The Notorious Duke’s Governess (Beastly Dukes of the Ton #2)

CHAPTER ONE

“The children are in the nursery, Miss Grace. I should warn you…”

A sudden loud crashing sound shattered the quiet of the room and was immediately followed by a piercing shriek.

Finally, there came a peculiar, wet thud against the pane, a sound resembling a common toad launched with singular purpose against the glass.

“…they are quite spirited,” Mrs. Kemp finished, her tone carrying the weight of long experience.

Mel Grace stood in the entrance hall of Hartfell House, rain still dripping from the hem of her travelling cloak, and considered the ceiling above her as though she might divine the nature of the chaos through sheer force of practical assessment.

She had arrived on a Tuesday, which she had always considered a sensible sort of day, neither burdened by the optimism of Monday nor weighted by the exhaustion of week’s end.

Tuesdays were devoted to the steady dispatch of business and the modest commencement of tasks that required no grand display.

The advertisement had been straightforward enough; three children, country estate, generous salary, references preferred but not required.

That last part should have been a warning.

“Spirited,” Mel repeated, testing the word as one might test the floorboards of an unfamiliar house.

“I see.”

Mrs. Kemp was a stout woman of perhaps sixty years, with the sort of face that suggested she had once possessed a sense of humour and had since misplaced it somewhere between the wine cellar and the nursery stairs.

Her cap sat slightly askew, and there was what appeared to be a smear of jam on her otherwise immaculate apron.

She regarded Mel with an expression that hovered between desperate hope and profound scepticism.

“The last governess lasted three weeks,” Mrs. Kemp said. “The one before her, two. The one before that managed six days before she declared the youngest child possessed by demons and fled to the village church for sanctuary.”

“And was she?” Mel asked. “Possessed by demons, I mean. The child, not the governess.”

Mrs. Kemp blinked. “I… no, Miss Grace. She is merely… energetic.”

“Then I suspect the church was unnecessary.” Mel removed her gloves with the methodical precision that characterised most of her movements. She was not a woman who rushed, nor one who dawdled. She simply proceeded, as inevitable as Tuesday itself.

“Shall I go up?”

Another crash echoed from above, followed by what sounded like a small voice declaring, “I am the queen of this curtain.”

Mrs. Kemp winced. “Perhaps I should accompany you.”

“That won’t be necessary.” Mel folded her gloves and placed them in her reticule with a calmness that seemed to unsettle the housekeeper more than reassure her.

“I have been a governess for six years, Mrs. Kemp. I have managed children who refused to eat anything but pudding, children who communicated exclusively through interpretive screaming, and one memorable boy who was convinced he was a horse and would only answer to ‘Thunder.’ I’m certain I can manage spirited. ”

She did not mention that the horse-child had eventually bitten her, or that the screaming children had given her a permanent wariness of high-pitched sounds, or that she still could not look at pudding without a faint twitch developing beneath her left eye.

A governess learned to present confidence as fact, even when experience suggested otherwise.

The stairs at Hartfell House were wide and well-maintained, the sort of stairs that spoke of money and careful attention.

The banisters gleamed with polish and the carpet, though worn in places, was of good quality.

Mel noted these details as she climbed, filing them away in the mental ledger she kept of every household she entered.

A house is a most reliable witness to the habits of its masters, should one know how to listen.

This house said someone with means cares about appearances. Someone with means cares about comfort. Someone with means is paying a generous salary for a governess position that requires no references.

The question, of course, was why.

She had been told the children were orphans.

Nieces of a reclusive gentleman who served as their benefactor.

It was a common enough arrangement, and Mel had not questioned it when Mr. Grieves, the man of business who had conducted her interview, had explained the situation with careful vagueness.

Orphans of quality required governesses.

Reclusive gentlemen required discretion.

The salary required competence, which she possessed in abundance.

But the carpet was too fine and the house too well-staffed for three orphaned children of a man who never visited.

This does not require your attention, Mel reminded herself as she reached the top of the stairs. You are here to educate children, not to solve mysteries.

The nursery door stood slightly ajar, and through the gap Mel could see movement, a flash of pale fabric, the suggestion of small limbs in motion, what appeared to be either a very large insect or a very small hat sailing through the air.

She paused, adjusted her posture and arranged her expression into one of pleasant neutrality that betrayed nothing of the chaos she was about to enter.

Then she pushed open the door.

The scene that greeted her would have sent a lesser woman directly back down the stairs and out into the rain without pause for breath or bonnet.

Three children occupied the nursery in various states of disorder, each one engaged in an activity that suggested the previous governesses had taught them nothing whatsoever about decorum, or perhaps had simply given up trying.

The eldest, or at least the one who appeared to have appointed herself in charge, stood upon a chair near the window, lecturing the empty air with the conviction of a tiny parliamentarian delivering a speech to an invisible House of Lords.

She had dark hair pulled back in braids that were already escaping their ribbons, a pointed chin that suggested opinions, and the sort of posture that dared anyone to question her authority.

“And furthermore,” she was saying, one finger raised for emphasis, “…the schedule for afternoon activities will be determined by merit and seniority, which means I decide, because I am the eldest by twelve minutes and that is a significant margin.”

Beneath the large oak table that dominated the centre of the room, a second child had constructed what appeared to be a fortress of books and cushions.

Mel could see only a pair of eyes peering out from the shadows, wide and watchful, tracking her entrance with the wariness of a small creature who had learned that new adults generally meant trouble.

The third child was hanging from the curtain rod.

She had climbed the heavy drapes with what must have been considerable determination, for the fabric was thick velvet and not designed for scaling, and she now dangled approximately four feet from the ground with her legs wrapped around the rod and her braids swinging freely below her.

In one hand, she clutched what was unmistakably a toad.

“Good afternoon,” Mel said, in the same tone she might have used to greet a duchess at a garden party.

“I’m Miss Grace. I’m your new governess.”

The child on the chair turned to assess her with eyes that missed nothing. She had, Mel noted, the particular expression of someone who was already calculating weaknesses and filing them away for future exploitation.

“The last one cried on the first day,” the girl said.

“I don’t cry on Tuesdays.”

“What about Wednesdays?”

“Wednesdays are for arithmetic. There’s no time for crying.”

The girl’s study of her was as thorough as an examination in court. Her gaze swept over Mel’s plain grey travelling dress, her practical boots, the sensible knot of brown hair that required no attention and made no statement beyond this woman has better things to do than fuss with curling irons.

“I’m Annabelle,” she announced finally. “But everyone calls me Anna. I’m in charge.”

“Are you?”

“Yes. I’m the eldest. By twelve minutes.”

“So I heard.” Mel inclined her head a degree, as one diplomat acknowledging another. “Melanie Grace. Mel, to those who have earned the shortening. Which, at present, is no one in this room.”

“What must one do to earn it?”

“Competence, patience and a reasonable record of not climbing the curtains.”

The child on the curtain rod, who had been following the conversation with interest, made a small sound of protest.

“The rule is recent,” Mel added, without looking up.

“It is subject to revision.”

Mel turned her attention to the book-fortress beneath the table, where those watchful eyes had not blinked once since her arrival.

“And who might be hiding under there?”

The eyes retreated further into shadow.

“That’s Viola,” Anna supplied, with the air of someone introducing a particularly difficult piece of furniture.

“She doesn’t talk to new people, or most old people, or really anyone except us, and sometimes the cat. She’s actually quite shy.”

“I see.” Mel did not crouch down or attempt to coax the child out.

She had learned, over six years and countless shy children, that nothing sent them further into hiding than well-meaning adults trying to draw them forth.

Instead, she simply nodded at the shadows and said, “Good afternoon, Viola. There’s no need to come out until you’re ready.

I’m told the view from under tables is quite underrated. ”

A tiny breath, almost inaudible, suggested surprise. The eyes, Mel noticed, had stopped retreating.

Which left only the child on the curtain rod.

Mel looked up. The child looked down. The toad, clutched firmly in one grubby hand, looked in no particular direction, being a toad and therefore exempt from the social obligations of eye contact.

“And you must be the one who is neither the eldest nor the hiding one,” Mel said.