Chapter 4
Alive-ingoverness? Of all the absurd… How long could it possibly take to find and employ arealgoverness? Even if the answer was “weeks,” how could Désirée walking over from half a mile away truly make the difference between her success or failure?
The answers did not matter, she reminded herself. It didn’t even matter if thereweren’tany answers. What mattered was the breathtaking daily salary Jack was willing to offer if she went along with the full-time-governess charade. Each day would earn her family the equivalent of a week’s wages. It was worth it.
It also meant Désirée had spent the entirety of the previous day preparing the house for her absence. Harvesting the last vegetables from the garden. Baking pies for Uncle Jasper, fresh bread and pastries for her brothers, returning overdue books to the castle lending library and borrowing a heavy stack of new ones for Lucien to read in her absence from the hundreds of books the Duke of Azureford had just donated to the castle.
There was even a new ‘remède’ for Chef—a special series of tubes leading from the scullery to his pen, so that scraps could reach him even if Uncle Jasper’s gout was too painful to permit afternoon visits with the pig.
That was yesterday. All the easy things.
Today was for goodbyes.
It seemed ridiculous to become emotional and mawkish at the idea of moving a fifteen-minute walk away from one’s family. But the truth was, Désirée had never spent a single night away from her brothers. They had been all each other had for so long that she doubted she could sleep under a different roof.
Leaving home made a tiny part of her feel like she was a terrified little girl again, fleeing France and everything she’d known and loved for a future she could neither predict nor control. Back then, at least she’d had her brothers. Starting today, she would just have… herself.
Bastien and Lucien were waiting for her by the front door.
“I’mdriving you to Skeffington’s.” Bastien’s posture was belligerent and his tone self-satisfied, as though he and Lucien had used their fists to determine which brother would play coachman and have the final goodbye.
“Go and put her trunk in the carriage,” Lucien commanded.
Bastien paused, as though he might argue, then just as quickly changed his mind, hastening the battered leather case out the door.
It wasn’t so muchDésirée’strunk as the only receptacle they’d had opportunity to grab before fleeing their home. For several long, uncertain weeks, its contents constituted every item the le Duc children owned. Once they’d been installed in Cressmouth with Uncle Jasper, the no-longer-necessary trunk had been relegated to a forgotten corner of the attic.
Until now.
“You don’t have to do this,” Lucien said quietly.
Of course she did. They needed the money, and Désirée would do anything to keep her family safe and together.
“It’s fine,” she assured him. “It will only be a handful of days at most. Besides, I thought youlikedtaking money from Englishmen.”
“Very much. I just didn’t want you to have to resort to…” He winced as if tortured. “You had a dowry.”
“I don’t need a dowry.”
“You would be married by now.”
“I reject any husband who wishes to marry me for my dowry.”
“It should still be yours.” His gaze was fierce. “I swear to you, once we regain our lands and our birthright, I will give you your portion outright, and you may determine the use of everysouas you please. Spend it all on Bordeaux and Camembert, if you don’t want a dowry.”
Désirée’s stomach growled. “I just might.”
It sounded as much an impossible dream as the rest of it. Returning to France. Returninghome. Recovering lost birthrights. She had been due a dowry, but Bastien and Lucien had been in line for a title. At the time,distantlyin line. But when the revolution had turned violent…
“It won’t be much longer,” Lucien promised. “We are at most a year away from repaying the lease and securing Uncle Jasper’s future. Then we will sail across the Channel and never look back.”
A year, at most. Could it finally be true?
“That’s no excuse to ignore the books I borrowed for you.” She wagged a finger at him. “Read and study every day. They are not due to be returned for a fortnight.”
“Be home by then,” he said gruffly.
“Be fluent by then,” she teased back. “Grand frère,I must go. I shall be just down the road. If you need me…”
