your runaway servants?”
He grimaced. “More accurately, I was in pursuit of the family silver they lined their pockets with before they fled. I should have known from the second that governess—if ever she’d been one in her life, I will eat my hat—showed up here that she would be nothing but trouble. Governesses don’t look like that!”
Miss St. James blinked at him. “And how do governesses look, my lord?”
Realizing that he might have offended her, Winn backed off from that. “Rest easy. Governesses can be very attractive women. They simply tend to be a bit more… buttoned up, as it were. And less painted. Miss Guinn looked rather like she’d stepped fresh off the boards at Drury Lane.”
“Then why in heaven’s name did you employ her, my lord?”
That was a very good question. “Desperation, Miss St. James. I mistakenly thought any governess would be better than no governess, at least in the short term. Especially for little girls who’d just lost their mother. Having been a boy myself, albeit a hundred years ago it seems, I felt I could get on well enough with William. But Charlotte and Claudia are a different matter. I know nothing of little girls.” The very idea of seeing such creatures to adulthood was terrifying to him. It was tears and sobs one minute, screams and flying crockery the next, then they’d sit and braid one another’s hair. Though to be fair, Claudia did more of the braiding than Charlotte. She simply tied knots that resulted in a repeat of the tears and sobs.
“Well, my lord, I’m afraid you’ll have to learn. A governess is no substitute for family. They need you, and they need to feel that their place here with you is a permanent one. You cannot give them that by dragging in one disreputable woman after another to care for them.” Her words might have been harsh, but they were uttered in a mild tone. Still, the reproach was gentle but present nonetheless.
“I don’t mean to drag in any more disreputable women, Miss St. James. I mean to drag you in, metaphorically speaking, of course,” he said. From what he’d seen of her brief interactions with the children, she was well worth her weight in gold if not more. “I’ll pay you double your last position. Triple, if need be.”
“That is a very generous offer, my lord.”
He grinned. “It isn’t. It’s a desperate offer and we both know it. I don’t know what to do with them, Miss St. James. Not a clue. But clearly, you do and that is invaluable to me at this time.”
She eyed him like he was a specimen on display, as if she were picking apart every flaw and cataloguing every detail to determine how he functioned and worked. It was decidedly uncomfortable. Her perusal continued as he fought the urge to squirm beneath her steady gaze.
At last, she said, “It isn’t only about the money, my lord. I was led to believe that this household was headed by a much older man… as it stands, it would be very inappropriate for me to reside here with a single man of your age and no hint of a chaperone, not even a housekeeper. While I might be a governess by position, I have been gently reared enough, at least in the last years, to be aware of how that might appear to others.”
“Then I’ll buy you the house next door,” he said. “You can staff it to your heart’s content. Just do not leave me alone with those bloodthirsty, hell-spawned, and utterly precious children.”
“I cannot do that and I cannot allow you to do that,” she said, and there was a note in her voice that might have been regret. Then her eyes widened and she added, “But perhaps there is a way forward if we are a bit creative. I could be their governess, if not a governess in residence. I would continue to live at the Darrow School and would take a carriage daily to and from this house. I would work eight hours daily, except for Sundays which I will have off and I would take a half-day on Saturday that will usually be comprised of an outing for the children. And I will teach the children, but I will also teach you.”
“Teach me?” he asked, somewhat shocked at the suggestion. “I assure you, Miss St. James, despite my current state of readiness for a lunatic’s asylum, I can read. In four languages, no