Chapter One

 

 

“Stop him, sir, if you please!”

Petalia Winthrop lifted her skirts clear of the wet cobbles and pointed after the man in the brown coat, who was already vanishing into the market with her reticule and the eleven shillings inside it.

The fishmonger nearest her looked up from a tray of mackerel with the grave irritation of a man whose fish had been interrupted. “Stop whom, miss?”

“The man running away with my reticule. Brown coat, narrow shoulders, guilty conscience.”

“There are three brown coats in sight, and I cannot speak for the consciences.”

“Then begin with the one who is fleeing.”

The fishmonger considered the street. “That does narrow it.”

“I am relieved my ruin has achieved clarity.”

He raised his voice with more politeness than urgency. “Oi there! Brown coat!”

The thief did not turn.

Petalia gave the fishmonger a look of strained gratitude. “A bold intervention, sir. Had he possessed a more tender nature, he might have been quite overcome.”

“I shouted, miss. I cannot leave the fish.”

“Naturally. Mackerel before morality.”

She ran before he could answer, though running in her boots proved to be less an act of speed than an argument with leather. The left boot slapped against the stones, having admitted rainwater at some fatal point near the toe. The right boot squeaked with each step, announcing to London that Miss Winthrop was poor, late, and gaining on absolutely no one.

A chestnut seller leant over her cart as Petalia passed. “Past the chandler’s, love. Cut through the lane.”

“At last, a practical woman.”

“Mind the puddle by the crossing.”

Petalia saw the puddle, attempted to avoid it, and failed with impressive thoroughness. Cold water rose over her ankle.

“I did mind it,” she called over her shoulder, breathless. “The puddle was unmoved by my regard.”

The chestnut seller laughed. “Keep going, then. Brown coat’s still in sight.”

Petalia did keep going. She cut between a handcart and a woman carrying a basket of onions, apologised to three people and offended two more, and arrived at the corner just in time to see the thief glance back. Her reticule was tucked beneath his arm.

“Sir!” she called, with all the command she could summon. “Return that to me at once.”

He ran faster.

“That was not a negotiation!”

A newspaper boy, who had evidently decided the chase was better entertainment than his employment, fell into step beside her for several yards. “You’ll not catch him, miss. He’s got legs like a greyhound.”

“Then do not stand there admiring him. Fetch a constable.”

“For tuppence, I might.”

“My tuppence is in the purse.”

The boy’s grin widened. “That’s poor planning.”

“Left after the chandler’s,” he added after a beat. “He’ll try the passage behind Gable Lane.”

Petalia looked at him, surprised into appreciation despite the stitch gathering under her ribs. “Useful at last.”

“Comes and goes, miss.”

He gave a jaunty salute and darted back towards his newspapers. Petalia turned left.

For one hopeful moment, the chase seemed possible. The thief had been slowed by a milk cart half blocking the lane, and Petalia saw the brown of his coat through the shifting bodies ahead. She pressed on, damp skirts clinging about her ankles, her breath coming hard enough to embarrass her if she had possessed the leisure to be embarrassed.

A ribbon seller stepped from a doorway with a tray balanced in both hands. Petalia tried to stop. Her boots ignored the instruction. She caught the edge of the tray with her sleeve, and several yards of blue ribbon slid down her arm like an accusation.

“Oh, my ribbons!” cried the woman.

“I am so sorry. I shall come back and be properly mortified, I promise.”

“What has happened?”

“My reticule. Brown coat, narrow shoulders, dreadful principles.”

The ribbon seller pointed at once. “Through the passage. Middle turning.”

“You are a credit to your sex.”

“And you are losing time.”

“Yes, that too.”

Petalia pushed the ribbon back into the woman’s hands, made another apology, and ran into the passage.

It was narrow, dim, and slick with rain. By the time she reached the far end, the man in the brown coat had disappeared into one of the lanes beyond it, and London had swallowed him without even the courtesy of leaving a direction behind. A cart rattled somewhere nearby. A door shut. A cat, seated on a barrel, gave Petalia one uninterested glance before returning to the serious business of ignoring mankind.

Petalia stopped with one hand against the brick wall.

“No,” she said softly.

The word did not change anything.

Her reticule was gone. With it went eleven shillings, the letter of character from Mrs Halverston, and the brass hairpin that had belonged to her mother. The money could be earned again if fortune chose to remember her existence. The letter could be requested again if Mrs Halverston was at home, well, willing, and quick with the post. The hairpin was a different matter. It was plain, almost ugly, and worth nothing in a shop, which made the loss of it feel especially cruel. No thief would value it, and yet he had taken from her the only thing in the world she had not been able to replace.

She drew one breath, then another, and tried to make the second steadier than the first.

“Very well,” she murmured, though nothing was well. “Very well. We shall not be foolish about this.”

She pushed away from the wall, but the wet sole of her left boot slipped on the stones. Before she could fall, a hand closed around her elbow and steadied her with firm, reluctant efficiency.

“I beg your pardon,” she said at once, looking down as she recovered her balance. “I am much obliged to you, sir. I should otherwise have made a complete spectacle of myself, which I have already done in three streets and do not wish to carry into a fourth.”

She looked up then, and the rest of her gratitude caught in her throat.

The man beside her was tall and broad through the shoulders, with dark curls fallen untidily across his brow and a scarf tied high over the lower part of his face. Even so, it did not hide everything. A jagged line of old scarring reached along his jaw and disappeared beneath the cloth. She saw them; he saw her see them.

His hand left her elbow at once.

“You have recovered your balance,” he said, his voice rough and controlled. “Try to keep it.”

Petalia lifted her chin. “I intended to thank you.”

“Then you were delayed by staring.”

A flush warmed her cheeks, partly from shame and partly from irritation. “I was delayed by surprise, sir, which is a different matter entirely. I was also recently robbed, soaked, and abandoned by public spirit, so my manners are not at their finest.”

“The streets are not kind to women who run through them without looking.”

“Nor are they kind to women who stand still with a reticule, as that was the position in which the trouble began.”

He glanced towards the empty lane. “The thief is gone.”

“I had nearly arrived at the conclusion myself.”

“Then you had better return home.”

“An elegant solution, if home were a place that did not expect rent.”

The man’s eyes sharpened slightly above the scarf. He seemed prepared to turn away, and for one moment she thought he would. Then he looked down the passage again, as if the vanished thief had personally offended him by failing to remain available.

“Have you no one with you?” he asked.

“I am not in the habit of bringing a committee to a morning errand.”

“That is not what I asked.”

Petalia folded her gloved hands, more to keep them from trembling than from any display of composure. “No. I have no one with me.”

“A father? A brother? A husband who may be sent for?”

“No father, no brother of any practical use, and no husband at all. I am afraid I cannot furnish the scene with a gentleman merely because propriety would prefer it.”

“You are alone in London?”

“I am alone in this passage. London is too large a claim for the present hour.”

“You answer everything sideways.”

“And you ask everything as if you intend to have me arrested for my own misfortune.”

For the first time, his gaze altered. It was not quite amusement, though it came near enough to make his severity less complete.

“What was taken?”

Petalia hesitated. It was absurd to confess one’s whole worldly condition to a man whose name she did not know and whose first instinct had been to scold her for falling. Yet the question had been plainly asked, and after the morning’s useless bystanders, the plainness of it felt almost like assistance.

“My reticule,” she said. “Eleven shillings, which were meant for my landlady. A letter of character from my former employer. And a hairpin.”

“A hairpin?”

“Brass. Worthless to anyone who had no reason to care for it. My mother’s.”

The man’s expression did not soften, but it stilled.

“Then the thief took more than money.”

Petalia looked away, blinking once. “Yes. He did.”

“The letter of character suggests you were seeking employment. What sort?”

“Respectable employment.”

“That is a category, not an answer.”

“It is the safest answer to give a stranger in a passage.”

He accepted that with a slight inclination of his head, which surprised her. Most gentlemen disliked being reminded they were strangers. This one seemed to dislike almost everything, but he had the rare grace not to argue with accuracy.

“And without the letter?” he asked.

“Without the letter, my prospects diminish.”

“Diminish is a mild word.”

“I am fond of mild words. They take up less room than panic.”

“When is your rent due?”

“Saturday.”

“Today is Tuesday.”

“Yes. I have been keeping pace with the week, though it has shown me no similar courtesy.”

He studied her for a long moment. Rain tapped lightly against a broken gutter overhead, and from the street beyond came the calls of vendors continuing their morning as if hers had not split down the middle.

“You are calm,” he said at last.

“I am not calm. I am extremely busy not becoming ridiculous.”

“Many people would choose tears.”

“Tears require privacy, and at present I have a stranger, a damp wall, and an indifferent animal as witnesses.”

The smallest breath escaped him, almost a laugh and not quite one. He looked displeased with himself for having allowed it.

Petalia noticed, despite herself. “You need not fear, sir. I shall not report that you nearly found something amusing.”

“You are impertinent.”

“Only when cornered.”

“You are not cornered.”

“No, but I am robbed in a passage, which seems near enough for conversation.”

She drew a breath and straightened her damp sleeve.

“In any case, I have already imposed upon enough strangers for one morning. I am sorry for the inconvenience.”

He stared at her.

“Inconvenience?”

She glanced about the passage. “Perhaps that is not the precise word.”

He turned partly away, then stopped again, conducting some private debate that did not seem to be going in his favour. At last, he reached inside his coat and withdrew a small silver card case.

Petalia watched the motion with growing suspicion. “Sir, if you are about to recommend that I apply to a charity, I must warn you that I am not in a charitable temper.”

“I was not.”

“A pawnbroker, then?”

“No.”

“A constable?”

“Do you wish to report the theft?”

“I wish to retrieve the reticule, scold the thief, recover my hairpin, keep my lodgings, and arrive at an interview looking like a woman of excellent judgment. If the constable can arrange all that, I shall marry him at once.”

He removed a card and looked at it as if it had betrayed him by existing. “There is a lady of my acquaintance who may be in need of someone suitable for her household.”

“May be?”

“Is.”

“You say that with reluctance.”

“I do most things with reluctance. It saves disappointment.”

Despite everything, Petalia’s mouth nearly curved. “And this lady receives applicants without notice?”

“She receives more than is good for her, and she asks too many questions once she has done so. You may call any morning this week, between ten and noon.”

“On what grounds?”

“On the grounds that you have need of employment and she has need of capable women.”

“You do not know that I am capable.”

“You have been robbed and soaked through, and you are still standing upright, speaking in complete sentences, and declining to faint. It is more evidence than many candidates provide.”

The compliment, if it was one, was so dryly delivered that Petalia did not immediately know how to receive it. He took a pencil from the same case and wrote an address on the back of the card.

“Mayfair,” she said when he gave it to her. “That is a considerable address to hand to a woman you have just met in a passage.”

“Do not misuse it.”

“I had been planning to embroider it on a banner and march through the square.”

His brows drew together.

“That was a jest,” she said. “A poor one, perhaps, though in my defence, I am grieving eleven shillings and a boot.”

“Call between ten and noon,” he repeated. “Ask for Lady Maria Fenwick. She will decide whether you are of use.”

“And what shall I say when she asks how I came by her address?”

“Say you heard of a possible situation through an acquaintance.”

Petalia looked at him directly. “I have no acquaintances in London.”

“Then say through a gentleman who preferred not to be named.”

“That sounds worse.”

“Say through a gentleman who had more caution than vanity.”

“That sounds unlikely.”

Again, that almost-smile threatened and vanished. “Say what you please, Miss—”

He stopped because she had not given her name.

“Winthrop,” she said after a moment. “Miss Petalia Winthrop.”

“Miss Winthrop,” he said, and the name in his low voice seemed to settle between them with more significance than a name ought to have carried. “Do not present me as a recommender. I am not recommending you.”

“You are sending me to a lady who may give me employment.”

“I am giving you an address.”

“A distinction a lawyer might enjoy.”

“It is a necessary distinction.”

“Because you do not know me?”

“Because I recommend no one.”

“That sounds less like a principle than a wound.”

His eyes hardened.

Petalia regretted the words at once, though they had slipped out quietly. She had always had the unfortunate habit of hearing the thing beneath the thing and answering that instead. It was a useful talent with children, a dangerous one with gentlemen, and an impossible one with men who wore their distance like armour.

She lowered her gaze to the card. “Forgive me. That was impertinent, and not in the charming way I sometimes hope to manage.”

“You have no reason to consider whether I am wounded.”

“No. I have only reason to thank you.”

“Then do that, if you must, and go home before the weather worsens.”

“Thank you, sir,” she said, with more seriousness than she had intended. “For catching me, and for the address. I do not know whether any of it will lead to anything, but I am grateful.”

He inclined his head, not quite a bow and not quite a dismissal. “Between ten and noon, when you are able.”

“And if Lady Maria refuses to see me?”

“She will see you.”

“You sound certain.”

“My aunt sees everyone. It is one of her less defensible habits.”

“Your aunt,” Petalia repeated, unable to help herself.

He looked as if he regretted the word immediately.

“Good day, Miss Winthrop.”

“Good day, sir.”

He turned and left the passage without giving his name. Petalia watched him go, the card held carefully between both gloved hands. Only after he had vanished into the movement of the street did she turn it over to inspect the front. The printed name told her little; the handwritten address on the back mattered more.

There had been no warmth in him, not in any ordinary sense. Yet he had stopped. He had returned. He had given her something that might become a chance. Petalia had lived long enough in other people’s houses to know that kindness did not always arrive smiling. Sometimes it arrived scowling, wrapped in a scarf, and insisting it was nothing of the sort.

She tucked the card into the inner pocket of her cloak, a place she should have used for the hairpin that morning. The thought hurt enough that she pressed her lips together and began the walk back to Bloomsbury before tears could become practical.

 

***

 

The rain strengthened by the time she reached Mrs Pemberley’s lodging house. The hallway smelled of boiled cabbage, damp wool, and old polish. Petalia was halfway up the stairs when Mrs Pemberley appeared on the landing with a candle in one hand and arithmetic in her expression.

“Miss Winthrop.”

Petalia stopped. “Mrs Pemberley.”

The landlady’s eyes travelled from Petalia’s wet hem to her ruined boot. “You have had an accident.”

“Several, if one is being precise.”

“I hope none of them has interfered with our arrangement for Saturday.”

Petalia gripped the bannister. She had intended to delay the admission, to prepare it into something less humiliating, but the morning had left her too tired for ornament.

“My reticule was stolen.”

Mrs Pemberley’s face changed, though not enough to conceal the calculation behind it. “Stolen?”

“In the market. It held the rent money I had meant to bring you, as well as my letter of character.”

“That is a very unfortunate thing.”

“It is.”

“But you understand, Miss Winthrop, that I cannot conduct a lodging house on the strength of unfortunate things.”

“I do understand. I am not asking you to forgive the rent. I am asking you to believe I shall do everything possible to pay it.”

Mrs Pemberley shifted the candle to her other hand. “Everything possible is a broad phrase.”

“It is the only one I have at present.”

“Saturday, then.”

“Saturday,” Petalia said, though the word felt like a sentence being passed.

Mrs Pemberley softened only a little. “You had better change those stockings before you take ill. Illness is expensive.”

“I shall avoid it on principle.”

The landlady sniffed, which might have been disapproval or sympathy made cautious by business. “See that you do.”

Petalia climbed the remaining stairs to her small room. She shut the door, leant against it, and drew the card from her pocket.

Lady Maria Fenwick. Mayfair. Between ten and noon.

She set the card on the washstand, then moved it to the little table by the bed, then finally placed it beneath her pillow, not because that made any sense, but because it felt safer there. She removed her wet boots with difficulty, wrapped her shawl around her shoulders, and sat on the edge of the bed in the dim room.

Soon she would go to Mayfair. She would present herself without the original letter, without her mother’s hairpin, and without any certainty that Lady Maria Fenwick would have use for a governess who had arrived in London with eleven shillings and lost them all by breakfast.

Still, she had a card. She had a name. She had an hour at which to appear.

For one day, that would have to be enough.

 

 

 

Chapter Two

 

 

The Duke of Ashbourne had been in his study for forty-three minutes, and every one of those minutes had been an argument against going downstairs.

The argument was not improving with repetition.

He stood near the window with one shoulder angled towards the glass, watching rain thread down the panes and gather in the dark lines of the garden below. He had no interest in the garden. He had no interest in the correspondence spread open on his desk. He had even less interest in the voices that had risen from the hall shortly after ten o’clock, one belonging unmistakably to his aunt and the other carrying a cadence he had heard once before in a wet passage off Gable Lane.

Miss Petalia Winthrop had used the card.

That should not have surprised him. She had not looked like a woman easily turned aside by embarrassment. Still, when he had written his aunt’s address on the back of the card four days earlier, some unreasonable part of him had relied upon the world’s usual inefficiency. He had expected the card to be mislaid, or the rain to spoil it, or pride to keep her from presenting herself at a Mayfair door with a borrowed recommendation and damp courage.

Instead, she was in his drawing room.

A knock sounded at the study door.

Ashbourne did not turn. “No.”

After a careful pause, Bellamy’s voice came through the wood. “Your Grace, I have not yet stated my errand.”

“You are on my aunt’s business, which means the answer is no.”

“Her Ladyship anticipated that possibility.”

“Of course she did. My aunt has never met a refusal she did not consider a temporary misunderstanding.”

“She asked me to inquire whether Your Grace intends to join her in the drawing room.”

“Tell Lady Maria I am engaged.”

“I believe she anticipated that also.”

Ashbourne turned from the window. “Bellamy, if you continue to bring me anticipated responses, I shall begin to doubt the usefulness of having a door between us.”

“Her Ladyship did say, Your Grace, that if you were engaged, she would be happy to come up and admire the object of your engagement herself.”

“That is not admiration. That is siegecraft.”

“I could not presume to define Her Ladyship’s methods.”

“You define nothing when courage is required. It is one of your most consistent qualities.”

“I have always considered consistency a virtue in service, Your Grace.”

Ashbourne crossed the room and stopped short of opening the door. Bellamy had served his family for nearly twenty years and had perfected the art of delivering domestic threats in tones suitable for announcing tea.

“Who is with her?” Ashbourne asked.

Another pause followed, smaller and more revealing than Bellamy likely intended.

“A Miss Winthrop, Your Grace.”

“I did not ask for the name.”

“No, Your Grace.”

“You gave it with a certain weight.”

“I gave it because it was the answer.”

“Do not become clever, Bellamy. I am not in the mood.”

“As you wish, Your Grace.”

Ashbourne opened the door at last. Bellamy stood in the corridor, perfectly composed, his silver hair immaculate, his expression arranged into the particular blankness that meant he knew far more than he intended to reveal.

“What does my aunt want with Miss Winthrop?” Ashbourne asked.

Bellamy lowered his eyes with exquisite caution. “I believe Her Ladyship wishes to explain the matter herself.”

“Which means you know.”

“I know only what has been discussed below stairs and in the drawing room.”

“That is another way of saying you know everything.”

“It is another way of saying, Your Grace, that I have learnt which explanations are mine to give and which are not.”

Ashbourne gave him a flat look. “You are enjoying this.”

“No, Your Grace.”

“You hesitated.”

“Only to prevent myself from denying it too quickly.”

Against his will, Ashbourne nearly smiled. The danger passed. “Tell my aunt I will come down presently.”

“Very good, Your Grace.”

Bellamy reached the door.

“She did instruct me to say that, should you delay too long, she reserves the right to come up herself.”

“Bellamy.”

“Your Grace.”

“You are dismissed.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

The butler bowed and withdrew. Ashbourne shut the door, but not before hearing the measured retreat of Bellamy’s steps and, from below, the faint sound of his aunt’s voice carrying upward as if walls had been invented for less determined women.

He returned to the window.

Miss Winthrop had found his aunt. The fact ought not to have concerned him. He had sent a desperate woman to Lady Maria Fenwick and told himself it was not a recommendation. It had been a convenient fiction.

In truth, he had been moved by a single word.

Inconvenience.

He disliked the memory as soon as it entered him, but memory did not obey rank. His late wife had used that word once, pale and exhausted and trying to smile through pain he had been too young, too arrogant, and too frightened to understand. She had called the labour an inconvenience, as if minimising it could spare him terror. By morning, she was dead, and the word had remained lodged somewhere in him like a splinter no physician could extract.

Then, four days ago, in a wet passage, Miss Winthrop had used the same word to describe the collapse of her prospects, and Ashbourne had done what he had spent years training himself not to do.

He had interfered.

There was a second knock.

“I have already said I would come down presently,” he called.

The door opened anyway.

Lady Maria Fenwick entered with the unhurried confidence of a woman who considered closed doors a courtesy extended to weaker opponents. She was small, silver-haired, and dressed in dove grey, with a lace cap tied beneath her chin and an expression that had defeated more capable men than her nephew.

“You are hiding,” she said.

“I am working.”

Lady Maria glanced at the untouched correspondence. “You are hiding.”

Ashbourne set down his pen. “Miss Winthrop is downstairs.”

“Yes.”

“You have already interviewed her.”

Lady Maria settled into a chair. “Yes.”

He looked at her. “You move quickly.”

“You sent her to me.”

“I sent her to you because she needed help.”

“And she does.”

“Aunt.”

“We are in need of a governess. She is in need of employment. I fail to see the difficulty.”

Ashbourne exhaled. “You have known her for a morning.”

“So have you.”

That was irritatingly difficult to dispute. He frowned. “You have already decided.”

“No. I have formed an encouraging preliminary opinion.”

“That is merely a longer way of saying the same thing.”

“Not at all. If I had decided, she would already be employed.”

Ashbourne looked away. “She would be responsible for Mary and Declan.”

“Yes.”

The single word carried more weight than a paragraph.

Lady Maria rose. “Which is why I should like you to meet her.”

“I have met her.”

“You met a woman in distress.”

Lady Maria moved towards the door.

“Come downstairs.”

“I said I would.”

Lady Maria opened the door.

“Does Miss Winthrop know what she is walking into?” he asked.

She paused. “She knows the children have had difficulties with previous staff.”

“That is a polished phrase.”

“I am a polished woman.”

“Does she know Mary may bite?”

“I told her Mary may resist discipline.”

“Did you mention the teeth?”

“Not as a central feature of the position, no.”

Despite himself, he exhaled something close to a laugh. “You have deceived her.”

“I have not deceived her. I have merely allowed her to meet the household before furnishing her with every alarming anecdote. Had I begun with teeth, locked schoolroom doors, and Declan disappearing beneath the pianoforte for half an afternoon, she might have left before tea.”

“A sensible woman might still leave after tea.”

“Then you had better come downstairs before the tea cools and she remembers she is sensible.”

He studied his aunt. “You truly think she can manage them?”

“I think she will see them. Not as problems to be corrected and not as tragic ornaments in a ducal household. As children. That is rarer than it ought to be.”

“You gathered all that from one morning?”

“I gathered it from the way she spoke of losing her mother’s hairpin.”

Ashbourne stilled.

Lady Maria’s expression softened. “I gathered it also from the way she listened, Edmund. There are people who merely wait for their turn to speak, and there are people who hear. Miss Winthrop hears. Your children need that more than they need French verbs, though I hope she will provide those as well.”

He rubbed a hand across his brow. “This is madness.”

“It is employment. The two are frequently confused in aristocratic households.” She paused. Then, after a while: “Come, Edmund. You need only meet her. You are a duke. Surely you can survive a governess for a quarter of an hour.”

“That depends on the governess.”

“This one has already survived you in a passage, which recommends her strongly.”

He shook his head, but crossed the room at last.

Lady Maria’s smile went unseen as they left together.

 

***

 

The walk downstairs felt longer than it had any right to be. Bellamy appeared at the foot of the staircase with an expression of profound professional innocence, which fooled no one.

“The drawing room, Your Grace,” he said.

“I know, Bellamy.”

Bellamy opened the drawing-room door.

Miss Winthrop stood near the hearth, not sitting despite the chair placed beside her. She wore a dark gown brushed carefully into respectability, and her hair had been pinned with plain neatness. Without the rain, the ruined boot, and the shock of the passage, she looked less like a woman rescued from misfortune and more like what she must have been before the theft interrupted her life, a governess of experience, self-command, and very little tolerance for foolishness dressed as authority.

She turned as they entered.

Recognition moved across her face in a single controlled flicker. It was there and gone quickly enough that anyone less attentive might have missed it. Ashbourne did not miss it. Neither, he suspected, did his aunt.

Lady Maria smiled as if she had arranged the morning solely for the pleasure of watching two people pretend not to know each other.

“Miss Winthrop,” she said, “allow me to present my nephew, His Grace the Duke of Ashbourne. Edmund, this is Miss Petalia Winthrop, of whom I have already spoken.”

Miss Winthrop curtsied with perfect correctness. “Your Grace.”

Ashbourne bowed. “Miss Winthrop.”

A brief silence followed. Lady Maria looked between them with unconcealed interest.

Miss Winthrop’s gaze remained steady. “I am obliged to you for receiving me. Her Ladyship has been most generous with her time.”

“My aunt is generous with many things,” Ashbourne said, “including prompt conclusions.”

“Edmund,” Lady Maria said lightly.

Miss Winthrop’s mouth softened, though she kept the smile from forming fully. “A prompt conclusion is not always an unsound one, Your Grace. Sometimes it is merely the first sensible answer to an existing difficulty.”

Lady Maria looked delighted. Ashbourne looked at Miss Winthrop more closely.

“You speak boldly for an applicant,” he said.

“Only when asked into a room where boldness appears more useful than flattery. I can provide flattery if required, though I cannot promise it will be convincing.”

“We do not require flattery.”

“That is a relief. I am out of practice.”

Lady Maria gestured for them to sit. “There. We are already all being honest. Miss Winthrop, do take the chair by the fire. Edmund, you may sit as well.”

Ashbourne sat because refusing would have made him look ridiculous. Miss Winthrop sat after he did, her posture straight, her hands folded loosely in her lap.

“My aunt tells me you have experience as a governess,” he began.

“Six years with the Halverston family in Hampshire, Your Grace. Before that, I assisted for two years in the schoolroom of Mrs Bell’s seminary near Bath, where I taught the younger pupils reading, handwriting, basic arithmetic, and enough French to manage a menu.”

“That is useful experience,” Ashbourne said. “It may not be sufficient.”

Miss Winthrop did not bristle. “Because of the children?”

“Because of what they have endured, and what that has made them.”

Lady Maria’s expression sobered, and for once she did not intervene.

“My daughter, Mary, is six,” he said. “My son, Declan, is nine. Their mother died shortly after Mary’s birth. Since then, they have had governesses, tutors, nursery maids, and well-meaning relations in such number that every new face now looks to them like another departure waiting to happen.”

Miss Winthrop listened without interrupting.

“Mary is clever,” he continued, “which she uses poorly when she is frightened or displeased. Declan is gentle, which people mistake for obedience until he refuses to move, speak, eat, or acknowledge the existence of Latin.”

“Latin is a severe test of anyone’s goodwill.”

Lady Maria’s mouth twitched.

Ashbourne ignored it. “Mary has a temper. Declan withdraws. Between them, they have discouraged most attempts at instruction.”

“And you wish me to instruct them anyway.”

“If you take the position, yes. But I would rather you know now that the work will not be easy.”

“I did not expect easy work, Your Grace. Easy households rarely advertise for governesses.”

“No. But difficult households sometimes disguise the extent of the difficulty.”

“Then I am grateful you do not mean to.”

That checked him for a moment.

“I mean to be plain,” he said.

“Then I shall try to be plain in return.”

“Good. Do you wish to make them obedient or educated?”

“I should like to make them secure enough to become both.”

The answer unsettled him by being better than the question.

“Secure,” he repeated.

“Yes. Obedience obtained through fear seldom lasts once the adult leaves the room. Education offered to a child who expects abandonment is not always received as education. Sometimes it is received as another test to fail.”

Lady Maria looked down at her teacup.

Ashbourne kept his gaze on Miss Winthrop. “You speak as though you have seen such failures.”

“I have seen enough families to know that adults often call a child difficult when they mean inconvenient.”

The word struck him harder than it should have. Miss Winthrop seemed to realise it only after she spoke.

“I did not mean—”

“It is a fair word,” Ashbourne said.

“It is not always a kind one.”

“No.”

For a moment, none of them spoke.

Miss Winthrop folded her hands more firmly. “May I ask what you expect of a governess beyond lessons?”

“Order,” he said. “Consistency. Reports on their progress. Protection from foolish indulgence.”

Lady Maria’s brows rose faintly, but she was wise enough not to interrupt.

“And authority?” Miss Winthrop asked.

Ashbourne looked at her more closely.

“If I am to be responsible for the schoolroom,” she said, “I must be permitted to govern it. I cannot have instructions overturned because a child weeps prettily, a relative pities her, or a servant dislikes being corrected by a governess.”

“You ask a great deal for a woman not yet engaged.”

“No, Your Grace. I ask now because I am not yet engaged. Afterwards, asking becomes complaint.”

The answer cut through him with unsettling neatness.

“You would have my support,” he said at last. “If a rule is set, I will not overturn it without speaking to you first. I will expect reports, and I will expect honesty in them.”

“You shall have both.”

“If the children distress you, you will tell me before matters become unmanageable.”

“I shall tell you before matters become theatrical. Unmanageable is sometimes a stage one must pass through on the way to improvement.”

“That is not reassuring.”

“It is honest.”

He almost smiled. “You value honesty highly.”

“I have often had too little money to afford comforting lies.”

The room quieted.

Lady Maria’s expression gentled. Miss Winthrop seemed to regret the plainness of what she had said.

“The salary will be paid monthly,” Ashbourne said. “An advance may be arranged if needed.”

Miss Winthrop’s chin lifted by a fraction. “That is kind, Your Grace, but I would prefer to earn what I am paid.”

“An advance is earned against future service.”

“Then, if it is not improper, I would accept one week’s wages upon beginning. My lodgings must be settled, and I would rather not leave debt behind me.”

“That can be arranged.”

“Thank you.”

Lady Maria gave Ashbourne a look he chose not to acknowledge.

“You may begin tomorrow,” he said, “unless you require more time.”

“At Wrenfield,” Lady Maria added. “The children are not in town.”

Miss Winthrop looked between them. “Wrenfield?”

“My principal seat,” Ashbourne said, “in Devonshire.”

“It is a journey of three days, if the roads are in a cooperative humour,” Lady Maria said. “They seldom are, but one must allow them their little vices.”

Petalia absorbed that in silence. “And we set out tomorrow?”

“At half past seven,” Ashbourne said. “Bellamy will send the carriage for you and bring you here first. From Ashbourne House, you will travel on with my aunt.”

“Tomorrow is… possible, I suppose.”

“You have little to pack?”

“Very little that is mine.”

He disliked the answer. More precisely, he disliked that he noticed it.

“Bellamy will send the carriage for you. Give him the direction before you leave.”

“That is not necessary. I can hire—”

“You cannot hire anything if your eleven shillings were stolen,” Lady Maria said. “Do not be proud at the expense of dry shoes.”

Miss Winthrop looked startled, then glanced at Ashbourne.

He kept his face still. “My aunt is correct, though I regret encouraging her. The carriage will come.”

For the first time since he had entered the room, Miss Winthrop looked genuinely uncertain.

“Very well,” she said. “Thank you.”

“You will meet the children when we reach Wrenfield,” Ashbourne said. “I would not advise beginning with Latin.”

“I had thought to begin with names.”

“You know their names.”

“I meant that I should like them to tell me what they prefer to be called. Children enjoy being consulted in small matters before being guided in large ones.”

Lady Maria smiled. “You see, Edmund? Sensible.”

“I did not say otherwise.”

Miss Winthrop rose, and both Ashbourne and Lady Maria stood.

“Your Grace, I am grateful for the opportunity. I will do my best for your children. I will not promise miracles, because children generally dislike being treated as miracles in need of management, but I can promise attention, consistency, and patience.”

“Patience may be tested.”

“Then it will have exercise.”

He bowed. “Until tomorrow, Miss Winthrop.”

She curtsied. “Until tomorrow, Your Grace. Lady Maria.”

Lady Maria took her hand. “Bellamy will see you out and arrange the carriage.”

Miss Winthrop’s smile escaped then, quick and warm before she mastered it. Ashbourne saw it and, for reasons he had no wish to examine, found the room less airless for the space of a breath.

Bellamy escorted her out. Her footsteps receded across the hall. A moment later the front door opened, voices murmured, and the house settled into the quieter state that follows a decision no one can pretend has not been made.

Lady Maria turned to her nephew. “Well?”

Ashbourne returned to the mantel. “She is impertinent; and she asks inconvenient questions.”

“Yes.”

“She will not be easily managed.”

“No.”

He looked at his aunt. “You are pleased by all of this.”

“Extremely.”

“Of course you are.”

Lady Maria walked to the window and looked out at the rain. “You did well, sending her to me.”

“I did not send her. I gave her an address.”

“Yes, dear. A distinction of enormous importance.”

Ashbourne said nothing for a while.

“Tomorrow’s journey may be difficult,” she said softly.

“Most journeys are.”

Lady Maria looked towards the door. “This one may matter more.”

Ashbourne said nothing, but he did not disagree.

 

 

Chapter Three

 

 

By half past seven the next morning, the pavement outside Ashbourne House had become a theatre of trunks, servants, horses, and restrained disapproval.

Petalia arrived with one small bag in her hand, and her cloak buttoned to the throat. She paused at the edge of the activity, uncertain whether to present herself at the front door or to the nearest person who seemed capable of giving orders. Bellamy solved the question by appearing beside the carriage with the serene inevitability of a man who had arranged the morning, the weather, and possibly the direction of the wind.

“Good morning, Miss Winthrop,” he said, bowing. “Are you ready for the journey?”

“As ready as one may be for three days on the road.”

“A prudent answer. May I take your bag?”

Petalia tightened her fingers around the handle before she could stop herself. Bellamy noticed, of course. He was far too practised not to notice, but he was also far too well-trained to make a subject of it.

“It contains everything I own,” she said.

“Then I shall treat it with the gravity due to a household inventory,” Bellamy replied, and took it from her with both hands.

The answer steadied her more than sympathy would have done. Petalia watched him place the bag inside the travelling carriage, where it looked smaller than ever against the dark upholstery and folded wool blankets. Lady Maria Fenwick was already settled within, a foot warmer at her feet, a fur-trimmed mantle around her shoulders, and an expression that suggested travel was tolerable only because it supplied fresh opportunities for interference.

“Come in, Miss Winthrop,” Lady Maria called through the open carriage door. “The morning is cold enough to make humility of us all, and I refuse to be humble before breakfast.”

Petalia curtsied. “Good morning, my lady.”

“It is not good. It is merely morning. We shall improve it if the first inn has decent coffee.”

Before Petalia could climb in, a horse shifted near the mounting block and drew her attention towards the street.

The Duke of Ashbourne sat already mounted, dressed for riding, his scarf pulled high against the damp air. He looked no more inclined to greet the day than the day looked inclined to welcome him. A valet on a second horse waited a little behind him, expression blank beneath his hat.

Ashbourne’s gaze moved to Petalia. It stayed there for a single measured moment and then slid away to his aunt.

“The western road will be heavy past Hounslow,” he said.

Lady Maria leant out of the carriage. “That is not news, Edmund. It rained yesterday, and the road has never been accused of delicacy.”

“We will change horses at Reading if the first team labours.”

“We will change horses when the coachman says so, unless you have taken to driving by remote authority.”

His mouth tightened. “I shall ride ahead.”

“Yes, dear, I had assumed you would. A closed carriage for three days with two women would require more heroism than you presently possess.”

Petalia lowered her eyes, though not quickly enough to hide that she had heard.

Ashbourne’s horse moved under him. He settled it with a slight pressure of the reins, every line of him controlled. “Miss Winthrop.”

“Your Grace.”

It was not precisely a greeting. It was the acknowledgement one might give to weather, furniture, or a legal inconvenience. Then he turned his horse and rode ahead, the valet following at a respectful distance.

Lady Maria watched him go. “There. You have now received the full warmth of my nephew’s welcome. You must not expect the same lavish display every day, or you will become spoiled.”

Petalia climbed into the carriage and took the seat opposite her. “I shall attempt to manage my expectations.”

“A useful habit in this family.” Lady Maria tapped the foot warmer with the toe of her boot. “Do put your feet near the bricks. Edmund had them reheated twice this morning.”

Petalia looked down. Two wrapped hot bricks rested near her side of the carriage, and a thick blanket lay folded beside them. A covered basket had been tucked into the corner, from which came the homely smell of bread and cheese.

“His Grace ordered these?”

“He will deny it with a face of stone if asked. I recommend asking only if you wish to see a duke cornered by his own kindness. It is a rare spectacle, but not one to overuse.”

Petalia arranged her skirts and placed her damp boots near the warmth. “I would rather not begin my employment by cornering him.”

“A wise beginning. I was much slower to learn the value of restraint.”

The carriage lurched forward. Petalia looked through the window as Ashbourne House began to fall behind them. For a moment, she thought of her room in Bloomsbury, the narrow bed, the chill in the floorboards, Mrs Pemberley’s careful accounts. The advance of one week’s wages had settled the rent. Her debt was paid, her bag was packed, and yet the clean severance frightened her more than debt had done.

Lady Maria allowed the silence to stretch until Petalia looked back.

“You are wondering,” the older woman said, “whether you have stepped into employment or a family tragedy wearing a respectable coat.”

“I was wondering how the children will receive me.”

“With suspicion, I expect. Possibly outrage, if Mary is in good form.”

Petalia looked towards the window. “That is encouraging.”

“It is honest. Gratitude would be more alarming.”

“Children rarely greet adult arrangements with gratitude.”

“Quite right. They prefer to test the arrangement for loose boards and then jump upon them.”

Petalia folded her hands in her lap. “They are always at Wrenfield, then?”

“Almost always. Edmund keeps them there as if the whole of London were contagious. To be fair, much of it is.”

“And His Grace was in town only temporarily?”

“He came because I summoned him and then refused to be put off by letters. His children require a governess. His house requires order. He requires contradiction at regular intervals. I provided all three as efficiently as possible.”

“I had not considered myself a form of contradiction.”

Lady Maria’s smile was small and approving. “You will learn.”

The road shook them into a brief silence. Petalia accepted a piece of bread from the basket when Lady Maria offered it, and for some miles they spoke only of practical matters, the length of the journey, the likelihood of rain, the first night’s lodging, the servants waiting at Wrenfield. Lady Maria did not rush towards confidences. She circled them, approaching the family as one might approach a nervous horse, from the side and with a hand kept visible.

“Their mother was Eleanor O’Rourke before she became Duchess of Ashbourne,” Lady Maria said at last, as the carriage passed beyond the denser press of London. “Half Irish, entirely determined, and capable of entering a room by laugh alone. Edmund never knew what to do with such brightness, which I suspect was half the attraction.”

Petalia kept her voice gentle. “And the children?”

“Declan remembers her. Mary does not, except through other people’s grief, which is a poor nurserymaid.” Lady Maria adjusted the blanket over her knees. “The boy has grown careful. The girl has grown sharp. Neither condition has been improved by adults whispering in corridors.”

“Does Lord Declan speak little because he is shy, or because he has learnt silence serves him?”

Lady Maria’s gaze sharpened. “That is the first question most people forget to ask.”

“And the answer?”

“Both, perhaps. He has a reserve natural to him, but grief made a fortress of it. He reads a great deal. He observes more than is comfortable. He remembers promises perfectly and forgives broken ones less readily.”

“What does he read?”

“Maps, when he can get them. Voyages. Accounts of ships and islands, real or otherwise. At present, he is devoted to Robinson Crusoe, though I am told he is more interested in the lists of tools and provisions than in Crusoe’s spiritual improvement.”

Petalia looked up quickly. “That is often the most honest part of the book.”

Lady Maria’s brows rose. “You know it?”

“I read it with the Halverston boys. They cared for the shipwreck, the goats, the fortifications, and very little else. Their sister maintained that Friday deserved a better author.”

Lady Maria settled back with distinct satisfaction. “Miss Winthrop, you may yet survive Lord Declan.”

“I would prefer that Lord Declan survive me.”

“You see? That is why I brought you. Most people begin by worrying whether the children will be agreeable. You begin by wondering whether you will be able to reach them.”

Petalia accepted the compliment only by lowering her gaze to the bread in her hand. “I have not yet met them.”

“No. Keep that humility. You will need it by supper.”

The journey settled into its rhythm after that, wheels over ruts, harness creak, changing light through the carriage window, Lady Maria’s stories arriving in pieces. She spoke of Wrenfield as a house once full of noise and now full of rooms that listened too hard. She spoke of Eleanor’s rose beds, which had been planted in no sensible order but with enormous conviction. She spoke of Edmund after his wife’s death, not in one continuous account, but in fragments that Petalia had to assemble.

Within a year of mourning, he had taken a horse over a hedge no reasonable rider would have attempted after rain. The horse survived with a strained tendon. Edmund struck the stone fence on the other side and came home with his face broken open, his jaw scarred, and his temper altered in ways even those who loved him did not always recognise. Since then, he had worn a beard, tied scarves higher than necessary, dismissed governesses on pretexts so thin Lady Maria refused to dignify them, and retreated farther into Wrenfield with every season.

“He loves them,” Lady Maria said near dusk, when the carriage had grown quieter, and Petalia thought the older woman might be speaking as much to herself as to anyone. “The children, I mean. Edmund loves them.”

Petalia waited, because the rest of the sentence had not been spoken.

Lady Maria looked out at the road. “But love is not always sufficient when the beloved are children and require evidence.”

The first night, they stopped at a coaching inn in Somerset. Petalia expected a small room, plain and draughty, the sort of chamber given to governesses and unmarried poor relations. Instead, the innkeeper bobbed nervously and led her to a clean room with a good fire, a proper ewer of hot water, and sheets that smelled of lavender.

“There must be some mistake,” Petalia said, pausing in the doorway.

The innkeeper clasped her hands. “No mistake, miss. His Grace was particular.”

“His Grace?”

“Very particular,” the woman repeated, as if that explained both the room and the wisdom of leaving the subject alone.

Petalia thanked her and turned back towards the corridor. As she did, a door down the passage stood half open. In the private parlour beyond it, Edmund sat at a table with a glass beside his hand and a plate untouched before him. The scarf was loosened at his throat. Lamplight caught the edge of the scar along his jaw before he turned his face away.

He saw her. She knew he saw her.

For a moment, neither of them moved.

Petalia curtsied because the corridor gave her nothing else to do. “Your Grace.”

He inclined his head. “Miss Winthrop. I trust the room is adequate.”

“More than adequate. I understand I have you to thank for it.”

His hand closed around the stem of the glass. “You have the innkeeper to thank. She keeps a clean house.”

“Then I shall thank her.”

“Do.”

It was a dismissal, though not quite a rude one.

Petalia went to her room, shut the door, and told herself that a man might arrange hot bricks, blankets, food, and a proper chamber without wishing to be thanked for any of it.

Indeed, in Ashbourne’s case, he seemed to have arranged them chiefly so he could resent her for noticing.

 

***

 

The next day carried them deeper into the west. Lady Maria slept for much of the morning, her chin tucked into her mantle, leaving Petalia to watch the country change through the carriage window. The hedgerows grew thicker. The sky lowered. Villages came farther apart, and the road took on the lonely, folded look of country that did not hurry itself for travellers.

By late afternoon on the third day, Wrenfield appeared beyond a crooked gatepost and a sweep of drive bordered by neglected laurels. The house was imposing, grey-stoned, and handsome in the bones, but visibly under-loved. Ivy climbed where it should have been trimmed. One shutter hung slightly uneven. The gravel near the steps had not been raked clean after the last rain.

Petalia looked at it and understood, before anyone told her, that grief had settled here not as a visitor but as a tenant.

Mrs Holroyd met them at the door. She was a tall woman with a pale, severe face and her right hand bandaged from wrist to thumb. She curtsied correctly to Lady Maria and then to Petalia, though her eyes held the guarded expression of a woman who had watched too many hopeful arrivals become departures.

“Mrs Holroyd,” Lady Maria said, “this is Miss Winthrop, the children’s new governess.”

“Miss Winthrop,” Mrs Holroyd said. “I hope your journey was tolerable.”

“It was, thank you. I hope your hand is healing well.”

The housekeeper’s gaze dropped involuntarily to the bandage. “It is of no consequence.”

“A hand is almost always of consequence, particularly when one has only two.”

Mrs Holroyd’s mouth moved by the smallest degree. It was not a smile, but it was the first thaw Petalia had seen. “It is healing, miss. Thank you for asking.”

“His Grace?” Lady Maria asked.

“Gone upstairs, my lady. He left word that Miss Winthrop is to be shown to the east room and then to the schoolroom when she is ready.”

“Of course he did,” Lady Maria murmured. “Cowardice in a clean coat.”

Mrs Holroyd wisely made no reply.

Petalia was shown to a room in the east wing, warmer and more comfortable than she had expected. A fire had been lit. Her small bag had already been placed near the bed. She removed her bonnet, smoothed her hair, and allowed herself precisely one minute to stand before the fire and feel the warmth reach her hands. Then Mrs Holroyd returned.

“The children are in the schoolroom, miss.”

“Do they know I have arrived?”

A sound reached them faintly through the corridor beyond, a girl’s furious voice followed by a lower answer so quiet Petalia could not make out the words.

Mrs Holroyd’s face returned to its guarded state. “They do now.”

They walked together through a passage that smelled faintly of dust, beeswax, and old smoke. As they neared the schoolroom corridor, the girl’s voice rose again.

“I will not do another sum if the King himself commands it!”

The quieter voice answered, “It is not a sum. It is a map.”

Petalia stopped with her hand on the knob.

A map, at least, was a beginning.