Something peculiar happened to her skin whenever he was closeby. It heated and prickled and tingled and did not seem to fit her bones properly. It was so overwhelming, she could not get him out of her classroom fast enough—which at least meant that the children were never late for supper.
“An obsession with the clock is an objectionable quality, to be sure, but I’ll wager that isn’t the main thing about your captain that grates.” Portia’s good opinion was never easily won. She was a cynic at heart—usually too cynical, in Georgie’s humble opinion—but in this instance, it was welcome.
“It isn’t. He has an annoying tendency to quote military leaders, even the unworthy ones.” Friday it had been Napoleon, after she had reassured him that all was well, so he really did not need to keep disrupting his busy day to inspect hers when he could ask Simpkins or Mrs. Rigsby to do it in his stead. He had shrugged. Then suppressed a smile as he said, “If you want a thing done well, do it yourself.” And for once, the wretch even quoted Old Boney verbatim too. “He is also interfering and obviously arrogant enough to assume that his interference is necessary.”
“All men think they know best, that hardly makes your captain unique. It does guarantee that he is vexatious, however.” As a sister to a house full of brothers, Lottie had the most experience with the breed. “Is he also patronizing and condescending?”
“He is absolutely both of those things too. And so disapproving he puts me on edge.” She had also never been so aware of her own body in her life as she was when his was nearby. “He was engaged once—apparently—though it came to naught, and one cannot but wonder if that was because he is so intractable that he made the poor woman run a mile.” For how exactly could any woman measure up to the high standards he both set and expected?
How did any mere mortal?
“He’s a nitpicker. A man who seems to expect the entire universe to bend to his will. He’s too serious and far too full of his own importance.”
“Again, all traits that simply make him male.” Lottie brushed it all aside. “Throw in some gravitas in society and a healthy bank balance and you could be describing every gentleman of theton.”
Except he wasn’t like every other gentleman of theton. Most of those mere mortal aristocrats spent their days balancing their ledgers and their evenings at their clubs and hadn’t accomplished any of what Captain Kincaid had. They hadn’t risen through the ranks at lightning speed on nothing but their own merit. Nor did they singlehandedly keep the entire Royal Navy afloat, which, if Mrs. Rigsby or Simpkins were to be believed, he did.
“You will get used to it.” Portia squeezed her arm. “And you will rise above it and put your duty first as Miss Prentice taught you to because, frankly, you desperately need the money and the reference he will write after you have earned every penny.”
“But I am not convinced my duty is to him when surely it should be to the children I have been tasked with educating?”
She was coming to despise the regimented nature of her lessons inside and resented that she had to keep a close eye on the clock to avoid spending more time outside than he would allow her to get away with. Her inner Joan of Arc had always flexed against unreasonable rules and boundaries, and she had bitten her tongue so much since Wednesday, it was a wonder she had any tongue left. Her classroom already felt less like her domain and more like a prison thanks to him and, like the children and Norbert, she wanted to be outside. What better place to teach them about the world than being surrounded by it? Especially when outside, they always got so much done! The Pendleton brood weren’t used to a classroom. Felix and Grace, especially,found the confines of one stifling. Every time she was released from her seat, that little girl had accumulated so much unspent energy, she practically exploded and ran into something or fell over something. The poor thing was covered in bruises. “Shouldn’t their needs come first?”
Now it was Lottie’s turn to squeeze her arm. “That is the tightrope we have to walk, Georgie darling. The trick is to make it appear as if your duty is to the captain on the surface, while doing what you think best for the children behind his back. Once he stops watching you like a hawk, I have no doubt that you will work out how to do that, for what you lack in diplomacy, you make up for with tenacity. In the meantime, rather than resent his interference, try to see it in a positive light.” If Portia was the cynical friend, Lottie was the eternal optimist. “He clearly cares enough about his nieces and nephew that he feels the need to reassure himself that they are being properly looked after.”
“You can choose to see it that way. I choose to call a stiff and pompous nitpicker a stiff and pompous nitpicker.” Yet even that apt description did not seem to properly fit the man. “Although, once in a while the captain does seem…” How to describe a feeling—an instinct even—that wasn’t fully formed. “Almost human.”
Portia laughed at that pathetic attempt to distill her conflicted emotions into words. “As opposed to what?”
Georgie shrugged, amused herself by her own inarticulateness despite the inordinate amount of time she had dedicated to pondering Captain Harry Kincaid so far. “A soldier. A sailor. An officer. A stiff and unyielding military being who expects everything to be just so and believes all his orders are so profound that they should be followed to the letter.” Because he was so much like the colonel in so many ways, it made no sense to her that he really wasn’t like herhorrid stepfather at all. Apart from being as unhealthily obsessed with his career as the colonel had been, of course.
“That simply makes himan employer.” Portia offered her a pitying smile. “This is still your first position, Georgie, and—”
“There is no need to rub it in!” Even amongst her best friends, her own shocking failure at securing a post after so many attempts was humiliating. “I can assure you, that was not for want of trying.”
“I did not mean it as a dig,” said Portia, unoffended, “merely an observation. You have come to this all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, enthused with lofty plans and even loftier expectations of what your role as a governess entails. Whereas those of us who have suffered employment for a while now have had all that wistful enthusiasm ground down. Mostly by the crushing realization that in the real world, we are not considered rational, independent, useful, and talented women at all, but mereemployees. Paid to do a job, but instantly forgettable after we have worn ourselves out to do it well. And easily replaceable if we fail to measure up to our taskmaster’s expectations.”
Her politically radical friend curled her lip in disgust at the wordtaskmaster. “I am afraid nothing about that will change until the right to vote is extended to the minions as well as the masters. Until that necessary revolution happens, do what I do. Think of the FourD’s and force yourself act in the manner that we have been trained to, even if doing so gets on your last nerve and makes you hate yourself.”
“Duty, decorum, diligence, and discretion at all times,” parroted Georgie and Lottie in their usual parody of Miss Prentice’s lecturing tone before they wiggled their eyebrows simultaneously. Because, since they had been girls, they had promised themselves that after a life of service and good behavior, when they were all wizened spinsters expected to shrivel and die quietly, they had plans to do the opposite. To pool their resources and buy a cottage somewhere, thenspend their dotages doing absolutely everything in their power to purposefully and outrageously ignore all four of Miss P’s hallowed tenets until the last one of them turned up their toes. It might be cold comfort for the husband she would never get to marry or the family she would never get the chance to make—but at least it was something to look forward to even if it wasn’t what her heart wanted.
“Exactly! And if that fails to stop you railing at the heavens at the cruel injustices of life, console yourself that as a governess, you come significantly higher in the servants’ pecking order and get paid more than a poor, abused scullery maid while trying to ignore that because of theinferioritiesof your sex”—Portia paused to scowl again at what she considered the most flagrant of those injustices—“and your inability to wear breeches in public, you will never achieve the superior status or salary of a butler or a gamekeeper.”
“I’ve worn breeches in public,” said Lottie with a grin, “and can confirm it is very liberating. In fact…” She dropped her voice to a giggled whisper. “I am wearing them now.” When they both gaped, appalled, at her, her grin turned smug. “I often put them on instead of a petticoat. It makes running aftermypompous employer’s awful children so much easier and one never knows when a clandestine opportunity to ride something from his lordship’s fine stable arises. If the family all disappear in the carriage, for instance, on an impromptu trip to Gunther’s, I need to be prepared.”
“You do know that he will dismiss you on the spot if he ever catches you.” Portia rolled her eyes in despair. “Exactly like Lord Rochford did when his neighbor tipped him off that you kept riding his stallion.”
“That horse was put on this earth to run like the wind.” Lottie waved that caution away as if it was no matter. “Not trot along sedately under the weight of his fat backside. And please do not give methatlook, Portia Kendall, as obviously I have learned from my mistakes and now avidly avoid riding in Hyde Park like the plague, no matter how early the hour. Nowadays all I do here is stroll around sedately like a proper governess should and, if the whim strikes, I sometimes feed the ducks.” Their incorrigible friend wiggled her brows. “On the subject of feeding and impromptu trips to Gunther’s, I am starving, so who fancies an ice cream?”
With nothing better to do, the three of them hurried out of the park and along Charles Street until they joined the queue of people waiting patiently outside the shop at the corner of Berkeley Square.
A queue that, thanks to the clement, sunny weather, stretched so long it almost curved into Bruton Lane.
“If they have run out of violet ice before we get to the front of this ridiculous line, I shan’t be responsible for my actions.” Lottie stood on tiptoes to see if she could spy the counter through the window. “The lemon is a poor substitute.”
Being taller than both of them, Portia also raised herself to get a better look. “Rest easy. There is an entire barrel full of violet. Enough for everyone here—not that I shall be having any, because today’s cakes look too divine. There is a raspberry confection that has my name on it.”
Also preferring cake to ice cream, and too short to see anything but the man in front’s armpit, Georgie had to wait until the queue shuffled several paces forward before she was finally able to crane her neck high enough to get a look at the display for herself. Then instantly froze at the sight of her employer sitting at a table directly in front of it.
