less.”
“That is an excellent achievement, my lord, but your literacy was never in question. Your education will be on how to conduct yourself with the children so that they do not get the upper hand… again. Assuming we can wrest it back from them to start,” she explained pertly.
“I told them to go in the garden and they did. Does that not signify that I have the upper hand?”
She clucked her tongue at him like he was some poor, misguided fool. Though he supposed in some way that was true. What did he know of children, after all? His father had been so disinterested in both him and his brother that the man had been little better than a stranger to him. “Because it served their purposes to do so, my lord. Not because you demanded it. You really do understand nothing about them!”
There was a ring of truth to the statement that he could not deny. “Very well. Ten hours a day. Two hours instruction for me in the evenings and eight hours instructional time with the children because, I daresay, they need that much. After a while, those hours can be revisited, but their education has been terribly neglected and I cannot even fathom why.”
“I think perhaps they have never had a very good governess,” Miss St. James posited.
“And are you?”
“I am not a good governess, my lord. I am one of the best governesses,” she said. “Isn’t that why you sent to the Darrow School, after all?”
“So it is, Miss St. James. So it is. Do we have a bargain?”
She considered it, her expression thoughtful and cautious. At last, she stuck out her hand to shake as one would with a business partner.
Bemused, Winn accepted it. But nothing could have prepared him for the jolt of it, for the pure sensation of heat and light and want that swamped him like a wave. And she felt it, too. It was obvious in the way she quickly drew back her hand and looked at him with a new kind of caution.
Almost immediately, she rose and reached for her pelisse. There was no hesitation this time, only determination. She took several steps away from him before shrugging into it. With one last glance in his direction, she said matter of factly, “We have a bargain, my lord. I will send you a bill for my services, to be paid one month in advance and I will begin on Monday.”
Winn had risen himself by this point, finally recovered from the moment where a simple touch of her hand had rendered him utterly dumb. “Good day, Miss St. James. I shall endeavor to keep myself and all three of the children alive and in one piece until you return.”
She smirked. “I’m certain you shall prevail. Good day, my lord.”
When she had gone, Winn considered what had just transpired. It was not such a bad thing for her not to reside in his home. In truth, Miss Calliope St. James was far too beautiful, far too tempting, and far too innocent. Women like her were a kind of trouble he hadn’t the time or inclination for at the moment. There was more than enough disorder in his life already.
But she did certainly make a pretty picture, he thought. With her nut brown hair and her sparkling eyes, she was just the sort of girl who might have caught his eye across a ballroom. If he’d been in the market for a bride, which he certainly was not. Heaven knew she was more tempting by half than any of the wretched, giggling misses that all the matchmaking mamas put in his path. Their shrill voices and silliness set his teeth on edge.
Getting to his feet once more, Winn stepped out into the corridor. “Who is the most senior footman here?”
“I am, my lord,” one of the men said. “I’ve been here for seven years.”
Winn nodded. “And your experience prior?”
“I worked in my father’s shop.”
“You can read?” Winn asked.
“Aye, my lord. Read, write and do sums,” the man said proudly.
“Your name?”
“John, my lord.”
“Your last name, John,” Winn said and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“It’s Foster, my lord.”
“Well, John Foster, you’ve been promoted to butler, temporarily of course. I’ll send round to one of my estates to have someone sent up who can show you the butlerly ropes, so to speak, and we’ll progress from there. I don’t suppose you have any female relatives who are qualified to be a housekeeper, do you?”
“My aunt,