Chapter 2
In Which a Raven Turns into a Pirate; A Horological Design Is Ruined; A Sooty Smudge Ruffles Feathers; A Tin Solider Is Recovered; And the Duke Meets Archimedes…
“Nanny ahoy! Nanny ahoy!”
Xavier Mason, the seventh Duke of St Lawrence, jumped so violently in his seat that his fountain pen skittered over the intricate horological design he was working on, leaving an unsightly zigzagging line that bisected the middle of the page.
Damn.
Looking up from his ruined work, he frowned at his pet raven, who’d soared into his private study in a great flurry of midnight-black feathers.
As Horatio landed on a pile of books at the end of Xavier’s desk, the resultant breeze set a number of other pages flying, and Xavier emitted a disgruntled sigh.
Would he never get any peace and quiet? At this rate, his design for a veritable “King of Clocks”—a spectacular and incredibly accurate clock mechanism that would grace the top of St Stephen’s Tower in the newly rebuilt Palace of Westminster—wouldn’t be finished until the end of the century.
Which meant he’d miss the deadline for submissions to the Astronomer Royal on the first of June, an eventuality altogether too frustrating for words.
The horological competition to win the commission was fierce and as the clock was ticking—both literally and figuratively—he couldn’t afford any more delays.
Xavier released a heavy sigh as he placed his fountain pen in its silver stand. “Nanny ahoy?” he repeated. “What on earth do you mean, Horatio? Is something amiss with Nanny Snodgrass?” Again.
The woman had only been working for Xavier for a fortnight—employed to care for his three young wards, Harry, Barry, and Gary, after the last nanny up and left in the middle of the night—and chaos still continued to reign in the nursery.
And elsewhere in St Lawrence House, if truth be told.
A headache began to beat at the back of Xavier’s skull as he contemplated what might have gone wrong this time.
The raven bobbed up and down. “Nanny ahoy,” he croaked again, then fluttered over to the window ledge behind Xavier.
“At two o’clock. In the crow’s nest.” Horatio pecked at the glass pane with his glossy black beak.
“All hands on deck. Fetch Jacob’s ladder.
Raise the mizzenmast. Sound the ship’s bell. ”
“Nanny ahoy at two o’clock? In the crow’s nest? Have you gone mad?” Xavier pushed out of his seat and then crossed to the window. “And why are you talking like a dashed pirate?”
Xavier peered out of the casement window in the direction Horatio had indicated. And then his mouth fell open. “Good God,” he muttered as a great tide of incredulity flooded his brain. “There’s a woman on my roof.”
A petite copper-haired woman in a smart, dark blue gown and matching cloak and bonnet with an umbrella tucked beneath her arm, to be precise. Xavier pushed open the window. “I say, what in God’s name are you doing up there?” he called out. “Are you all right?”
The woman lifted a gloved hand and waved.
“I’m er… Well, good sir, to be perfectly frank, I’m more than a little embarrassed as well as more than a little stuck,” she called back.
“And while I’m dreadfully sorry to be creating such a fuss and most likely putting you out…
if you wouldn’t mind… if you would be so kind, would you be able to fetch a chimney sweep?
I’m going to need a ladder to climb down from here.
Perhaps onto one of your balconies? Because I’d rather not fall and become an ignominious blob of strawberry jam on the pavement.
Between you and me, that would be far too awkward for words. ”
Xavier scrubbed his own gloved hand through his hair.
An ignominious blob of strawberry jam? Who said things like that?
If he weren’t so flabbergasted, he would have laughed.
But then, what sort of person got themselves stuck on top of a four-story townhouse?
Unless he’d fallen asleep at his desk and this was all a bizarre sort of dream?
He had been having trouble sleeping lately.
Horatio gave Xavier a sharp little peck to the arm as though to remind him that he wasn’t, in fact, asleep, and that he needed to do more than gape like a complete and utter berk. “All right,” Xavier muttered at the raven. “There’s no need to get tetchy with me. I’ll help her.”
He placed his gloved hands on the window ledge and leaned farther out.
Damn it, it looked like rain, too. Xavier hated the rain.
On a scale of duck to cat, he was firmly at the feline end.
Nevertheless, he said, “We won’t need to summon a chimney sweep.
Behind that row of chimney pots at your back is a small rooftop terrace and a trapdoor leading down into the attic.
If I help, do you think you’d be able to climb over to the other side, miss? ”
She glanced over her shoulder then gave Xavier a decided nod. “Most definitely. And it’s missus, by the way. Not miss. Mrs. Emmeline Chase.”
Xavier inclined his head. “Mrs. Chase. How do you do? I’m the Duke of St Lawrence. I shall meet you up on the roof in a tick. Don’t move until I get there.”
“I promise I won’t!” she called back.
If the woman fell… Xavier pushed down a rising tide of panic on Mrs. Chase’s behalf.
While he wasn’t afraid of heights himself, not everyone was like him.
Although, he suspected that Mrs. Chase wasn’t quite like anyone else, either.
He still had no idea how she’d come to arrive on his roof, but he supposed he would find out in due course.
In a handful of strides, he was across the room and scaling the stairs to the upper floors and the attic of St Lawrence House.
The door to the attic creaked open, revealing a crowded space that was dimly lit.
It had been years since Xavier had been up here, and he hovered on the threshold for a moment.
A cold gray light filtered through a small, high-set gable window illuminating trunks and crates and discarded furniture shrouded in holland cloths.
In one dark corner stood a silently brooding walnut longcase clock with a cracked face.
A clock that had once belonged to Xavier’s father.
Unpleasant memories Xavier would rather not contemplate gathered like cobwebs at the corners of his mind, but he steadfastly pushed them away as he crossed the dusty wooden floor to the ladder that led up to the small trapdoor and thence, the roof.
He was on a rescue mission and time was of the essence.
He didn’t have time to dwell on the past.
To his relief, when Xavier peered around the low brick wall crowned by a row of chimney pots, Mrs. Chase was still upon the roof, sitting astride the tiled ridge like she was riding a damned horse.
Indeed, the woman’s skirts were slightly rucked up and her neat black leather half boots, a sliver of fine white stocking, and the lacy hem of a pair of drawers were clearly visible.
Egad . Xavier swallowed and his cheeks heated as he momentarily averted his gaze. The poor woman was in a most precarious position. He should not be gawking at her like a green schoolboy who’d never glimpsed a woman’s ankle before. Or even worse, a leering, lecherous old roué.
He certainly didn’t want to be living up to the horrid moniker he’d been dubbed at Eton: Lord Weirdbrook instead of Lord Westbrook, the courtesy title bestowed upon him at birth.
Xavier could almost hear those long-ago taunts.
Look, Weirdbrook is staring again. Or maybe we should call him Mad Mason…
Xavier closed his eyes and reminded himself he was a thirty-year-old man now.
And a duke. While he still had trouble gauging if he was looking too much or too little at someone, ogling women was not the sort of thing he did.
Especially a woman stranded on his roof. That was entirely inappropriate.
“I’m here, Mrs. Chase,” he called out. “If you can carefully inch yourself toward me, I’ll be able to reach out and hold you steady when you stand. Then I’ll help you to climb around this wall of chimney pots to my side of the roof.”
“I can manage that,” she called back. She shuttled herself along and when she was close enough that Xavier could grasp her arm, she deftly climbed to her feet, using one of the chimney pots as a support.
A moment later, she was beside him on the rooftop terrace, safe and sound.
She’d been so swift and sure in her movements, so completely fearless, Xavier hadn’t even had time to be afraid for her.
Her physical dexterity was, in a word, remarkable.
Who was she? What was she?
Horatio had mentioned something about her being a nanny, but perhaps he’d simply adopted “nanny” as a new word to denote anyone of the opposite sex.
“Thank you, Your Grace,” Mrs.-Chase-who-might-be-a-nanny said, drawing Xavier’s attention away from his musings.
“That’s quite all right…” As their gazes connected, Xavier’s voice trailed off and a wash of bright color flooded Mrs. Chase’s face.
Xavier was suddenly transfixed. Time almost seemed to stop, at least for him.
Was that soot on the young woman’s cheek?
His fingers twitched inside his silk-lined gloves.
He had the odd urge to wipe the dark smudge away, but he clenched his fists and stopped himself.
He might hate mess and disorder, he might loathe it when his clothes got wet or grubby or his fingers sticky, but others didn’t mind sensations of that nature so much.
It certainly wasn’t his place to touch the woman’s face in so intimate a fashion.
Then Xavier wondered why Mrs. Chase had blushed.
Was she experiencing a degree of discomfiture because he was staring at her?
Discerning what someone else was thinking was often a challenge for him.
Perhaps she was ill at ease beneath his focused scrutiny.
But for the life of him, he couldn’t seem to look away.