Chapter Four #3
“Because…” For the first time her gaze dipped to the hands clasped in her lap and her voice lost its sharp edge.
“My mother lives here in Somerset and…” She sighed.
“She isn’t getting any younger.” She stared for a while at her suddenly twiddling fingers before her lovely eyes lifted to his again.
Still confident but definitely less confrontational.
“London is two hundred miles away from where I presently need to be.”
“I see.” And he did. Leo knew the bond with your own flesh and blood was too strong to ignore.
He understood, all too well, how harrowing it was to be worried about a loved one’s health.
You felt powerless. Hopeless. The guilt ate at you constantly from within.
If her mother was ill, then that was the very best reason that there was for leaving Lord Warley, so he quickly changed tack.
“I also see that all your experience seems to be as a governess of young girls, whereas I need a social secretary and chaperone for two young ladies. They are very different roles.”
“Are they?” She frowned as if she thought that he was stupid to think so. “There are more similarities in the role of a governess and a chaperone than there are differences.”
“How so?” Leo found himself leaning closer. She was so animated when she spoke and so assured and … spirited. Like his nosy spaniel, he could barely take his eyes off her.
And, heaven help him but he liked that she wasn’t a shrinking violet too.
“A good governess has to have excellent organizational skills, your grace…” Perhaps it was his imagination, but he was sure her generous lips curled a bit at your grace.
“She needs to know precisely what is going on at any given time to ensure that she is one step ahead of it. Preferably two because children are unpredictable creatures. I did say as much in my application.” She flicked a finger toward it.
“She has to find the delicate balance between the social interactions of her charges and their schooling, which can be a challenge when one is fun and the other feels like a chore. Lord and Lady Warley’s daughters received many invitations, and it was my responsibility to respond appropriately to all, only accept the right ones, and ensure that they got there without incident.
I often had to supervise them while they were there.
Then, of course, I had to get them safely home again, which can be quite a challenge when they are overexcited from their visit and full of cake. ”
Cake! If only the lone reason for his sisters’ frequent overexcitement was something quite so innocuous.
“But Lord Warley’s daughters are children and my sisters are adults.
Stubborn and often headstrong adults.” Leo had lost count of how many times he had been tempted to wring Abigail and Emilia’s necks this week.
He had come bloody close to actually doing it an hour ago when he had discovered they were trying to sneak out of the back gate for their afternoon stroll without him while he was occupied with interviews.
“Adults who both feel that they do not need chaperoning and, despite neither being of age, should still be able to do as they please.”
“Few react well to being told what to do—especially by an overbearing brother.” Apparently, on top of all the hostility, Miss Kendall was now insulting him.
He was about to defend himself, because the last thing he needed was a bloody chaperone who wasn’t on his side either, when she huffed.
“Assuming that they see you as the overbearing brother, that is.”
“At the moment, they do see me as the enemy, Miss Kendall, but I will not apologize for thinking only of their safety. Especially when…” He had no clue why he felt the overwhelming need to justify himself to this confounding woman, but he did.
Probably because she had justified every single bold claim she had put in her bloody thorough letter!
“There was a particular incident in London recently that necessitated that I bring them both here immediately.” She didn’t need to know the ins and outs of it.
“And stay here they must until the dust settles. That is, if we all survive their outrage at my necessary decision.”
“Few respond well to an edict either, your grace.” Was that more barely veiled criticism?
Her glare was so unyielding he could not tell if she possessed an objectionable character or if she was purposefully trying to be objectional.
Or if she simply objected to him. “Laying down the law often leads to unhelpful belligerence. As the old adage says, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, and I’ve always found that gentle correction and misdirection are more effective methods of getting my charges to do the right thing than laying down rules like a dictator. ”
Heaven only knew what he had done to this confrontational and unconventional woman to get her dander up.
“I fear keeping my sisters on the path of propriety will take more than gentle correction, Miss Kendall.” Abigail and Emilia were going to eat her alive if that was the best weapon in her arsenal.
“They are here in Bath under duress and blame me for that, so I am being punished and, by default, any chaperone I appoint to them will also be punished. Their shenanigans of late would try the patience of a saint.” Leo sat back, ready to terminate this interview, and she sat back too, her dark eyes suddenly amused by either him or his situation.
“I would still argue that makes your sisters easier to deal with than children.” Because of course she was going to argue; that seemed to be the one thing she excelled at! Both on paper and in person! “As I mentioned before, your grace, children are unpredictable creatures.”
“And I can assure you, Miss Kendall, so are my sisters.” Honestly, the flippant confidence of this unusual woman was starting to grate.
“Yes—but there is a logic to the adult brain that is entirely missing in a child’s.
Children act often entirely on impulse with no rhyme or reason.
With adults, there is always a reason. Once you have worked out what that reason is—and I think that it would be fairly safe to assume that their current reason is the overwhelming desire to rebel against you—a good chaperone would be more than two steps ahead of any shenanigans.
If you can predict it, you can thwart it. ”
Her confidence really was astounding—but he liked it.
He also liked that she had worked out the crux of the matter.
They were rebelling against him. To such an extent that relations between Leo and his sisters had now been reduced to a stubborn battle of wills.
A battle he was currently outnumbered in and losing. “My sisters are fast, Miss Kendall.”
“One of the benefits of being so much younger than all your other more mature candidates is that I am fast too, your grace.” She looked him dead in the eye and folded her arms. Then, despite the lack of paper and pen before her, gave him another well-argued paragraph on why he would be mad not to employ her.
“I am also, in case you haven’t noticed, wily, tenacious, determined, unflappable, unbelievably stubborn, and annoyingly clever.
And, because I am a dreadful cynic by nature—as everyone who knows me will attest—I absolutely always expect the worst of people.
” From her expression, he was left in no doubt that also included him.
“I can assure you that chaperoning your sisters will not faze me in the slightest—but I will definitely faze them.”