!”

“Are you well, Lady Evelyn?” Jasper asked once the lady was on her feet.

She brushed out her gown and straightened her hat. “I have never suffered a more undignified experience in all of my life,” she snapped. “This is the consequence of consorting with stock below one’s station!”

Jasper’s temper reared its head, but he kept it under tight rein. He dealt with the entitled ton most nights. Over time he had begun feeling badly for them because they were trapped by ridiculous rules and customs. Lady Evelyn’s comment would have rolled off his shoulders as easily as all the others if it had not been for Cecelia, whose cheeks had flushed at her words.

Frankie reached protectively for Cecelia’s hand and laced their fingers together.

Jasper gestured toward the grand entryway. “We would not want to keep you from visiting those of better standing.”

Lady Evelyn’s lip curled. “To think I had considered you a marriage prospect. I must have lapsed into momentary madness.”

Jasper knew she meant the remark to sting, as if he had lost out on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. “It is best we did not go down that road then,” he said as gravely as he could manage.

“Indeed. You and your ill-bred niece are not worthy of me.”

Cecelia’s cheeks deepened to a shade of puce. “You are not worthy of him !” she burst out. “Uncle Jasper is good and kind and smart, and you have been nothing but cold and wicked since I met you. You might hold the title of lady, but you do not act like one.”

Jasper was so stunned by Cecelia’s words that he almost missed the flash of vindictiveness on Evelyn’s face. Cecelia thought he was good and kind and smart? Since when? From the moment she’d come to live with him she’d behaved as if he were nothing but an insufferable pain in her neck.

Lady Evelyn stared down her nose at Cecelia. “You dear, stupid child. I hope you enjoy having a governess as a mother.” With that parting comment she walked down the corridor, unhurried and as regal as if she were a queen, where the footman waited with the door open.

The three of them stood in absolute silence.

“What did she mean by that?” Cecelia asked suspiciously, looking between Jasper and Frankie. “Are you two—?”

“No!” he and Frankie said in unison.

Cecelia heaved a sigh. “You were right, Miss Turner. Plans do not always work out as we wish.”

Jasper shot an accusatory glare at Frankie, who had bent to help the maid clean up the sandwiches. When she did not lift her head, he asked Cecelia, “What do you mean, ‘plans do not always work out as we wish’?”

“I thought Lady Evelyn would be a lovely wife for you so I invited her here for you to… er… get to know her better.”

She was telling part of the truth, but not all of it. Jasper recalled what had taken place in the sitting room. Cecelia had called him in, insisted on a tea cake, and then she’d tripped over a hatbox right before the mouse had made its appearance.

The hatbox. Why was a hatbox on the sitting room floor to begin with? How convenient was it that the mouse had appeared only moments after the hatbox had been overturned?

“Cecelia,” he said, his temper shaking off its bridle, “were you planning to entrap me in marriage to Lady Evelyn by leaving us alone in the sitting room together?”

There came a knock at the front door and the footman opened it to reveal Lady Trathers, the biggest gossip in London. She waggled her fingers at the trio in the corridor.

“And you were going to have Lady Trathers interrupt us!” Jasper hissed, the entire plan surfacing with horrifying clarity.

“Do not be cross, Uncle Jasper. How was I to know Lady Evelyn was a wretched cow?”

Jasper whirled on Frankie. “You knew about this?”

Frankie and the maid had finished cleaning up the food, and the maid had left with a tray piled high with sandwich dressings. “Not exactly.”

“I did not tell her about the mouse. Or Lady Trathers,” Cecelia said, tapping her temple with her finger. “I did not know if I could trust her. She did tell me she thought it was wrong and warned me that plans go awry, and wouldn’t you know it, that’s exactly what happened.”

Jasper was furious with Cecelia, but what hurt more was that Frankie had been in on the ruse. He gave Frankie a cold stare before saying to Cecelia, “Your punishment is that you must now entertain Lady Trathers for the afternoon.”

Cecelia paled. “Uncle, she does not stop talking long enough to breathe.”

“My sympathy is nonexistent. You are coming with me,” he said to Frankie, crooking his finger. She followed him around the bend in the corridor while Lady Trathers left her parasol with the butler.

Frankie must have sensed the volatility of his mood because for once she did not interrupt him as he gestured her into the first room they came to: the informal parlor. It was sunny and warm in a way the formal parlor was not, and it was where Jasper wrote his correspondence when he hoped Cecelia would visit during the day.

The moment they were inside he said, “How could you let her do something like this?”

He did not understand the irrational feeling of betrayal that sliced through him. It was not as if Frankie had concocted the plan herself, but then neither had she stopped it.

“I will admit it did not sit well with me,” Frankie said with infuriating calm, “even though on paper a marriage with Lady Evelyn would be advantageous to you. Cecelia seemed to like her, and as she once pointed out to me, women are sold into marriage every day; why should a man not be?” Before he could tell her exactly what he thought of that she added, “But just because it is true that women are sold into marriage every day, forced into marriage, tricked into marriage,” she emphasized, looking him in the eye with each iteration, “it does not make it right to do the same to others. I was on my way to intervene when Cecelia and Lady Evelyn came running out of the room as if they were being chased by the hounds of hell and crashed into me.”

Jasper flexed his hand. “You were going to intervene because you believed her plan was immoral? No other reason?”

“Ah…” She pinched her arm.

“Why are you doing that?”

“Doing what?”

“You keep pinching yourself.”

Frankie’s cheeks turned a delicate shade of pink. “It is an experiment that is not working, as it seems I still have an inconveniently strong desire for pudding.”

Jasper had no clue what pudding had to do with anything, but he was an eternal bastion of indulgence. “Then do not deny yourself pudding.”

Something flickered in her eyes, but it was gone before he could read it. Frankie straightened her shoulders and adjusted her spectacles, grimacing when her fingers came away smeared with butter. “If you will excuse me, Mr. Jones, I must freshen up.”

He wanted to stop her, but he realized it was only an excuse to touch her. Frankie had done nothing wrong. Cecelia had been at fault, but even her hijinks could be forgiven as poor juvenile judgment. What he was truly angry about was how close he’d come to being forced into a lifetime of marriage to a woman he despised.

A chill slid down his spine as his eyes followed Frankie’s back. Today had been a close call. If Lady Evelyn had not been afraid of the mouse and run out of the room, or if Lady Trathers had arrived before Frankie had, he would be engaged to Lady Evelyn at this very moment.

He had been lucky this time, but would his luck hold forever? Jasper avoided social situations with the ton as if they were the plague, and today’s escapade was only one example why. Since Cecelia’s soirée, there had been more invitations, more calling cards, more entreaties to join the upper class in their frivolous entertainments. Jasper had no intention of taking them up on it, but what if some other lady of the ton —perhaps someone whose father owed Rockford’s a great deal of money—still attempted to entrap him in marriage? What if she succeeded?

Jasper paced the waxed floorboards, aggravated when he realized he’d missed the perfect opportunity to question Frankie about her interest in his study. He’d had the governess here, alone, and he’d been so consumed by the close call with Lady Evelyn that he’d entirely forgotten to get his answers.

He dragged a hand over his face. There was still time to figure out why Frankie was in his household, but he was not sure he had as much time left as a bachelor. He did not wish to marry at all, but if he did have to marry, he sure as hell wanted to be the one to select his wife. He felt a sudden sympathy for all the women who were not allowed to choose their husbands. As Frankie had said: Women were sold into marriage every day. Jasper vowed right then and there that Cecelia would never marry a man she was not completely and madly in love with.

Jasper had never loved a woman and he was sure he never would, but very few marriages were love matches, while almost all of them were about business. With a tinge of sorrow, he realized his bachelor days were coming to a close. He could wait around and hope no one else succeeded in coercing him into marriage, or he could seize control of his future and take himself off the market.

Now the question was: Who would be interested in being his bride?