“Good morning, cousin Lucien.”
Lucien turned his attention to the petite figure waiting outside the breakfast room. “Oh, good God,” he muttered, his good humor flagging. “Today she’s a damned peacock.”
Rose Delacroix straightened from her curtsy, the curled ends of three blue-dyed ostrich feathers forming a canopy over her blond head. With her dress of a lighter blue covered by a green pelisse, she lacked only a beak to complete the image. He opened his mouth to tell her so.
“Good morning,” Alexandra said warmly from behind him. “You must be Miss Delacroix. I am Miss Gallant.”
“Your new governess,” Lucien explained, moving to one side so Alexandra could pass him. “Behave this time.”
His cousin’s pert, hopeful expression collapsed. “But—”
Miss Gallant spun to face him. “My lord, chastising someone for an imagined future ill deed that may never even come to pass is hardly correct. Or fair.”
He met the martial light in her turquoise eyes. “That,” he said flatly, pointing at his cousin, “is your charge. I am not.”
“I have found that the more positive examples there are present, the easier a behavior is to learn,” she said firmly.
Obviously the woman didn’t have a fearful bone in her body. “Do not presume to include me in this nonsense.”
She lifted her chin. “If you don’t agree with my methods of instruction, perhaps I should leave.”
“Oh, not again,” Rose whimpered, a tear running down one cheek.
Ignoring his cousin, Lucien descended the remainder of the steps. “You are not escaping that easily, Miss Gallant. Come in to breakfast. You can start by teaching her to use utensils.” He stopped and faced her again. “Unless you’re afraid of failure.”
“I am not afraid of anything, my lord,” she said, squaring her shoulders and stalking past him, Rose in tow.
“Good.”
Chapter 3
So he intended to marry soon. Alexandra glanced at his broad back as he spoke to one of his footmen. Unless his temperament and manners improved in his wife-to-be’s presence, she pitied the poor girl. It would take Attila the Hun’s daughter to stand up to Lucien Balfour. And if he was marrying, why was he promising—threatening—to kiss females with whom he was barely acquainted?
Alexandra made a point of sitting next to Rose Delacroix at the breakfast table. She couldn’t abandon the poor girl to Kilcairn’s tyranny—though preying on her sympathy might very well have been the earl’s plan. Ignoring the freshly ironed edition of theLondon Timesat his elbow, Kilcairn buttered his bread and then sat back, eyeing her with the same expectant expression Rose wore.
Wishing that the aggravating master of the house had made himself scarce for this critical first meeting between student and governess, Alexandra turned her attention to her new charge. Though her face was lovely, her garish gown drew one’s gaze the way a carriage accident would. And from Kilcairn’s reaction, this was not Rose’s first dress disaster. Her wardrobe would have to be seen to immediately.
Alexandra smiled encouragingly. “Tell me, Miss Delacroix, what you like best about yourself.”
“Oh, my,” the young lady said, blushing. “Well, Mama says my looks are my finest asset.”
“She might have been more specific,” Kilcairn countered, lifting a fine eyebrow. “Your looks are your onl—”
“And you are just seventeen?” Alexandra cut in, wishing the earl would devote his mouth to eating.
He glanced sideways at her, then lifted the newspaper and snapped it open. She took it as a sign that he would attempt to behave himself, and a thrill of success ran through her as he conceded the point.
“I will be eighteen in five weeks.” With a nervous glance at the flimsy newspaper shield protecting her from Kilcairn, Rose returned to her breakfast. Lifting a pinkie delicately in the air, she crunched into her toasted bread and yanked the remaining piece free from her teeth.
It reminded Alexandra of Shakespeare attacking a shoe during his puppy days, and she flinched. “Where is Mrs. Delacroix this morning?” Making a show of taking up her own toast, she pulled a small piece free with her fingers and placed it into her mouth.
Rose attacked her meal with renewed vigor, giving no sign at all that she’d noticed her tutor’s subtle coaching. “Oh, she doesn’t usually have breakfast,” she said through a mouthful of food. “Rising early is too hard on her nerves. She hasn’t adjusted to London yet, I’m afraid.”
Alexandra waited a moment, but Lord Kilcairn declined to return to the conversation from behind his newspaper. “How long have you been in London?” she urged.
“We arrived from Dorsetshire ten days ago. Cousin Lucien is looking after us.”
“That’s very good of h—”
