“Many people go their whole lives without love,” he said quietly. “I was lucky enough to find mine and unlucky enough to lose her. There’s nothing to search for. I had my time, and it’s over.”
“I didn’t say ‘love,’” Redmire said gruffly. “I said ‘wife.’ But any woman would do. You could do with one in your life, and I’d wager your children could, too.”
“My children,” Jack replied, “refuse to consider the idea. On the occasions in which they have witnessed attempted flirtations by young ladies in town, they informed me quite emphatically that they shall not countenance a substitute. Besides, I’ve no wish to remarry.”
No wish to tear open the raw wounds of his heart to allow someone new inside. Someone who might grow to fill the empty spaces, to bring light where there was darkness, only to be ripped away anew, leaving his and his children’s tattered hearts more decimated than before.
If he’d learned anything about love, it was that it didn’t last. Once was enough.
“Forget marriage,” Redmire said. “But you needsomeone. Do the twins at least have a governess?”
“They do not.”
Before the typhus came, Sally had been teaching the children herself. After she died, the children had cleaved to Jack, begging him never to seek a “replacement mother” out of fear they wouldn’t have as much time with their father anymore.
When Jack was young, he had no governess. He wanted his children to eventually have a better education than he’d had, but he also didn’t wish to rob them of their childhoods. Sally and he had decided that once the twins turned ten, it would be time for formal education. Until then, the children could be children and she’d teach them herself.
Except it hadn’t happened like that. Sally was gone. The twins were ten. There was no plan for formal education in place.
Jack spent every moment he could either playing with them or teaching them, but as Redmire had pointed out, Jack was just one person. Balancing his time between providing for his twins and being there for them was hard enough without—
“Blast your hide,” he said with a sigh. “I need a governess.”
“Next question.” Redmire refilled their glasses. “Who?”
“I have no idea.”
But an idea was beginning to form.
He could attack this problem the same way he solved shipping logistics. Whenever there were holes in one’s knowledge, the most expedient way to fill them was to pose a question to someone who knew the answer.
Jack didn’t know any governesses. He no longer even knew any single young ladies.
Except for one.
Mademoiselle Désirée le Duc was the younger sister of messieurs Sébastien and Lucien le Duc—Cressmouth’s only blacksmiths, and Jack’s favorite billiards opponents. Everyone with a carriage, sleigh, or child wishing to trundle an iron hoop passed through their smithy.
Désiréewould be friends with other young ladies. If there was an out-of-work governess in the village, she might know about it. Although she herself was not in the market for genteel employment—frequently labeled “the most beautiful woman in Cressmouth,” Jack was rather surprised she hadn’t been swept to the altar by now—Désirée would at least have an idea of where to start.
Some friend of a friend was bound to be a governess, or have employed a governess, or be related to a governess… This could be a lot easier than Jack had feared.
“You’re making the face,” Redmire said. “You have a plan.”
Jack abandoned his champagne and pushed to his feet. “I have a plan.”
