The Reluctant Governess (2 page)

“Lady Raeburn has made it my business. She's concerned for the child's welfare, and frankly, so am I.”

“Will you help me out now, Papa?” came a little voice.

Good grief. They'd stood over the girl, arguing, when she might be smothering in the confines of the urn. Eliza watched as Nicholas tipped the thing on the Turkey carpet, and Domenica crawled out, a little dustier than before she went in. She gave a very creditable curtsey to Eliza. “Are you to be my new nanny? My old one is in Heaven with Mama.”

“I don't know.” Eliza looked up at Nicholas. “Am I?”

He threw up his hands. “Oh, fine. But it's just temporary. I will find someone that suits me.”

“Temporary is exactly the word. The Evensong Agency is reviewing applicants even as we speak for a responsible person to join your household.”

“Damn it! I never asked Mary to do anything. She may lead my brother around by his co—nose, but I'll be damned before she runs my life. I only got back to London last week. We're not even unpacked.”

Eliza glanced around the hallway. She had never seen such a number of antiquities, paintings, patterns, and embellishment in a private house in her life. One hardly knew where to look first. Could there be even more stowed away in boxes? It boggled the mind.

“I bought the house furnished,” Nicholas said, anticipating her question. “An artist friend of mine had to let it go. These are his things. Well, mine, now, I suppose.”

“It's very—decorated,” Eliza said, searching for the right word. She longed for a broom and a dustbin. There was just too much
stuff.

“Yes, isn't it fabulous? Leighton would eat his heart out if he were still alive. I'll get your bag.”

Eliza felt a little light-headed watching the man walk to the open door. His pajamas were slipping down his slim hips, and she thought she could see—

There was a tug on her coat. “Come up to my room. We can have a party of our own.” Domenica smiled, and Eliza followed the child up the stairs, wondering what precisely she'd gotten into and just how long “temporary” was.

He was in a pickle now. Damn Maria for dying and leaving him in the lurch and at the mercy of Miss Eliza Lawrence. Of course, Maria must have been close to eighty. She had been Barbara's nurse, and even then she had been too old. But to die on a train across France was just plain careless, especially since Sunny had been in the berth beside her.

Nick shuddered to think what would happen if his daughter realized that Maria was not just sleeping. In the week since, she seemed to be satisfied that her nurse had gone to Heaven to visit her mother without realizing she'd been next to a corpse for who knows how long. In a few months, perhaps her memories of Maria would be as hazy as they were of Barbara.

Nick had not expected fatherhood to fall upon his shoulders. In fact, he was completely unaware of Sunny's birth until two years ago, when Barbara summoned him to her villa. She had done very well for herself, but now she was dying. She had a child, possibly Nick's. Could he keep her?

Possibly. Perhaps. Maybe. To give Barbara credit, she did not lie to him, couching his paternity in the vaguest way. There had been other men—and Nick remembered them—but no one good enough to raise her daughter. He had been both flattered and frightened. But he was a Raeburn. Raeburns did the right thing, or died trying. So he had taken Sunny away with Maria, and let Barbara abandon her bravery to die.

There was money. Quite a lot of it. Barbara had been shrewd with both her body and her finances. Sunny would never want for anything, and neither would Nick, should he choose to touch any of the funds.

He did not choose. He had an inheritance from an aunt, and his paintings actually sold for outrageous sums. Along with a share in the distillery, his brother Alec had been beyond fair divvying up the family fortune. Nick wasn't a starving artist any longer. Sunny would be an heiress, which should more than make up for her questionable provenance.

When he looked into her little face, all he saw was Barbara. After two years, it didn't matter who Sunny's father was—she was his. Nick had enjoyed the past few days alone with her. But now starchy Miss Lawrence would put a stop to freedom for both of them.

He'd intended on getting a proper governess eventually. It seemed eventually had begun this afternoon.

Nick loped up the stairs to the top of the house. What had been intended as servants' quarters served ably as his studio. His friend Daniel Preble had knocked a hole in the roof and installed a very pretty domed window. The box room next door served as a photography lab, for Nick's artistic visions knew no bounds. He split his day between painting and taking pictures as the spirit moved him.

Two nude Titian-haired girls were draped on a chaise, eating the apples that were to be props in his reconstructed photographic homage to Raphael's
Three Graces
.

“Is she here, then?” one of them asked.

“No. False alarm. I think we'd better call it a day.” Nick raised a hand to stop their objections. “Don't worry, I'll still pay you for the full afternoon, and give you prints of what we already shot for your portfolios. Come round next Wednesday afternoon. I should have a third by then when Tubby's girl comes through.”

“Too bad about Maisie's man beating her. No amount of makeup would cover those bruises,” the other model said.

“Yes, it is,” Nick said darkly. He would see to Maisie's man after his little dinner party. The fellow would not be using his fists on another woman after Nick had his say.

Daniel Preble had very kindly supplied him with a list of his favorite models, so it had been a seamless transition to get right to work as soon as Nick landed in London. He had only had the benefit of Maisie's services for one day, but she was a good-natured little thing and he felt responsible for her welfare. Foolish, perhaps, when her own lover was ill-treating her.

The girls dressed as Nick organized his equipment. He was particular—he didn't care if he smelled of chemicals or had paint in his ear, but his things were sacred. The housekeeper-cook and underage maid he'd inherited from Daniel were forbidden to come upstairs unless it was to tell him the house was on fire. He had no butler—there wasn't room for one, now that he'd taken over the attics. The staff slept in the basement. He presumed Miss Lawrence would bunk in with Sunny as the little maid Sue had done.

His bedroom room was right next door. It was a bit unsettling to think of a strange young woman so close at hand, and yet so forbidden. Nick was used to acting upon his urges, but wasn't it lucky he had no urge whatsoever for her? How awkward it would be to importune the governess. He was no Rochester, and Eliza Lawrence was no plain Jane Eyre.

The girl was very pretty. Not his type, of course, but as an artist he had an eye for beauty, and Miss Lawrence's quintessentially English looks would attract attention anywhere. But there was nothing of the flirt in her. Her clothes were dull and her hat merely serviceable. She had no sense of style. Nick was a bit of a peacock himself, teased by his brothers for years at his love for color and texture. He was not going to pose as a black-and-white penguin anytime soon—Beau Brummell had a lot to answer for in dulling the social scene for decades. What was wrong with scarlet waistcoats and checked trousers?

The bathroom was on the landing below, and he locked himself in to rid himself of his dirt. It was the only room in the house he'd put his own imprint on so far. The walls were covered with his photographs. Wouldn't he like to be a fly on the wall when Miss Lawrence saw them?

There was nothing shameful about the human body. He kept his in fine fettle. Thank the gods the old queen was gone and her priggish mores with her. Covered piano legs indeed!

Nick hadn't bothered shaving in a couple of days—there had been too much to do getting settled in the new house. Daniel's loss was his gain. Nick felt sorry for the fellow, having to leave such a splendid collection of
objets
behind. But Preble had fled to France, creditors hot on his heels, and Nick had been happy to help an old friend when they'd met up in Paris. He had offered Daniel the use of his villa in a tiny Tuscan town at a reasonable rent in exchange for the deed to the Lindsey Street house at a reasonable price. Daniel had been desperate to leave all this behind.

Nick had been gone so long on the Continent he wondered if his old cronies would recognize him. Even before Alec's horrible first wife threw him out of the family home five years ago, he had spent most of his time traveling—hence the possibility of Sunny. The light in Italy was a vast improvement over a gray Scottish winter, and Barbara a warm bed partner. The other signoras and signorinas and madames and mademoiselles after Barbara were equally delightful. He sometimes wondered why he had agreed to return, but his brothers Alec and Evan had bedeviled him with an avalanche of letters, so here he was. And he reckoned it was time for Sunny to meet her uncles, annoying as they were.

He unpacked his kit and pulled out a razor. No butler. No valet. He supposed he might arrange a standing appointment at Trumper for a proper shave, but that would mean setting up some sort of schedule. Nick didn't believe in schedules—why should one hem oneself in? He might not want to wake up early on a Tuesday, for who knew how he'd spend Monday evening?

Though things were bound to be much duller in London. Some of his wildest mates had settled down into suburban domesticity, hampered by wives and children and dogs and mortgages. Nick might be raising Sunny, but that was no reason to take vows of abstinence and self-abnegation. Barbara had trusted him, and she of all people knew what he was capable of.

The rasp of the razor required his concentration, and the next minutes were spent in the diligent removal of the copper bristles on his face. Beards were very much in fashion, which was as good a reason as any to eschew them. Nick didn't wish to be caught with crumbs or drops of alizarin crimson adhering to his moustache, and his lady friends seemed to prefer a smooth cheek against their thighs.

Nick needed a local lady friend now that he was back. In his experience, most of the models he had used in the past were generally willing, but that sometimes complicated things. Jealousy amongst the girls was dead boring, and sometimes dangerous. Nick sported a sliced left eyebrow from a palette knife gone awry. He was lucky he hadn't been blinded.

Satisfied that he looked a little less piratical, he ran his bath and sunk into the tub, closing his eyes to the photographs else he might become inspired and be late to his own dinner party. There would be time tonight to find someone, after he dealt with Maisie's man.

The tension had just about disappeared from between his shoulder blades when there was a peremptory knock on the door.

“Papa, may I come in?”

“No, you may not, monkey. I'm taking a bath.”

“But Sue is sick in the downstairs bathroom, and I have no shoes on.”

Nick took that to mean his daughter did not want to use the privy in the corner of the back garden. He couldn't blame her—the garden was a tangle. Daniel may have perfected the house, but had no interest in horticulture. The space would be ideal for photography once he hacked his way through the jungle, though.

“I'm sorry, love. A man needs his privacy. Get Miss Whatshername to take you outside.”

“But it's cold!”

“I said no, Sunny,” Nick replied. “You may not enter. And what are the three reasons?”

“Because you said so, you said so, and you said so.”

“That is correct. Now off you go.”

He thought he might have heard the stamp of a bare foot, then Miss Whatshername's mild admonition. Nick frowned—if Sue was sick, wasn't it providential that the governess turned up? He hoped whatever she had wasn't contagious, or Sunny would be next. She and Sue had been thick as thieves since last week, racing all around the house after Sunny's confinement on trains and boats.

Mrs. Quinn could probably manage the dinner on her own. Nick's friends weren't fussy. As long as there was plenty of wine, the evening would be a success.

After a vigorous scrubbing, he rose from the tub and wrapped himself in a bath sheet. The bath was on a landing between the bedroom floor and the attics above it, and wasn't it just his luck to run into Miss Lawrence in the hallway. He realized she'd seen him mostly unclothed in their two encounters today. It didn't bother him, but from the look on her face, she was fairly horrified. Nick knew his tattoo bothered some, but he found the ouroboros's symbolism of eternity comforting, despite the hell he'd gone through to get it. Even Plato had claimed the snake was the first living thing in the universe. Rebirth, renewal, the soul of the world—what could be better?

“We need to stop meeting like this,” he quipped, clutching the towel just in case it had a mind to horrify Miss Lawrence further.

“Do you not own a dressing gown? You have a young daughter who should not be exposed to such—to such—words fail.”

“There's nothing shameful about the human body, Miss Lawrence. If you're going to live here, you'd better get used to seeing it.”

Miss Lawrence's rosebud mouth shriveled. “I have no interest in seeing yours or anyone else's. Domenica is at an impressionable age. She should not think it normal to go about without shoes or clothes.”

Nick lifted an eyebrow. “I'm sorry. Perhaps I've missed something in my travels? As far as I know, the Great Creator has not seen fit to deliver children into the world in short pants and pinafores. Surely you don't mean to argue with God.”

“I don't mean to argue with anyone! But if I'm to stay here, even for just one day, I cannot keep seeing you in your current state. It is not proper. Not proper at all.”

“So close your eyes.” Nick grinned, knowing he was being outrageous. His new sister-in-law was bound to berate him for his treatment of her friend, but then he remembered that she and Alec were headed to Southampton tomorrow. By the time they got to New York, Miss Lawrence would be gone and some other, more congenial woman would have the care of Sunny.

Speaking of which. “Where is my daughter?”

“She is in the kitchen helping Mrs. Quinn. Or not helping, really. Sue has been put to bed. I came upstairs to unpack, and then I'll go down and help, too. Fortunately, I didn't bring much, as I will not be here long. I will be calling Oliver Palmer at the agency tomorrow morning to check on his progress finding you a real governess.”

No, she wouldn't be here long, and good riddance. Nick was not about to be lectured in his own house by this bourgeois little prude.

She needed some shaking up. It was the twentieth century, after all. “Would you care to join us for dinner?” Meeting his cronies would be an eye-opening experience for her.

Her blush was just the color of the Duchesse de Brabant roses that Barbara had favored in her garden. There had been masses of them, outside and in. The rich scent had been heady, and for a moment Nick felt a pang for his lost lover.

“No, thank you. My duty is to Domenica. Sunny. We shall have an early supper in the kitchen, read some stories, and go to bed.”

“We'll try to keep the noise down.” There were to be only four of them—Nick, his oldest friend Peter Northcott, Lieutenant Marcus Stanley, and Sir Thomas “Tubby” Featherstone. Somehow Marcus had managed to stay alive in Africa and was now painting the most amazing landscapes inspired by that vast country, the vistas otherworldly. Nick was just a little jealous. Peter was trying to bring his family's finances to rights after the muck-up his father Lord Northcott had made of his estates and would be happy for a good meal and a few laughs. Financially sounder, Tubby fancied himself an impresario, backing writers, playwrights, musicians, and artists, with a keen eye for female muses and models. He might be encouraged to accompany Nick tonight when he visited Maisie's pugilistic partner. In fact, all his guests might prove useful. Too bad Daniel was not here—he and Nick were a formidable team.