Rules for a Proper Governess

  She didn’t speak, only closed the door quietly, made her way to the bedside, and laid the back of her hand against Andrew’s cheek. His fever had come down a little, or so Sinclair thought, but he was still far from well.

  “Cat is finally asleep,” Bertie said. “I gave her some tea with sugar and lots of milk—seemed to do the trick. The poor mite is all in.” She touched the bandages on Andrew’s shoulder then looked at Sinclair. “So are you, I’m thinking.”

  “I’ll sleep when it’s over,” Sinclair said sharply.

  “I can stay with him. I’ll watch him every second, believe me.”

  “No.” Sinclair didn’t move from where he sat on the bed. “I don’t want to leave, in case . . .”

  “I’d wake you. I promise. The minute there’s any change.”

  “No!” The word rang, Sinclair’s voice raspy. He shook his head as Bertie’s eyes widened. “When Maggie . . . Daisy . . . when she was ill, a nurse stayed with her. The nurse promised to wake me, and she didn’t. She thought it would be easier for me. But I didn’t . . . I didn’t even get to say good-bye.”

  Sinclair’s voice broke and his eyes stung. He dragged in a shuddering breath, dismayed that it shook with sobs.

  Bertie moved to him with a quiet rustle of fabric. Her arms came around him, and Sinclair found himself cradled against her, her cheek on his hair, her hands warm on his back.

  She was so strong, this woman who’d come to him out of nowhere. Sinclair had been standing in the cold, all alone. When you’re ready for me to move on, I know you’ll tell me, he’d said in his thoughts to Daisy, and then Bertie had bumped into him.

  He hadn’t been able to cease thinking of Bertie since. Only his son struggling to live had pulled him away from her.

  “I’m sorry,” Bertie was saying. “I’ll never be able to say, in the whole of my life, how sorry I truly am.”

  Sinclair gently parted her arms and wiped his eyes. “What are you talking about?”

  “This is my fault.” Her blue eyes were sad, full of remorse. “If I’d not followed you, I never would have led Jeffrey here, and Andrew wouldn’t be hurt. But no, I had to find out where you lived, decided to stay here in your house . . .”

  “Why did you?”

  Bertie stopped in confusion. “What do you mean?”

  “Why did you come here? You’d given me back the watch, I’d paid you to lead me back to familiar streets. I’d thought our contract at an end.”

  A flush stole over her cheeks, one that rivaled the feverish stain on Andrew’s. “I wanted to see you, didn’t I? To make sure you were all right.”

  Sinclair let some amusement trickle through his gut-wrenching worry. “Not to look over what pickings you might get from me? You don’t have to pretend.”

  Her brows drew down. “You still think I came to steal from you?”

  “No. Not anymore.” Sinclair squeezed her hand. “But when you first found out where I lived, you must have thought me a good mark. Not paying much attention to the world, my nose stuck in my papers. Ripe for the plucking.”

  Bertie tried to pull from his grasp. “I told you. I wanted to see you again. If you don’t believe that, then you don’t.”

  Sinclair lost his smile. “I don’t know what I believe anymore.”

  They watched each other in silence a moment, Sinclair holding her hand as though he couldn’t let go. Her stiff fingers relaxed, and she didn’t try to pull away again.

  “Believe me now,” Bertie said. “You need to rest, or you’ll get sick yourself. Cat and Andrew don’t need to lose you too.” She smoothed her free hand along the sheets. “You lie right here beside him, and I’ll sit by the bed and watch him like a hawk. The minute he moves, I’ll wake you. Can’t say fairer than that.”

  Sinclair met her gaze, her eyes full of sincerity. Ironic that a backstreet London pickpocket could speak more truth than the men of law he worked with every day.

  “Your name should be Verity,” he heard himself say. “Truth.” She was right, he needed sleep.

  Bertie wrinkled her nose. “Well, I got Roberta hung on me, didn’t I? My mum called me Bertie, so that’s what I like.”

  Sinclair let go of her hand. His ached to have to release hers, but she was right—he’d do Andrew no good if he was carted off to a sickbed himself. He lay down, gently, so as not to disturb his son, and Bertie pulled quilts over him.

  “I’ll be right here,” she said. “On the other side of the bed, in that chair. Andrew won’t move a hair without me knowing.”

  Sinclair felt some relief loosen his limbs. “Thank you, Bertie.”

  Bertie leaned down and kissed his cheek, her loose hair brushing his skin. “It’s my pleasure.”

  Bertie watched Sinclair sleep. Thin winter sunlight touched his hair, as fair as Andrew’s, and brushed the lines about his eyes.

  He was exhausted. Bertie understood the exhaustion, and his terror. Losing someone was never easy, and never grew easier. Losing your child must be hardest of all. Though Andrew wasn’t her son, Bertie knew that if he didn’t live, her grief would cut her deeply and never heal.

  Sinclair, a strong man, had already suffered much. Bertie remembered what Macaulay had said about Mrs. McBride’s death—When she was gone, there wasn’t much left of him.

  Bertie vowed, looking down at Sinclair as he reposed on the bed, that she would make sure he didn’t lose any more of himself. No matter what.

  Sinclair slept on, the sun rose, and the outside world rumbled around them. Macaulay and Mrs. Hill came in from time to time, both trying to persuade Bertie to relinquish her place, but she refused. She’d promised. Mrs. Hill brought her tea and toast, and Macaulay, blankets, but they seemed to understand. Macaulay tried to keep up his bluff good spirits, assuring everyone that Master Andrew was a tough little lad, but Mrs. Hill’s eyes were red-rimmed, her usual briskness absent.

  Clocks around the town were striking eleven in the morning when Andrew’s eyes fluttered open. He took in Bertie, his father sleeping on his back, arm flung over his face, and said, “That man shot me.”

  “Andrew, sweetie.” Bertie’s heart beat swiftly as she touched his forehead. He was still warm, but damp with sweat, the fever broken. “Sinclair.” Bertie gently shook him. She hated to wake him, but a promise was a promise. “Andrew—”

  Sinclair came awake and sat up in one motion. He turned to Andrew, stark fear in his eyes, and those eyes grew wet as he looked down at his son blinking back at him.

  “You had a gun too, Papa,” Andrew said, his usually loud voice faint. “Did you shoot him back? Wish I’d seen that.”

  The doctor, returning to check on the patient that afternoon, expressed surprise that Andrew was alive at all, and put it down to his powders.

  “Bicarbonate of soda,” Sinclair said in disgust after the doctor left. “My cook could have prepared that, and done a better job of it.”

  He made Andrew take more of Warburg’s tincture to keep the fever down, as much as Andrew complained of the taste. Andrew also wanted to get up, but Sinclair forbade it. He told Andrew he’d seen many a gunshot wound in the army, and he knew exactly how long a man needed to stay down to heal. Being compared to a wounded soldier made Andrew’s grin return, though weakly. But at least he agreed to stay in bed.

  Sinclair convinced Bertie to take her turn at sleeping. Bertie rested for a time, but she soon was back in the nursery with Caitriona, who didn’t need to be neglected. Once Cat was reassured that her brother would live and get better, she returned to her usual cool indifference, or at least pretended to. The relief in her eyes was evident, but Cat held it in, her earlier need to confide in Bertie gone.

  Bertie had never met a child who closed herself away as much as Cat did. Even children Bertie had grown up with—beaten and hungry—had more life in them than Cat. Cat was a lovely little girl, with her ri
pples of dark hair always topped with a big bow, a matching bow on her fashionable dresses. But the child inside was vastly unhappy.

  Cat did her lessons without much interest, the only thing that absorbed her being whatever she wrote or drew in her notebook. When Bertie expressed interest in the notebook, Cat gave her a look of alarm and hugged the book to her chest. She didn’t relax until Bertie assured her she wouldn’t pry.

  The day after Andrew awoke, Sinclair said he was ready to be transferred back to his own bed. Sinclair carried him there himself. A hired nurse settled in to look after him, but Sinclair showed no hurry to rush back to chambers. Later that afternoon, he sent for Bertie to come down to him—not to his study, Aoife said, bringing the message, but to the downstairs drawing room.

  When Bertie tripped inside, she found Sinclair not alone. Several large men were with him, two in kilts, one in a severe suit. They looked enough like the Duke of Kilmorgan to be his brothers, which, in fact, they turned out to be.

  “This is Detective Chief Inspector Fellows,” Sinclair said, indicating the man in the suit. “He wants you to tell him all about Jeffrey and where we’ll find him.”

  Chapter 16

  Bertie had twigged that Fellows was Old Bill as soon as she set eyes on him, criminal investigation, no less. She recognized his name—Fellows had been a thorn in the side of East End villains for years. He always got his man, or woman, no matter what.

  The way Fellows sized up Bertie with his eagle eyes told Bertie he knew all about her, or at least what she was. What she used to be, Bertie corrected herself.

  The other two men in the room were as formidable as Fellows, but in different ways. The tallest one was Lord Cameron, the one with the horses. Bertie had seen him at the soiree, and she’d observed the way Sinclair’s sister had laid a tender hand on his arm whenever she’d spoken to him. Lord Cameron might be a hard man, but Ainsley obviously loved him.

  The other stood a little away from his two brothers and Sinclair, not looking at them. He stared at nothing, in fact, his eyes a blank, and the others didn’t seem to find this unusual.

  If Bertie told these men where to find Jeffrey, he would go down, she understood that. She saw it in their faces, even of the one who wasn’t looking at her. Jeffrey would shiver in jail for a brief time, then be taken out and hanged or banged up with penal servitude for life.

  But Bertie’s anger against him was strong. Jeffrey had broken into the house of a man who’d done him no harm, had tried to make Bertie help him rob it, and had shot Andrew. Didn’t matter that hitting Andrew had been an accident; Jeffrey had shot with intent to kill. He’d hurt so many in his life that even Bertie’s East End neighbors, who knew Jeffrey well, wouldn’t blame her for peaching on him.

  “I know all his hiding places,” Bertie said readily. “Mind you, he knows I know, so he might not have gone to any of them. Then again, he isn’t very wise.”

  She named them: a deserted house in Spitalfields, rooms in a lane off Whitechapel, and the house of his mistress—a lady Jeffrey didn’t think Bertie knew about—in Hackney.

  Inspector Fellows gave Bertie a nod when she finished, one that told her he knew exactly what she’d done, and that he respected her for it.

  Lord Cameron said, “Good. Then let’s go find the bastard.”

  “I’ll get my coat,” Sinclair said.

  The other Mackenzie, who hadn’t spoken a word or even acknowledged the conversation, now looked at Sinclair and said, “Andrew.”

  Sinclair nodded at him. “Miss Frasier, this is my brother-in-law, Ian Mackenzie. Will you take him up to the nursery to see Andrew?” He hesitated. “Do you want to come hunting with us, Ian? We can wait.”

  Lord Ian shook his head. He turned his back and crossed the room toward the piano, sitting down on its bench. The others let him go, not trying to persuade him.

  “Any hunting will be done by me,” Fellows said, giving Sinclair a severe look. “I’m only bringing you along so you can watch the man be arrested. Understand?”

  “I heard you,” Sinclair said, as though this were part of an ongoing argument. “Bertie . . .” He paused in the doorway and looked at her fully. “Thank you.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t go,” Bertie said, chilled. “He’s dangerous, is Jeffrey.”

  “I have to go. You know that.”

  Bertie shook her head. “No, you really don’t. Inspector Fellows is a good copper. He’ll find him.”

  “I know that here.” Sinclair touched the side of his head, his short hair brushing his fingertips. “But I need to see, to know it here.” He touched the center of his chest and held her gaze with his clear gray eyes. “Don’t worry, love. I’ll come home.”

  The carriage pulled up to the house, Richards at the reins. Sinclair touched Bertie’s cheek. His eyes were glittering, the man inside him awake and ready to do battle for his son. She knew she’d never talk him out of it—if this had been a hundred years or so ago, he’d be grabbing his claymore on his way out instead of his coat and hat.

  The touch became a caress, Sinclair’s eyes holding heat, then he turned away and went out.

  “You just make sure you bring him back whole,” Bertie said to Inspector Fellows.

  Fellows flashed her an irritated glance as he took his coat and hat from Peter. “I will endeavor, Miss Frasier,” he said, then went on out the door after Sinclair and Cameron.

  Ian Mackenzie was still in the drawing room when Bertie, her throat tight, turned back to it. Ian softly pressed the keys of the piano, playing a trickling tune that Bertie recognized from music halls. Gilbert and Sullivan, the song about the major general.

  Bertie went to the piano, jittery and impatient. “You wanted to pay Andrew a visit, your lordship?”

  Ian didn’t answer, the music continuing. After he’d played about half the song, he said, “When I met my Beth, she taught me to play this. She sat with me at the piano, and I kissed her.”

  The words were simple, but Bertie saw the look in the big man’s eyes as he spoke them. She couldn’t help but smile a little. “Aw. That’s sweet.”

  “Fellows wanted to pin a murder on me back then. Beth stopped him.”

  “Oh.” Bertie blinked. “I suppose that’s sweet too.”

  “You will like my Beth.” Ian took his fingers from the piano, the music ceasing. “I used to hate my memory. Now I’m glad of it. Things remind me of her.” His accent was not as pronounced as Sinclair’s, but it was there, the Scots richness running through his words.

  “I like that,” Bertie said. She too had memories now, of Sinclair and his family, things that would remind her of them. “Andrew’s upstairs. If he’s not asleep, he’ll be trying to bully his way out of bed. He’s very hearty, is our Andrew.”

  Ian lost his faraway look to flash Bertie an ironic glance. She saw intelligence in Ian’s eyes, and the depths of him, which she wagered many people would miss. Mrs. Hill had told Bertie about Lord Ian during one of her gossipy moods, how he’d spent time in an asylum, but Bertie saw nothing of the madman about him.

  Flashing him a grin, Bertie led Lord Ian out of the drawing room and upstairs to the nursery.

  They found Jeffrey Mitchell in Hackney, in the rooms of his mistress. Sinclair had told Richards to drive there first—if Jeffrey thought Bertie didn’t know about this woman, he’d likely seek refuge with her.

  Fellows didn’t bother knocking; he simply had his two burly constables kick the door open. Jeffrey, stirring coals in a rusting kitchen stove, turned on them with the poker.

  Jeffrey was fast, beating back the constables with deadly intent. A woman came screeching out of the bedroom in her dressing gown. She didn’t bother beseeching them—she grabbed a pan from the stove and threw the hot water in it at the constables. Then she came with the sturdy pan after Fellows, who’d waded in and grabbed Jeffrey.

  Cameron s
tepped behind the woman and seized her, lifting her from her feet as she screamed obscenities. He half threw her onto the sofa, then blocked her way when she tried to get up.

  The neighbors were coming, pouring out of doorways and up the stairs to see what was going on. Some cheered on Jeffrey and his mistress; some came to encourage the police. Jeffrey took advantage of the chaos to twist from Fellows’s grasp and make for the window. They were one floor above the ground, but Jeffrey shoved open the shutters and jumped.

  Sinclair, still in the hall, ran back down the stairs, pushing aside those in his way. He emerged from the house to see Jeffrey dash into a passage that ran alongside the building. Sinclair went after him, reaching Jeffrey as he was hauling himself up a wall at the end to make his escape.

  Sinclair grabbed Jeffrey by the leg and yanked him down. The crate Jeffrey had used to boost himself gave way, sending Jeffrey, Sinclair, and crate to the ground. Jeffrey rolled to his feet first and kicked Sinclair in the stomach.

  Sinclair’s breath went out of him as pain washed through his body. The pain coupled with the annoyed look in Jeffrey’s eyes—annoyed—made Sinclair’s red anger rise.

  He’d been in plenty of battles in the heat and desperation of the desert that would make Jeffrey run far and fast. Sinclair and four of his men had once fought their way out of a place where they’d been cut off, out of water, and had only enough ammunition between the five of them for one gun. They’d fought hand-to-hand with some of the best-trained men in North Africa, and they’d won through—to nearly die of thirst picking their way back to camp. But all five had made it.

  They’d survived because Sinclair had refused to let them die. Rolling over and giving in wasn’t in his nature, no matter what the odds.

  His yell of rage boomed through the passage. Sinclair came to his feet and launched himself at Jeffrey, all the grief and anger in him focused on one target—the man who’d nearly killed his son.