Rules for a Proper Governess (17 page)

Sinclair gave her a chill nod. “The day after Monday, yes.”

Helena’s nostrils pinched. “I thought you’d be in chambers, and the children at lessons.” Her sharp gaze took in Bertie in her gray dress and white collar. “This is the governess, I suppose.”

“You suppose correctly,” Sinclair said, an edge to his voice. “This is Miss Frasier.”

Bertie smiled up at Mrs. Davies, contriving to look demure and book-learned. She was unsure whether she should rise from her chair or keep her seat—sitting seemed to be safer, but she could not tell whether this pleased or displeased Mrs. Davies. The woman fixed Bertie with another stare then ignored her utterly.

“I suppose this is a lesson on deportment,” Mrs. Davies said. The two ladies behind her looked over Andrew, Cat, and Bertie with interest. No doubt they’d be flapping their jaws about the encounter for the rest of the day.

“No, this is a man having tea with his children,” Sinclair said, the edge on his voice sharper.

“After which, you’ll be buying them all kinds of things not good for them.” Mrs. Davies frowned at the remains of a cake on Cat’s plate—Andrew’s plate was scraped clean. “Toys and other frivolities.”

“No doubt we’ll be provisioning ourselves for our trip to Scotland,” Sinclair said. “For Christmas.”

Mrs. Davies scowled even more. She’d ruin her reasonably good looks if she weren’t careful, Bertie thought. She already had lines of sourness around her eyes.

“It is far too cold for them in Scotland,” Mrs. Davies said. “I’ve always said so.”

“My house is equipped with the latest modes of heating,” Sinclair said tightly. “We abandoned peat fires and sleeping rolled in our kilts last winter.”

Mrs. Davies did not appear to be amused. “Margaret’s fate was sealed when she married
you
. I’ll not let the same happen to her children.”

Sinclair underwent another transformation—this one from bleak coldness to rage. He stepped to Mrs. Davies as though ready to throttle her in the middle of the elegant tearoom.

“Ye leave your hands off my children,” he said, towering over her. “And tell bloody Edward to do likewise. I’ll take Cat and Andrew to Scotland and never bring them back down, if that’s what I have to do to keep them from you.”

“Not if the law has anything to say about it.” Mrs. Davies had taken a step back, paling under Sinclair’s fury. “Edward lost his sister because of you. You know it. If you lose your children as well, it will be your own fault.”

Mrs. Davies delivered the last in a decided voice, swung on her heel, and stalked away. The feathers on her hat bounced, as did her bustle. Another time, Bertie would have laughed at the absurd picture she made, but Sinclair stood frozen, face fixed in cold rage.

Bertie rose to him, touching his arm. “We should go,” she said in a low voice. “People are staring.”

Sinclair jerked, as though he’d forgotten she and his children were there. He looked swiftly at Cat and Andrew, who were watching him, then around at the full tables of the tearoom. So many conversations were flowing, overlapping one another, that the gawkers might not have heard Mrs. Davies, but they were looking their way with interest.

Sinclair signaled the waiter, who nodded back, but instead of settling up, Sinclair lifted Andrew into his arms and started out. The McBrides must have an account here too.

Bertie took Cat’s hand and followed Sinclair. Richards was nowhere in sight when they emerged onto Piccadilly, and Sinclair started walking swiftly down the street, not waiting. Bertie and Cat had to jog to catch up with him.

Sinclair turned sharply into the Burlington Arcade, with its shops of splendid silver and jewelry; not the fastest route if he were determined to walk all the way to Upper Brook Street. Bertie knew, though, that Sinclair was moving automatically, his anger taking him along without him realizing where he was going. Bertie had done such things on days when her father had upset her too much to stay still.

Bertie caught up to Sinclair. “She’s a cow. Don’t listen to her.”

Sinclair glanced at her, his gaze chill and remote. “We are removing to Scotland,” he said abruptly. “You, Cat, and Andrew are, that is. I have trials to finish. Can you live without the soot of London around you all the time? My house in northern Scotland is remote.”

Bertie’s heart beat faster. She’d never been away from London in her life, didn’t know what anything outside it looked like. The thought of leaving it, without Sinclair, did funny things to her insides. She wasn’t afraid to leave London—in fact, the idea was exciting—but leaving Sinclair behind was not.

“Can’t we wait until you finish up?” Bertie asked. “Then we can all go together.”

Sinclair turned to glare down at her, Andrew watching interestedly from his arm, and Bertie’s face scalded. She could hardly tell Sinclair she was afraid she’d lose him if she left, that he’d forget all about her.
He don’t say no to the ladies
, Macaulay had said.

Bertie rushed on, babbling a little. “Thing is, I’ve never been on a train, not that far anyway. Hadn’t you better come and make sure I do all right?”

Sinclair gazed down at her, as though he tried to fix on what she was saying. “Safer if you go. For Cat and Andrew as well.”

“Yeah? Well, what about you? Who’s going to look after you if we all run away to Scotland? And what’s to say your Mr. Davies won’t send the law up there, to pluck away Andrew and Cat while you’re here?”

Sinclair’s eyes came back into focus. Ah, she had him now. It was a possibility, no doubt.

“If you stay in London, then you stay home,” he said in a hard voice. “No jaunts to the park, not even with Macaulay. Could you stand it? Being cooped up in the house all the time?”

“I can stay!” Andrew shouted. “I’ll run up and down the stairs if I can’t go to the park. I’d rather go on the train with you, Papa!”

“Cat?” Bertie looked down at the girl. In the constant worry about making Andrew behave, Cat sometimes got rather left out.

Cat shrugged. “As you like, Father.”

Sinclair studied her indifferent face, and his frown deepened. Bertie shook her head the slightest bit at him. Now was not the time to wonder about Cat.

“I have cases scheduled all the way through next week,” Sinclair said. “I can’t get away before then.” He switched his gaze to Bertie, and she tried not to look too eager. “Very well, then, stay in London and wait for me. The Old Bailey adjourns Tuesday next, come what may. Even murderers have to wait when judges want their Christmas.”

Sinclair lay awake late that night, gaze on the ceiling, his insomnia reaching out to tap him. He’d slept surprisingly well these last few nights, his mind eager to take him to dreams of Bertie, but the encounter with Helena Davies had left him in turmoil.

Margaret’s fate was sealed when she married you.
The accusation resounded in his head. Sinclair remembered every detail of Helena saying it, the fix of her eyes, the movement of her mouth, the shrill tone of her voice. Helena had worked to take most of her northern Irish lilt out of her voice when she’d moved to England, trying desperately to distance herself from those Irish who wanted freedom from English rule. As a result, she always sounded wrong and stilted, her words overly pronounced.

Helena had made the same accusation she had today more baldly after Daisy’s death, in private—
You killed her.

Edward had agreed with his wife, still did.

Tonight Sinclair had put out all the lights and pulled the drapes, so that darkness coated his bedroom, but he turned his head and gazed straight at Daisy’s photograph. He knew what he’d see if there’d been light enough—the dark eyes that had looked out at him from the photo had never been accusing, only loving.

She’s a cow,
Bertie had said stoutly about Helena.
Don’t listen to her.

Bertie had a way of putting things—straightforward, practical, never wavering. Sinclair’s first instinct had been to tuck Bertie and his children under his arms and rush them to Scotland then and there. They’d be away from Helena, away from Bertie’s vengeful Jeffrey, away from the noise and darkness of the city. Constant, constant noise. Though Sinclair had thought about London’s lively side today when they’d gone out, tonight he hated it. He wanted Scotland, his home.

Bertie, on the other hand, embraced London. She was a child of the city, laughing at its inconvenience, blithely walking through smoke, soot, and dirt as though it couldn’t cling to her. She was down-to-earth; Sinclair was lost in the fog.

In Scotland, he could be alone with her. No prying neighbors. No solicitors fighting one another to hand him their cases, no judges watching Sinclair to see whether he was worthy to be one of them. In Scotland, in his house beside the deep loch, Sinclair could be truly alone. With Bertie. He needed her. In Scotland, he’d bring her into his life, no matter what.

His thoughts turned to her teaching him about pickpocketing, and he wanted to laugh. Bertie had plucked Sinclair clean each time, showing him he was hopeless before her skills. Distraction indeed.

But he had skills of his own. He’d use them. His body warmed. Bertie would learn just what sort of skills Sinclair had, and what kind of distractions he could cause with them. With luck, they wouldn’t see the out-of-doors for days.

Sinclair let his eyes drift closed, ready to let his imagination show him what they’d do, step by slow step.

He opened them the next moment, coming alert.

He’d heard a tinkle of glass downstairs, and a few seconds after that, a muffled thump.

Sinclair quietly rose, pulled on a dressing gown and slippers, and moved silently from his bedroom into his study. He wasn’t afraid—he knew in his blood and bones that there was a threat, but he also knew he could deal with it.

He made his way to his desk, unlocking and sliding out the drawer he always kept in good repair. Inside was a Webley pistol and a box of bullets. Fingers steady, Sinclair loaded the gun, tucked it into his dressing gown pocket, and left the room.

No one else hurried to see what the noise had been. Macaulay slept in a room off the kitchens downstairs, as did the cook and Peter, and they might not have heard. The maids and Mrs. Hill had comfortable rooms in the attics, likely too far away from the lower rooms to have been awakened by the soft sounds.

The house was dark, the stairwell lit by only one lamp, turned low, on each floor. Mrs. Hill liked to save on the gas, so most lights were extinguished when the household went to bed. If anyone got up in the night, rushed about, and tripped, that was their own fault, in Mrs. Hill’s opinion.

Sinclair had come to know the stairs well on his sleepless nights, and he traversed them without difficulty. He knew which stair creaked and which spindle on the railing was loose, and how to move past them like smoke.

Down, down, down to the ground floor. He heard no more thumps, but he did hear a clinking sound, coupled with low voices, coming from the dining room.

Sinclair put his hand on his pistol, lifted it from his pocket, and eased open the dining room door.

Bertie stood near the table, watching as a beefy young man filled a valise with silver pieces taken from the open breakfront. The tinkling he’d heard had come from the thief breaking the glass door of the cabinet, which was always kept locked—Mrs. Hill and Sinclair had the only keys. The thump must have been the stout valise being hoisted to the table. The windows on the far end of the room, overlooking the garden, were closed, whole, and unbroken. A kerosene lamp burned at the end of the table, giving a warm glow to the scene.

“I told you, I ain’t giving you any more,” Bertie said. “You take that and get out.”

“For this time,” the man said. “I’ll be back. You’ll have more for me if you know what’s good for you, Bertie-girl—and for them.”

“No, I won’t. You’ll get me sacked, and worse. You know my dad will beat you if my wages get taken away, and I tell him it’s your fault.”

“You listen here.” The man, who must be Jeffrey, abandoned the valise and went to Bertie. “You
will
rob this fool blind for us, and if you get caught, it’s you what gets to hang. Serves you right for abandoning us. You don’t belong here, and you know it, so stop pretending.”

“I ain’t pretending. The kids like me. I’m good at looking after them.”

“You’ll have to run sometime. You’ll leave them high and dry, just like you did me and your dad, and all your friends. You wouldn’t let us have Basher McBride when you led him to my mates, and now you’re telling us to leave him alone again. You
are
his tart, I know it. And I’m not having it.”

Jeffrey grabbed Bertie by the front of her dressing gown, jerking her to him. She suppressed a yelp, but she fought, fists pounding his shoulders. Jeffrey yanked her dressing gown open . . . and found the barrel of Sinclair’s revolver pressed to his head.

“No,” Bertie said, fading back in dismay.

Sinclair dug the pistol deeper into Jeffrey’s temple. “Let go of her, leave the silver, and get out of my house,” he said. “If I ever see you again, I will shoot you. If you don’t go, I will shoot you right now. Do you understand me?”

Jeffrey swallowed, his eyes wide, believing. He opened his hands and released the folds of Bertie’s dressing gown.

“Out,” Sinclair repeated.

Jeffrey kept his eyes on Sinclair’s pistol as he backed away. “Right, right, I’m going.”

His hand stretched toward the valise as he passed it, and Sinclair took a step toward him. “I said
leave it
.”

Jeffrey clenched his fist, turned swiftly, and made for the window. He opened it easily, climbed through, and disappeared into darkness.

Sinclair shut the window on the freezing draft and found the lock broken, obviously forced by Jeffrey. No matter, he’d have Macaulay repair it in the morning.

Sinclair turned back to Bertie. In the light of the one lamp, her blue eyes were huge in her pale face, lamplight shining on the thick braid of hair that flowed over her shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” she was saying. “He came tonight—he said he’d hurt you and the kids, kill you even, if I didn’t help him. I thought a bit of silver you never use wouldn’t do no harm. He’d be caught as soon as he tried to pawn it, the idiot.”

Sinclair didn’t hear her. He laid the gun carefully on the table and went to her.

“Never mind.” Sinclair brushed back Bertie’s warm hair as he drew her close. He kissed the top of her head. “It doesn’t matter, lass.”

Bertie was shaking, and Sinclair realized after a heartbeat that she was crying. His Bertie, the courageous woman who looked at life and all its grimness with a bright smile, was crying in remorse.

Sinclair tilted her face up to him. “Stop, love.”

Bertie’s face was wet with tears. Sinclair leaned down and kissed one away, then he kissed her parted lips. She kissed him back, her mouth trembling, her hands curling on his chest. Her warmth wove around Sinclair despite the situation, intoxicating him.

The silence in the house meant they were alone in the night. Sinclair moved his touch to her buttocks, firm and sweet under the gown, his arousal hot and stiff under his loose dressing gown and nightshirt. Nothing existed but her kisses, her unfettered body against his . . .

Ice-cold wind blew into his back as the window slid up again. Sinclair heard the cock of a pistol.

Instinct took over. Sinclair flung Bertie down, the two of them landing on the carpet, limbs tangling. The gun boomed at the same time, and then there was another cry of surprise and pain, one too high-pitched to belong to Macaulay.

Sinclair was on his feet and out the dining room door, snatching up the falling body of Andrew, who had blood on his chest and looked up at his father with confusion in his eyes.

Bertie, her lungs constricting, snatched up the pistol Sinclair had laid on the table and rushed to the window. No one was there. She saw Jeffrey’s form vaulting to the top of the high garden wall and over, but he was too far away to stop.

She turned back, discarding the pistol on the sideboard, to where Sinclair cradled Andrew in the doorway. Andrew was still breathing, little gasping pants, blood all over his chest.

“Bertie, help me.” Sinclair’s voice was harsh.

Bertie fell to her knees. Sinclair ripped open Andrew’s nightshirt, exposing his pale chest and a red, gaping wound. Sinclair shrugged off his robe and stripped off his own nightshirt, kneeling in nothing but his underbreeches. He wadded up the nightshirt and pressed it to Andrew’s shoulder.

“Hold that right there,” he said to Bertie. “Use as much pressure as you can. I have to take out the bullet.”

“A doctor . . .”

“Too long to wait. I’ve done plenty of field surgery, taken bullets out of my friends.”

None of them had been eight years old, Bertie would wager. She obeyed, leaning her weight on the nightshirt, warm from Sinclair and now stained red with blood.

Andrew’s eyes were closed, his face waxy. But his chest still rose and fell. That was something. As long as the chest went up and down, Andrew was alive.

Footsteps thumped on stairs, from above and below, the household rushing to see what was the matter. Cat trailed them, gripping her doll in both arms, her face pale.

Sinclair moved the cloth enough to spread the lips of the wound. “Hold him down,” he said to Bertie. “I’ll need clean water, and a needle and thread,” he snapped over his shoulder.

Footsteps pounded again as the servants hurried to obey. Cat sank down on one of the dining room chairs, her blue eyes wide, but Bertie couldn’t leave Andrew to go to her.

Sinclair dipped his already bloody fingers into the wound, and in one go, closed his fingers around the bullet and drew it out.

Andrew’s eyes flew open, and he screamed. Bertie held him, her heart beating wildly, and wanted to scream with him. Andrew cried out once more, then slumped back to the floor, eyes closing, but his chest rose again with his breath.

Sinclair dropped the bloody bullet onto the rug. A small thing, but too large to be lodged in Andrew’s little body.

“More pressure,” Sinclair said. He joined Bertie in holding the nightshirt over the wound. Sweat streaked Sinclair’s bare arms and chest, in spite of the cold.

Mrs. Hill came hurrying in with a sewing box, Aoife and Peter with water they sloshed everywhere. Mrs. Hill handed the sewing box to Bertie and Macaulay took the pans of water, setting them on the floor. Cloths were already inside.

Macaulay touched Sinclair’s shoulder. “Let me, lad. You rest now.”

“No,” Sinclair said in a hard voice. “I’ll do it. Fetch a constable and get after that bastard.”

“Already done. Man might be long gone though.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Bertie said. “I know the places he’ll go.” She relinquished her place to Macaulay, and opened the sewing box and threaded a needle.

A circle of feet and dressing gowns surrounded them, the entire household watching over their favorite boy. Sinclair took the needle from Bertie and instructed Macaulay to keep holding the pad of nightshirt where it was.

Sinclair smoothed out the thread with his fingers, held the lips of the wound together, and plunged the needle into his son. Andrew barely whimpered this time. His eyes remained closed, body limp, as Sinclair, his face tight, sewed up the wound.

The constable arrived, along with a doctor. Bertie only noticed the doctor when a black bag landed on the floor near her. Sinclair closed off the last stitch, carefully cutting the thread with the sharp scissors Bertie handed him.

The doctor, a lean man with a thick beard, bent down to them. “Competent job, Mr. McBride.”

Sinclair didn’t answer, didn’t acknowledge him. The doctor pressed his hand to Andrew’s brow, felt his cheeks.

“No fever yet,” he said. “But that will come. We need to keep him warm and get him up to bed.”

Sinclair kept his hand on Andrew, the needle dangling from his fingers. His gaze was fixed on his son’s face, the bleakness starting to come over him again. Bertie took the needle and thread from him and dropped the bloody things into her pocket.

“I’ll take him up.” Macaulay rose, reaching for Andrew.

“No.” Sinclair’s answer was vehement. He got to his feet, lifting Andrew gently in his arms. “I’ll take him to my bed.”

Bertie caught the trailing nightshirt that was still over the wound as Sinclair started for the hall, carrying Andrew. She trotted after them, holding the shirt, as Sinclair went swiftly up the two flights of stairs, through his dark study and into his bedroom.

“For God’s sake, put on the lights,” he snapped. “Keep it light. And warm. It’s too damned cold in here.”

Bertie turned up the gas on the nearest lamp and lit it, but she’d turned the gas too high, and it nearly exploded into light. She hastily turned it down then went to the next sconce. The fire in Sinclair’s hearth was low, so Bertie poked it to life, adding a bit more coal from the bin.

Sinclair’s bed was wide, with a thick mattress and a wooden head- and footboard that curved around the corners of the bed. It was big enough for two, but looked overly large with only one small lad in the middle. Andrew lay so still, his body ghostly white, the color of his skin blending with his hair, light like his father’s.

Sinclair sat beside him, still half naked, his muscled back tight, his shoulders rigid. Bertie picked up Sinclair’s fallen dressing gown, thick and padded, and draped it over his shoulders. He didn’t acknowledge her, his attention only for his son.

The doctor set his bag down on the other side of the bed and bent over Andrew. Sinclair at least let the man examine him, the doctor listening to Andrew’s heart and briefly lifting Andrew’s eyelids.

“The bullet doesn’t appear to have hit anything vital,” the doctor announced. He lightly touched the stitches. “Through a fleshy part it looks like. But watch him. If you see blood on his lips, you send for me at once.”