He wouldn’t pick an opera dancer with a mop of red curls because that would be . . .
No.
Gumwater was nattering on about the tennis court, and Ward was starting to get the general idea of his complaint. Unlike Miss Lumley, who had been tearfully submissive to the household structure, Miss Midge meant to challenge it.
She and Gumwater had already skirmished, and Gumwater had lost.
An odd name, Alithia Midge.
It made him wonder what Mrs. Snowe’s given name was. Likely it was something flamboyant; in his experience people who grew up on the outskirts of society had grandiose names.
Georgette, perhaps. Marguerite. Wilhelmina.
Rosamund. That would be appropriate, in keeping with the color of her hair. An extravagant name would suit her. Something more exotic than the names given to high-born ladies.
“Mia,” for example, was short and ladylike, just like his former fiancée. Another reason he was lucky to have escaped that marriage. He would have developed neck cramps kissing his wife.
Georgette Marguerite Wilhelmina Snowe—or whatever she was called—was tall for a woman. She made him think of a wildflower with slightly ragged, velvety petals and a deep perfume.
“Gumwater,” he said, interrupting a diatribe that could be summed up as “women don’t know their place these days.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What do you know about Mrs. Snowe and her registry office?”
“Nothing, sir,” the butler said promptly. “An office run by a woman. I shall say no more on the subject.”
“You look as if you’ve taken a bite of a green persimmon,” Ward observed.
The door opened and a tall, thin woman entered, wearing a navy blue gown with a discreet silver cross at the neck. She looked dispassionate and utterly competent.
One look and he knew Mrs. Snowe was right: there would be no tears from Miss Midge.
In fact, if he were asked to place a wager on this particular governess’s response to events in the Book of Revelation, he’d come down on the side of Miss Midge’s responding with unruffled civility to any number of horsemen raining from the sky to herald the end of days.
Ward rose and found his hand being shaken with brisk efficiency.
“I have been thoroughly briefed,” Miss Midge announced, as if she were reporting for duty aboard a naval vessel.
“Indeed,” Ward said, taken aback.
“The betting ring will have to be shut down. Gentlemen do not profit by taking ha’pennies from their inferiors. It is common.” Clearly, vulgar inclinations would be rooted out, just like dandelions from a rolled lawn.
Ward managed not to wince. Although he had not known Lizzie and Otis long, he was certain that the children’s instincts were lacking in refinement, as were his own.
He himself had had at least eight governesses as a boy, and none of them had succeeded in weeding out the tasteless interest in making money that his brother also seemed to have inherited.
Ward had never encountered a boy more focused on profit and loss. In fact, most grown men didn’t have Otis’s fierce ambition.
“My mother wore a veil on the occasion of my father’s death,” Miss Midge was saying. “I sympathize with the wish to cover one’s face during the exigencies of grief. I shall allow the veil, though not during vigorous exercise.”
Ward tried without success to imagine his sister bouncing around a tennis court. “I am quite certain that neither Lizzie nor Otis know how to play tennis.”
“I shall do my best,” Miss Midge said, unexpectedly taking his hand again and giving it another shake. “I believe myself capable of miracles, although never having been called upon to perform one, I cannot be sure. The Lord tests us in order to make us stronger.”
Ward had no opinion on that doctrinal point, but luckily Miss Midge didn’t pause for agreement.
“You must choose a healthy activity with which to engage in with the children,” she said. “Fresh air is a great facilitator of family harmony.”
Did they need facilitating? Ward felt as if Lizzie and Otis had lived with him forever, even though it had been scarcely a fortnight.
His father and stepmother had picked a bloody inconvenient time to accept a diplomatic mission to Sweden. King Gustav was a hare-brained fool, and he couldn’t imagine his father’s diplomatic skills would do much to change that.
“No tennis,” he said. “I cannot see myself chasing around after a small ball. I suppose I could teach them to fish.”
He gave the butler a look that had Gumwater moving forward instantly.
“I should be glad to meet my charges now,” Miss Midge said. She seemed to be very given to pronouncements. “Gumwater, I’ll thank you to introduce me, if you would.”
The butler bowed in Ward’s direction, his rigid frame implying silent reproach.
“You know, Gumwater, I could recommend a hair tonic,” Miss Midge said, in a clear, carrying voice as they left the room. “It would tame your resemblance to Samson, before his encounter with Delilah, of course.”
As the door closed behind them, Ward gave a little kick to the massive wooden desk that dominated the room. “Come out from under there, Otis, and tell me what you think.”
Otis crawled out of his hiding place and straightened up. “Look what I made, sir.”
It was some sort of grimy wooden box. “What is it?”
“It’s a mousetrap,” Otis said. “The mouse walks up this ramp, you see, and he falls through this hole. He doesn’t realize it’s there, because he doesn’t know that cheesecloth won’t hold his weight.”
“Why does he walk up that ramp?”
“Because there’s a piece of cheese in the box!” Otis lifted up the cheesecloth. “See?”
“That doesn’t look like cheese.”
“Monsieur Marcel is frightfully stingy, so I’m using a corner of my bath sponge. Rubbing it with a smelly cheese is better than wasting money on food for a mouse.”
“That was your new governess.”
“Yes, I heard,” Otis said, completely unconcerned. “I’m going to charge six pence for this trap, sir, what do you think? I expect I could make quite a lot of money in the market.”
“Would you pay that amount?”
“No, but I don’t mind living with mice.”
“I doubt that a mouse will be fooled by the cheesecloth, because it would feel unsteady,” Ward pointed out. “What does Jarvis think?”
One of the reasons Miss Lumley had to be dismissed was that she had been adamant that Jarvis, a plump rat with long whiskers and bright black eyes, live in the stables.
“Jarvis is asleep,” Otis said, peering into the small canvas bag he had slung over one shoulder. “But I see what you mean.” He walked a dirty finger along the ramp and paused on the cheesecloth. “It wiggles.”
“You’d better go upstairs and meet Miss Midge,” Ward said. “She’s expecting to find you in the nursery.”
“I’ll go up there in a bit. If I put a ramp inside, balanced on a rock, the mouse would step on it and the ramp would plummet down. He’d be stuck in the box.”
“Possibly,” Ward said, choosing not to commit himself. A blind mouse might be fooled, although he’d have to be terribly hungry to mistake a piece of bath sponge for cheese.
“It will take more wood for the ramp, so I’ll charge seven pence for it,” Otis said, starting for the door.
“Would you like to learn to fish?” Ward asked.
Otis stopped and cocked his head. “Not particularly. I imagine that Lizzie would be interested in dissecting a fish. She wouldn’t like to see it die, though.”
“We could keep it in a bucket of water,” Ward said.
“They gasp for air as they die. I don’t think it feels very good for the fish. Lizzie wouldn’t like it.” He slipped out the door.
Otis had never said a word about their mother’s death. Not a single word. Was that normal? Ward had no idea.
Surely his brother hadn’t be
en present when their mother died. Or had they been living in a one-room caravan at the time? He didn’t even know. And he didn’t know whether he should ask.
Was it better to look into a tragedy of this nature, or simply let the memories fade?
That was surely a question for an expert.
Chapter Eight
Fawkes House
Wheatley
Wednesday, April 22, 1801
Dear Mrs. Snowe,
You will be glad to know that Miss Midge has arrived. She clearly has great ambitions for my brother and sister. They had a preliminary skirmish when it came to light that my siblings were not in the habit of saying bedtime prayers, but Miss Midge prevailed and the household is the more holy for it.
Otis showed me a mousetrap he has designed, so if he is unable to attain the heady heights to which Miss Midge aspires, he can make a living as a rat-catcher which, I believe, is a thriving business in London.
Do you think it is normal that neither Lizzie nor Otis have mentioned their mother since the day they arrived? As you know, Lady Lisette was not conventional in her opinions nor her behavior. She was as fizzy as champagne, and not in a good way. A hedgehog might have made a better mother.
Your most obedient servant,
Edward Reeve
P.S. I have made up my mind that your given name is either Georgette or Rosamond.
Eugenia’s clients occasionally sent notes to her, when a son won the house tennis cup, for instance, or a daughter trounced her suitors at archery. This letter was altogether different.
She was trying to decide how to respond when the door opened and Susan’s head appeared. “I’m making up a list of our waiting families, and we’re short twenty-three governesses. Shall we schedule another training course for next month?”
When Eugenia had first opened the registry office, she had thrown herself into the enterprise. She had loved conducting training courses and watching her newly minted governesses go out into the world and put her ideas into practice.
It was only now that she’d reached the top of her profession that she found the business growing wearisome. She pushed away the stack of letters and stood up.
“I suppose we must. Come have a glass of sherry. It’s already late.”
Eugenia went to a cut-glass decanter that had belonged to Andrew’s mother. She poured two glasses of sherry and handed one to Susan, along with Mr. Reeve’s letter. “Have a look at this.”
“That’s a lot of cheek!” Susan exclaimed a moment later.
“How so?” Eugenia sank into a nearby chair and took a healthy sip of golden wine.
“You’re a respectable widow.”
“He’s merely asking for advice.”
Susan snorted and handed back the letter. “I must say, Eugenia, sometimes I think you’re as old as the hills, and the next moment, you’re as naïve as a cloistered nun.”
Eugenia skimmed the letter again. “There’s nothing salacious here, other than that improper postscript about my given name.” If her stepmother were in London, she could show it to her. But Harriet was in the country and although Eugenia often intended to visit, she hadn’t managed it in . . . a year? More than a year.
Luckily, her darling papa and Harriet often came to London to see her, dragging children and dogs with them.
Somehow, in the last few years, Eugenia’s world had both expanded and contracted. Expanded, because most of the female side of the ton trooped through her registry, and contracted because she rarely had time to attend balls or parties.
She spent every day in her office with Susan, meeting parents in an often fruitless attempt to determine whether they were sane before she committed one of her employees to their household.
“Do you suppose that Mr. Reeve can possibly believe that I might engage in an affaire with him?”
Susan crowed with laughter. “Don’t you think it’s more likely that he’s wooing you? After all, he doesn’t know that the woman with the most irreproachable reputation in all London has been contemplating a turn toward sin.”
“Sin?”
“Deliciously wicked propinquity with a gentleman of your choice,” Susan amended.
“He knows nothing about my reputation,” Eugenia said. “As a matter of fact, he hasn’t the faintest idea who I am. He’s never been to Almack’s. He thinks I’m a former governess, one who runs a registry office for the benefit of my fellow workers.”
Susan began giggling madly. “You? A governess? That’s absurd!”
“I could have been a governess under different circumstances,” Eugenia protested.
It was shocking to imagine that big, beautiful man writing her a letter. Not that she wanted any man to write her a letter. She had Andrew—the memory of dear Andrew—that was enough.
She looked over the sheet again. “I honestly don’t see anything indecent, other than that odd remark about my name.”
“You can take my word for it: if Mr. Reeve is not thinking of you in a marital light, then his letter is a prelude to an attempted seduction.”
Eugenia couldn’t stop herself from smiling, so she raised her glass and swallowed the last drops of sherry. It rolled over her tongue, tasting first of apples and then salty, as if splashed with seawater. “Do you think I should consider it?”
“Why not?” Susan got up and fetched the decanter. She refilled Eugenia’s glass and her own. “I would, if I liked that sort of man.”
“What sort is that?”
“Broad chest . . . too broad, really,” Susan mused. “One of those brawny types. He could probably pick even me up and carry me to bed. And there’s his hair. I prefer a more well-groomed man.”
“Really? Because I—” Eugenia stopped. Took another sip of wine.
“All that disheveled hair,” Susan said, wiggling her toes again. “And his eyes . . . like hot chocolate. Alas, Mr. Reeve is a bastard, and thus ineligible to be my husband. Can you imagine my father’s response?”
“My father always says that a man should be judged by his accomplishments, not the circumstances of his birth.”
“That’s not a vicar-ish idea,” Susan said briskly. “The more pertinent fact is that you aren’t looking for a husband, and Mr. Reeve wrote to you, not to me.” She put her glass down with a click. “He asked for professional advice as regards his two forlorn, grief-stricken charges, and we cannot ignore his plea.”
“We?” and, “I don’t think that was a plea. I’m not sure what it was.”
Susan ignored her. “I’ll reply, after which we’ll think about who should sign it.” She jumped up. Sitting at Eugenia’s desk, she started writing, the scratching sound of the quill providing an accompaniment to her voice as she read aloud.
“Snowe’s Registry, Cavendish Square, London, April 23, 1801. Dear Mr. Reeve, Thank you for your letter. Miss Midge is an excellent tennis instructor, among her other abilities. You will enjoy the game; it was one of King Henry VIII’s favorite pastimes.”
“Is that true?”
“I have no idea,” Susan said. “But that’s what I always tell parents who fuss about building a court. Now, what should we say about his wards?” She put the quill down and picked up her sherry instead.
“He ought not to push the children to talk about their mother.”
“You know, if you’d talked more about Andrew since his death, it would be easier to forgive yourself for surviving.”
Eugenia almost spit out something about how that was absurd . . . but was it?
“I’ll write that if you wish,” Susan said, tapping ink from her quill. “It’s your letter.” She started writing, reading aloud once more. “I advise that you not press the children for particulars regarding their mother. I still dislike talking about my husband, who died some years ago.”
“You didn’t write that!” Eugenia gasped.
“Yes, I did,” Susan replied, and went on, “I realize, of course, that Lady Lisette was your mother as well, and perhaps, like the children, you feel he
r loss but are reluctant to speak of it.”
“This is an appallingly inappropriate letter,” Eugenia noted.
“It’s not inappropriate; I’d prefer to call it candid. Don’t you ever tire of bland conversation?”
Eugenia looked at her over her glass. “I grew up in a house in which polite subjects were far too tedious to be discussed. So no, I don’t get bored.”
“Considering your father’s disreputable house parties, it’s amazing that he has settled down to such happy domesticity with your stepmother.”
“I spent my early years in a chaotic mix of the most intellectual, albeit debauched, company in all England, until Harriet taught me the joy of an ordered life.”
Eugenia shook her head at Susan’s frown. “My father never allowed debauched behavior in front of me. He was ferociously protective, but children aren’t stupid. They instinctively understand the tenor of a household.”
“All that debauchery led you to appreciate polite conversation,” Susan said, summing it up.
“I’m dreadfully boring, aren’t I?”
“No. On the contrary. You are a lady who observed enough unconventional behavior to give her the courage to start her own business and turn it into a wild success.”
Eugenia gave a startled little laugh. “I opened Snowe’s because Andrew died.”
“I find myself wondering if Lizzie wears her veil to bed,” Susan said aloud, turning back to the letter.
“How did you know about Lizzie’s veil? I didn’t tell you that!”
Susan raised her head. “The peephole, you ninny. After I realized that a gorgeous man, who appeared undaunted by your pedigree and accomplishments, was paying you a second visit? I was glued to the wall.”
“I didn’t . . .” Eugenia fell silent.
“How is Otis?” Susan said, scribbling away. “I expect that Miss Midge put a stop to his gambling activities, yet a boy that creative will find ways around her rulings.”
“We will not post this letter,” Eugenia stated.
“Certainly not,” Susan said soothingly. “We’re merely fooling about.” She dipped her quill back into the ink.
“You know, Lady Lisette was completely mad,” Eugenia said. “The newspaper accounts were right about that.”