Chapter 3
Shall we show Lord Brackley how we sword-fight?
” Opal asked. She lifted her wooden sword and jabbed it forward, keeping her left hand on her hip and her spine straight.
The six-year-old’s hair had tumbled from its pins and swung wildly around her shoulders.
She had the same toast-colored locks as all of her siblings—including the viscount—but where his eyes were jade-green, the girls shared the wide-set hazel eyes of their mother.
“Oi! No, put that away, Opal,” Ivy cried, racing around the schoolroom and straightening supplies. “Olivia and Odette!” The eight-year-old twins bounced over, ribbons trailing from their pinafores. “Will you please neaten the younger girls? Ophelia, be a dear and hide the swords.”
The eldest at ten, Ophelia snatched up an armful of wooden swords and carried them to a cabinet in the corner.
When Ivy had first arrived at Brackley Estate, she had assessed the eight disheveled girls, whose skills ranged from rusty curtseying to banging away on the piano, and she had just known she was meant to be there.
Everything she had told Lord Brackley was true: She would teach them hostessing and French, watercolors and reading, but more important—at least to her—she would teach them how to defend themselves and stay safe in a world that valued them less than their male counterparts.
For every delicate tea party, there was a sword fight.
For each stitched rose, there was a lesson on grappling.
With every dance tutorial, there came an opportunity to practice balancing, ducking, and dodging.
The girls had taken to her lessons without an ounce of hesitation, as eager and excited to take part in “boy” activities as they were to finally have someone pay attention to them.
They were sharp and sassy, and Ivy was unsurprised that their mother had been unable to keep a governess.
These were not average children. They had been left to run wild, and as a result had cultivated a resourcefulness most noble-blooded children lacked.
They needed more mental and physical stimulation than sedately reciting poetry could give them.
She knew this about them, because she had been them as a child.
A small hand wrapped in Ivy’s skirts and tugged. “What if our brother does not like us?” Oriana’s tiny oval face looked up at hers, her eyes wide with worry. “Mother says that if he does not care for us, he shall turn us out and we will live on the street.”
Ivy paused in surprise, a smudged chalkboard in hand. “You spoke with your mother?”
“She came into the nursery this morning,” Ophelia explained, slamming the cabinet doors shut before the swords could tumble back out.
“She came to see you this morning?” Since Ivy’s appointment, she had only glimpsed the dowager once, and it had been late in the evening.
To the best of her knowledge—and the healthy gossip of the servants—the lady kept to her rooms, sleeping off her drug-induced haze until the afternoon and then eating before beginning all over again.
What could have possessed her not only to awaken early, but also to visit her children?
Could it be that she was realizing how absent she had been?
Granted, many nobles handed their spawn off to wet nurses, nannies, and governesses, but the dowager had been more inattentive than most.
Ivy’s gaze fell on the youngest girl. Octavia was only three years old and was unusually attached to her nanny. Ivy wondered if she had even recognized her mother that morning.
“Did she say anything else?” Ivy wondered.
The twins shrugged and glanced toward Ophelia. Being the eldest, Ophelia was their unofficial spokeswoman.
Ophelia wrinkled her nose, as if she smelled something foul rather than the sweet-smelling harvest of hay blowing in from the open window. “She told the maid we are expecting an important visitor, and then warned us that we had better be on our best behavior if we want to stay here.”
What visitor? Ivy had not heard any gossip from the servants about expecting a guest. Regardless, she thought it unkind that the dowager had reappeared in her daughters’ lives only to make them feel unstable.
“Well,” Ivy said carefully, trying her best to remember her place, “if you ask me, I do not think you need to worry about if your brother likes you or not. Why would the viscount want to visit the schoolroom if he were not interested in you?”
“He is not interested in us,” Ophelia said darkly. “He is interested only in how good we can be.”
Ivy opened her mouth to protest, but closed it again.
Was that not the truth? Women and girls were only noticed for two things: how good they were, or how bad they were.
If it were the latter, it would ruin the young lady’s reputation, along with that of her family. It left only the choice of being good.
Ivy glanced at the clock on the mantel and gave a little shriek.
“He will be here any moment. Girls, please do your best to remember your lessons and manners, and I implore you, I beg of you, to forget our secret lessons. Do you understand?” She looked specifically at the younger girls, who had not yet learned to temper their honesty.
But the little ones nodded their heads, and when there was a knock at the door the girls scrambled into age order and folded their hands in front of them.
Ivy nodded once in approval and flung the door open. Filling the doorway, one hand pressed to the frame and the other on his hip, was Lord Brackley. His hair was mussed, but his cravat was crisp and perfectly knotted, and his navy-blue morning coat brushed.
She opened her mouth to greet him, but the words died on her lips.
His jade eyes were angry, his unshaven jaw taut with tension.
That was when she noticed the dowager viscountess at his side.
Ivy’s eyebrows climbed up her forehead. The dowager stood as if a board had been shoved down the back of her corset.
Her black mourning gown bared enough of her bosom to draw the eye, and her dark hair was neatly braided and pinned atop her head.
The dowager’s hazel eyes landed on Ivy and narrowed.
That was when Ivy realized that not only was she staring, but she was also blocking the doorway.
With a hurried step back, Ivy half-curtseyed to both the viscount and the dowager. “Lord Brackley, Lady Brackley.”
The dowager swept into the room like a queen while Owen entered slowly, his gaze riveted on the eight fidgeting girls. A bead of perspiration slid down Ivy’s spine.
“Mother!” Olena cried in excitement. She was four and had not yet learned that she was expected to hold her tongue unless spoken to. “What are you doing here?”
“Why would I not be here?” her mother asked coolly, raking the girl over with sharp eyes. “I am your mother.”
Because you are never here, Ivy thought.
Olena’s hopeful face fell at her mother’s harsh dismissal, and Ivy’s stomach clenched.
The dowager frowned at the display of admittedly poor-looking stitched-rose pillows on the settee.
“Young ladies, the viscount has arrived to assess how well you have been absorbing your lessons. I suggest you do not disappoint him. If you are to make yourselves useful with an advantageous marriage match, your training must begin now.”
Ivy could not help darting a look at Owen. A flush spread across her cheeks when she caught his green, half-amused eyes studying her as if she were fidgeting as much as the girls.
“Parles-tu francais?” the dowager snapped at Ophelia.
Ophelia glanced quickly at Ivy, and she nodded to the girl. That irritated the dowager, because she snapped her fingers in front of the eldest girl’s face.
“You will answer to me. Unless you are so stupid that you do not know a single phrase in French?”
Ivy’s cheeks heated further, and not because she was embarrassed. She was suddenly grateful the dowager was usually in her chamber. The girls’ lives were difficult enough without enduring this type of abuse from their own mother.
Ophelia’s hazel eyes flashed. “Je ne suis pas stupide, sorcière.”
A quiet groan escaped Ivy’s lips. I am not stupid, you witch.
The dowager’s eyes widened, and Owen coughed into his fist. “I do not understand French,” he said, his deep voice a soothing contrast to the sharp and bitter tone of their mother, “but it sounds to me as if the girl does indeed speak it.”
Ivy thought it unlikely he did not understand French based on the amused laugh he had tried to disguise with a cough, but she appreciated his attempt to save Ophelia from the wrath of her mother.
The dowager stared daggers at her eldest daughter before turning her attention to the twins. “Are you able to add? Subtract? Divide?”
The twins nodded silently, and the witch moved to the next child and demanded she recite a poem for her.
When the inspection was over, with the dowager completely ignoring her youngest two, she turned to Lord Brackley and smiled. When she spoke to him, her tone melted into something false and warm. “What intelligent young sisters you have, my lord.”
Lord Brackley had leaned against the cabinet with his arms crossed over his chest to watch the dowager scare her children into shadows, and Ivy was terrified that when he moved, the doors would pop open and spill wooden swords everywhere.
“It appears the governess has done well. Excellent choice, Lady Brackley.”
The dowager preened.
“Yet,” Lord Brackley continued, “I have not heard from the girls how the governess makes them feel.”
A line pinched between the dowager’s brows. The girls exchanged confused looks but did not move from their perfect line.
“Their feelings do not matter.” The dowager rubbed a ruby at her throat with trembling fingers. “Their accomplishments and agreeable dispositions are what is important.”
“I disagree.” He stepped away from the cabinet, and Ivy braced herself, but the doors remained shut. He approached Ophelia and bent so that he was face-level with the ten-year-old. “I am your brother, Owen. What is your name?”
“Miss Ophelia, my lord.”
“Please call me Owen,” he said. “Ophelia, if you could use one word to describe how Miss Bennett makes you feel, what would it be?”
Ophelia thought for a moment. “Happy.”
Owen nodded and patted her on the shoulder with his calloused hand before moving to Olivia and Odette. “How about you two?”
“Special,” Olivia said.
“Bright,” Odette added.
Ivy’s heart thundered in her chest. She did not know the purpose of this exercise, but her blood warmed with each word the girls spoke. She had not known the regard they had for her. She wished she could scoop all eight into her arms and squeeze them tight.
“Silly,” Opal said with a laugh when Owen gently tugged on one of her curls and gave her a smile.
Ollie braced her fists on her hips. “Strong!”
“Happy,” Oriana said, repeating her eldest sister’s word.
“Fun!” Olena cried.
“Yes, the Bennetts do tend to have that quality,” he said.
Ivy frowned. Certainly he wasn’t talking about Barnes, who was perhaps the only other person she knew as cranky and brooding as Owen.
When Lord Brackley reached the youngest, Ivy watched in astonishment as he knelt on the schoolroom floor before the child.
The dowager’s fingers fluttered at her throat, appalled to witness the viscount kneeling before the three-year-old she had so cruelly ignored earlier.
“Hello, darling,” Lord Brackley said, his voice so deep and kind that Ivy’s stomach made a strange, slow turn.
“You must be the new pony I heard about.”
Octavia giggled. “No! I am a girl.”
“Are you certain?” Lord Brackley cocked his head. “I was told one of you was a pony. Spin around and let me see if you have a tail.”
Octavia whirled around and waggled her bottom at him. “No tail.”
“No tail indeed,” he agreed solemnly. “I must have been misinformed. Well, Octavia, how do you feel about Miss Bennett?”
Octavia scuffed her little shoe on the floor, and from the corner of her eye Ivy saw the dowager barely restrain herself from admonishing the girl. Octavia said something so low that Lord Brackley had to lean all the way forward.
“What was that?”
She repeated it, again so quietly that he practically had to press his ear to her mouth.
“Yes, I can see that,” he said with a nod, and rose swiftly to his feet. “Thank you, young ladies. This has been a lovely demonstration of your knowledge. I expect you all to join me for supper tonight.”
Their mother gasped. “The children eat in the nursery!”
“I would like them to join me one night a week,” Lord Brackley repeated, winking at Olena. “I want to hear about their lives.”
The girls wiggled with extreme delight. This was the most exciting, most mature thing they had ever been invited to, and Ivy knew she would have her work cut out to retain their attention the rest of the day.
“My lord, I have invited our neighbors, Lord Pithins and Lady Pithins, to supper tonight to welcome you back to England. The children cannot be at the table. It is simply not done.”
Lord Brackley’s gaze met the dowager’s, and although it was blank, Ivy sensed the steel beneath it.
“Do not fret, Lady Brackley. I am sure the Pithinses will delight in the children. Thank you for accompanying me this morning.” The dismissal was obvious, and the dowager swept from the room without sparing a single glance for her children.
“Miss Bennett,” Lord Brackley said, his green gaze meeting hers, “I should like to speak with you privately about your employment here.”