Bertie didn’t answer. She knew she could have climbed the ladder, as the children had, but she’d decided that swinging up like an acrobat would better catch their attention.
She was right. Both Cat and Andrew were staring at her, round-eyed, by the time Bertie reached the top board and walked fearlessly down its narrow length toward them.
Bertie sat down next to Andrew with a thump, swinging her legs over the side as he did. She made a show of gazing around her. “Ooh, lovely. Quite a view from up here, innit?”
She could see down the short length of the street and then out across Hyde Park, down to the Row and the houses of Knightsbridge beyond.
“There’s the Serpentine,” Bertie pointed out. “See?”
Andrew climbed to his feet for a better view. He braced himself on an iron pole, leaning out alarmingly far. Caitriona silently seized the back of his jacket, holding him steady.
Cat had come up here to make sure Andrew didn’t fall, Bertie realized. Cat pretended to be sullen, but a truly sullen girl would have walked away or stood below, bored, until her brother was either rescued or had fallen to his death.
“Let’s go boating on the Serpentine!” Andrew shouted.
“Sounds a treat,” Bertie said. She’d never been boating on the Serpentine but she’d watched others do it while she stood by, envious.
“You’re not going boating,” the governess called up. “You’ll be going back to your studies, Master Andrew, so you can grow up to be a fine barrister, like your father.”
Mentioning studies was not the best way to entice a boy home, Bertie thought. Andrew clutched the pole.
“I’m not going to be a barrister,” he shouted down. “I’m going to be a ghillie, like Macaulay, and hunt game. Or a soldier, like Uncle Steven, and shoot enemies.” He raised an imaginary rifle and made explosive noises as he potted his target, human or animal.
“You come down here at once!” The governess had returned to commanding.
“Might be too cold for boating,” Bertie said conversationally. “But maybe not for tea. Do you have tea in the mornings? I bet you have truly wonderful teas, with cakes and buns, with lots of butter and jam.”
“No,” Cat said without inflection. “Miss Evans makes us take our tea very weak, with no milk or sugar, and only a bit of plain bread, no jam or even butter.”
“Oh.” No wonder the kids had run away from Miss Evans. She sounded a right tightfisted old biddy. “Well, I’ve got a few coins in me pocket,” Bertie said. “How about tea at a shop?”
Both children stared at her, Andrew with his arm around the pole. “We’ve never been to tea in a shop,” Andrew said. He looked wistful a moment, before his disarming grin returned. “Can it be a great, big tea?”
“As much as you want.” Bertie wasn’t sure exactly how much it cost to have tea and cakes in a shop in Mayfair, but surely she had enough left for it. She’d planned to have her tea or luncheon out today, like a fine young lady, before heading home to be plain old Bertie again.
“We’ll come then,” Andrew said, mind made up. “What’s your name?”
“It’s Bertie.”
Andrew laughed. “That’s a boy’s name.”
Caitriona answered for her. “Her name is Roberta, but her mates call her Bertie,” she said, proud of the knowledge.
“I can be your mate,” Andrew said eagerly to Bertie. “So I’ll call you Bertie too.” He stuck out a grubby hand. “I’m Andrew McBride. This is my sister, Cat.”
“Caitriona,” Cat said.
Bertie shook Andrew’s hand. “Nice to meet ya.”
“Come on,” Andrew said. “I want lots of cake.”
Bertie barely stopped him from swinging onto the scaffolding below him and climbing down the way he’d come up. There was an easier way down at the ends of the boards, where the scaffolding crisscrossed like a ladder. Bertie led the children that way and climbed down ahead of them. She halted at each level and hung on to Andrew and Cat in turn as they climbed after her, not letting them go on until they’d steadied themselves. At last they reached the lowest board, six feet above the street, with the ladder leaning against it.
Andrew and Cat climbed down the ladder, but Bertie held on to the pole she’d used to scramble up and swung out and to the ground. Her landing was a bit harder than she’d have liked, but she pasted on a smile, shook out her aching feet, and held out her hands to the children.
“We’re going to have tea and cakes,” Bertie said to Miss Evans, whose face was nearly purple, her hat still hanging over one ear. “Where’s the closest shop?”
Miss Evans’s mouth puckered up, as though she had something nasty trapped inside her. If she didn’t let it out, she might burst. “Tea and cakes?” she repeated in a frosty tone.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Bertie said. The woman ought to show some gratitude. After all, Bertie had succeeded in coaxing the two children off the scaffolding, making sure they didn’t break their necks along the way.
Miss Evans sniffed and righted her hat. “Mind you get them back before their father returns home, or he’ll summon the police. They live at 22 Upper Brook Street. Good day.”
Bertie’s eyes widened. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“To my agency, to tell them to strike Mr. Sinclair McBride off their books forever. Thirty-one years I’ve been a governess, with some of the best families in England. But they are not children.” She pointed at Andrew with a long, black-gloved finger. “They’re fiends. I’ll not stay another day in that house. Mark my words, young woman, you’ll be running for your life. But take them back home first so you don’t swing for losing the children of a Queen’s Counsel.”