in the hall and the servants who ran willy-nilly in hysterics, his gaze was glued to the dirty, bedraggled and yet shockingly well-behaved children seated in a circle at the feet of a woman who could only be an angel. Her nut brown hair was swept back into a low chignon, her simple morning dress of a rather faded lavender hugged a lush and generous figure that reminded him very keenly that his own needs had been ignored since his brother’s children had been unceremoniously deposited in his care. Her features were soft and pretty, her eyes framed by long lashes, and her lips were a perfect bow, the bottom lip turning out ever so slightly in a soft, provocative and perpetual pout. In short, she was the least governess-like governess he’d ever seen. Excepting, of course, the one who’d just fled his house with his butler and a large quantity of the silver.
“You are Miss St. James, I presume,” he said, peeling off his dirty gloves and tossing them into his hat before placing both on a side table. He needed a moment to compose his thoughts.
She rose to her feet. “Indeed, my lord. I am Miss St. James.”
Defaulting to caustic humor to mask the rather surprising effect the girl was having on him, Winn said, “I apologize for the disorder of my house. I have not yet replaced my housekeeper—whom these three ran off last week and my butler, just this morning, eloped with their former worthless governess. You haven’t by chance taken a fancy to one of the footmen, the stable lads, or the chimney sweep, have you, Miss St. James? Frankly, another elopement will bring this house down around my ears.”
Her lips quirked but she did not smile. “I have not met the footmen, nor the stable lads, and charming as chimney sweeps can be, I feel that I am safe in saying that my marital prospects and aspirations are all equally absent at the moment.”
“Good, good,” he said. Then he turned his gaze toward the three children who sat like dirty-faced cherubs at her feet. She was like a snake charmer he’d seen once in India. “The three of you, get your coats, go into the garden. Do not go beyond the garden. Do not invite any passersby into the garden and do not come back into the house until you have been fetched by a maid. While you are in the garden, do not climb anything in it that would require you to go higher from the ground than the top of your own head when standing flat-footed next to it. Is that clear?”
All three of them nodded and shuffled out and, no doubt, all three of them would disobey. More hedonistic, obstinate and willful creatures he had never encountered. And yet he loved them so fiercely it made his chest ache. He hadn’t even known them until a little more than a month ago. His brother and sister-in-law had been sailing back from Spain with them when they’d all taken a fever aboard ship. The children, miraculously, had survived. Most of the adults on board had perished. The captain of the ship, one of the survivors who had been hastily promoted from the ranks, had delivered them to his doorstep per his brother’s dying instructions. What had occurred in their young lives prior to the deaths of their parents was really anyone’s guess. His brother had never been the most responsible of men, he’d also certainly never been the most faithful of men. And while Winn had no proof of it, and there was no one left alive he could ask, he strongly suspected that his brother hadn’t planned to stay in England with his wife and children. Rather, he’d thought to foist them off on family and go on his merry way. It seemed the most likely of scenarios.
“You are rather deep in thought, my lord,” the would-be governess mused, drawing him from his reverie. She was reaching for her discarded pelisse, clearly intent on escaping his unfortunate version of Bedlam.
“Contemplating what manner of mayhem they shall wreak next,” he answered and crossed the room to the chair opposite hers. “Please sit, Miss St. James, so that I may as well. I’ve never been more tired in my life.”
She paused, pelisse in hand, as if weighing her options. Finally, after a lengthy pause, she replaced it and faced him, then seated herself once more. “I assume you have been in pursuit of