Tessa Dare - The Governess Game

Her gaze nearly knocked him down the stairs. For a woman of small stature, she made a prodigious impact. A delicate snub of a nose, olive skin, and a glossy knot of midnight-black hair. And fathomless dark eyes that pulled on something deep in his chest. He needed a moment to collect himself.

“Millicent is Daisy’s doll. She kills the thing at least once a day, but—” Curse it, he’d left red smudges on her sleeve, and God only knew what substance she presumed it to be. “No, it’s not what you think. It’s only red currant jelly.” He held up his stained index finger. “Here, taste for yourself.”

She blinked at him. “Did you just invite me to lick your finger?”

He wiped his hand on a fold of his shirt. God, he was making a hash of this. If she worried for her virtue, that wouldn’t aid his case. Any sensible young woman would hesitate to accept employment in the house of a scandalous rake—even if the rake’s wards were perfect angels. Chase’s wards were incorrigible, morbid hellions.

In fact, the post offered few advantages, save one.

“I’ll pay you handsomely,” he said. “An astronomical sum.”

“There’s been a mistake. I came to offer my services as a timekeeper. I’m not a governess. I’ve no training, no experience. And governesses are gently bred women, aren’t they? I don’t meet that qualification, either.”

“I don’t care if you’re gently bred, roughly bred, or a loaf of brown bread with butter. You’re educated, you understand propriety, and you’re . . . breathing.”

“I’m certain you’ll find someone else to fill the post.”

“The post has been filled. And vacated. And filled and vacated several times over. Sometimes multiple times in one day.”

You’re not doing your offer any favors, Reynaud.

“But you’re not like the rest of those candidates,” he hastened to say. “You’re different.”

She was different.

Here was a woman who’d just schooled him within an inch of his dignity. She thought him a crude, unintelligent layabout. A paltry excuse for nobility and a waste of good tailoring. Miss Mountbatten—quite wisely—wanted nothing to do with him.

And Chase was positively desperate to keep her near.

The desire rising in him wasn’t physical. Well, it wasn’t entirely physical. She was pretty, and he appreciated a forthright woman who knew what she was about. But mingled with the attraction was something more. A wish to impress her, to be worthy of her approval.

She made him want to be better. And wasn’t that an ideal quality in a governess? He had to keep this woman in his employ.

“It’s only for the summer,” he said. “A year’s wages, for a few months of work.”

“I’m sorry.” She sidestepped him and continued down the stairs.

“Two years’ wages. Three.”

“Mr. Reynaud . . .”

Chase caught her at the door. “It comes down to this. Those girls need you.”

He waited until she looked at him, and then he reached into his arsenal of persuasion.

A hard swallow, indicating a manful struggle with emotion.

An intense, searching gaze.

The husky whisper of a confession.

“Miss Mountbatten.” Hell, why not go for it all? “Alexandra. I need you.”

There. That line worked on every woman.

It didn’t work on her.

“No, you don’t.” A flash of irony crossed her face. “Don’t worry. You’ll forget me soon enough.”

And then she did what Chase yearned to do, often. She flung open the door, fled the house, and didn’t once look back.

Two hours later, Alexandra found herself standing on a Billingsgate dock.

Terrified.

The June morning was soaked with sunshine, but she’d left Mr. Reynaud’s house in a mental fog. Her distraction was such that she’d made two wrong turnings on her well-trod path to London Bridge, and now she had missed the noon coach to Greenwich.

The rational solution was to take a wherry down the Thames. However, the mere sight of the boat sent an irrational shiver rippling down her spine.

I can’t. I just can’t.

But what were her alternatives?

If she risked waiting for a later coach, the bridge would be madness, crushed with carts going nowhere. She’d never make it home before dark.

She could call off the journey entirely. However, calibrating the chronometer once a fortnight was her signature promise to customers. They paid for precise Greenwich time, and she delivered it, without fail.

Just do it , she told herself. It’s time to move past this, you ninny. You were raised on a ship, after all. A merchant frigate was your cradle.

Yes. But it had nearly been her coffin, too.

Nevertheless, here she stood ten years later. Alive. She could survive a brief jaunt down the Thames to Greenwich.

She could do this.

As the boatman loaded bundles and helped passengers into the wherry, she hung back, waiting until the last possible moment.

“Are you coming, miss, or ain’t ye?”

“I’m coming.” Alex accepted his hand and boarded the boat, wedging herself on a plank between two older women and settling her satchel on her lap.

When the boatman cast off the ropes mooring the wherry to the dock, she decided to set her mind on something else. Now that she knew better than to fantasize about Chase Reynaud, a good portion of her brain was suddenly available for other pursuits. Naming all the constellations bordering Ursa Major, perhaps.

Drat. Too easy. She rattled through the list in moments— Draco, Camelopardalis, Lynx, Leo Minor, Leo, Coma Berenices, Canes Venatici, Boötes —and there her concentration fractured. Once the first oar hit water, she couldn’t piece a single thought together.

She balled her hands in fists and dug her nails into her palms, attempting to distract herself by means of pain. That didn’t work, either. She felt nothing but the lift and roll of water beneath the craft. That terrifying sensation of coming unmoored. Drifting untethered.

No. She couldn’t do this after all.

Alex pushed to her feet, making her way to the edge of the boat. They hadn’t yet pushed off. Still just a foot from the dock. “Wait,” she told the boatman. “I’ve just recalled something. I need to disembark.”

“Too late, miss. You can cross again when the boat comes back.” He moved to push off with the oar.

“Please.” She was begging now, her voice cracking. “It’s urgent. I must get off the boat. I . . .”

“Sit down, woman,” he barked, bracing his oar to push off.

Alex was frantic, wild. She scrambled atop the rail of the boat, wavering on her toes. The other passengers cried out in alarm as the boat tipped to one side. The boatman gripped the hem of her frock, attempting to yank her down into the boat. His grasping only increased her desperation.

She quickly judged the distance between the wherry and the dock. She could make it, she thought, but only if she jumped.

And jumped now.

She made the leap.

Her judgment wasn’t faulty. If not for her boot slipping on the wherry’s edge, she would have made the jump cleanly. Instead, she plunged into the water with a splash, gasping as she went and catching a foul, wretched mouthful of the Thames.

When she surfaced, a man on the dock caught her under the arm, pulling her up and helping her scramble out of the river.

On the dock at last, she sputtered and choked with relief.

That’s when she noticed it had gone missing. Her satchel. The chronometer. When she’d tumbled into the river, it had fallen from her grip and sunk into the depths.

Her livelihood, gone.

A sob wrenched from her body, like a droplet wrung from damp cloth.