“I told you, yes, until a new governess can be sorted out. Wages and board, and an allowance for clothes.” Her worn frock would have to go—she’d have to look the part. Mrs. Hill would throw a fit, but then she’d rise to the occasion, as she always did. Macaulay, a thoroughly egalitarian man, would shrug and nod, seeing nothing wrong with an East End working-class girl taking care of the McBride children, as long as she could do it.
“Clothes.” Bertie looked down at the wool dress, the skirt stained with mud from London streets and rent in several places, including her backside, as though she’d sat on something rough. “What sort of clothes?”
“Ones that don’t look as though you’ve been wrestling dogs in them.”
Her smile beamed out like bright sunshine. “I haven’t been wrestling dogs. Only your kids.”
Did Sinclair want to know what had caused Miss Evans, a haughty woman, to run off and leave Andrew and Cat with Bertie? Or was it best that the adventure never came to his ears?
He made himself step out of the way of the door. “Mrs. Hill, my housekeeper, will sort you out. You’ll take breakfast in the nursery. The governess’s bedroom is next to it.”
Right above this one, in fact. Bertie looked at the ceiling, already knowing that. Sinclair would be in this study all night, poring over the briefs, knowing that right above his head she was lying in bed, stripped to her smalls, her face flushed with sleep. His hands clenched to hard fists.
“You can go now,” he said sternly.
She sent him a narrow look. “You say every different sort of thing at once, don’t you? You want me to stay? Or leave?”
“Stay. But not in here.”
Bertie looked around the room, taking in the wreck of the desk, the overflowing bookcases, books piled on the desk and the floor, and now the smashed whiskey glass and amber stain on the carpet. “You have a passel of servants downstairs—don’t they clean up the place for you?”
“No. That is, yes. They’re not allowed to touch anything in here. I might mislay something crucial.”
Bertie moved toward the desk, her curiosity apparent. “Some note that tells you a maid with blood on her apron ain’t a cold-blooded killer? Amazing how you twigged Jacko did it.”
“Wasn’t much to it. I’ve learned to recognize the differences between a violent criminal and an innocent woman.”
“Still, it was a bloody miracle, and I thank you for it.” Bertie reached to straighten a paper that had come out of one of the briefs, and Sinclair realized it was the anonymous letter.
He caught her wrist. “Don’t touch anything.”
He found warm, firm flesh beneath her sleeve. Bertie glanced at his hand, then up at his face, her eyes holding wariness but also a softness that called to him. “It’s all right,” she said, her voice quiet, as though she calmed a frightened animal. “I wouldn’t hurt nothing.”
Sinclair grunted. What the sound was doing in his throat, he didn’t know, but it came out. “Go to bed.”
“Will, as soon as you turn me loose.”
Sinclair told his fingers to release her, but instead, he pulled her closer, bending her arm until her wrist and his hand were just below her chin. “If I find out you’ve been playing me,” he said, trying to sound severe, “if you’ve come to take what you want, I won’t stop until the weight of the law comes down on you.”
The most hardened villains the Scots Machine said that to cringed and mumbled that they’d behave, promise. Bertie only sent him another grin.
“Wouldn’t be hospitable, would it? I’m not a robber, Mr. McBride. Not anymore. The watch was a one-off, and I was put up to it.”
Bertie spoke with sincerity, innocence in her eyes, but Sinclair knew better than to let down his guard and trust her. If she could keep Cat and Andrew amused for a day or so while he tracked down yet another governess, well and good. The moment she wasn’t useful anymore, she’d be gone.
Sinclair abruptly released her. “Upstairs with ye then.” His throat dried out as he said the words, and he ended on a cough.
Bertie laughed. Sparkles and sunshine was that laughter. She spun around and walked away from him, heading for the door. Relief.
Before opening the door, however, she turned and came back to him. God, no. Stay away from me. Sinclair was so hard he knew he’d never sleep—maybe not for days.
Bertie’s smile was wide as she held out a handkerchief to him—his, damn it. Plus two loose coins he’d had in his frock coat’s outer pocket.
“You’re too easy a mark,” she said. “I’ll have to teach you better.”
Bertie pressed the handkerchief and coins into his big hand while he stood, stunned. Then she turned around again, her skirts swishing, and headed out the door. The swinging skirts let him see ankles in lace-up boots and a hint of pale stocking before the skirt fell again, and she was out the door. Gone.
All the air in the room seemed to leave with her.
Mr. McBride went off to work the next morning while Bertie took breakfast with the little ones in the nursery and told them the news that she was to be their governess for a little while. Andrew rejoiced loudly until Bertie had to remind him to sit down and eat the breakfast the maid had brought up on a tray.
Fancy that, maids carrying hot, tasty breakfasts to the likes of Bertie Frasier. The maid had flashed her a sideways glance, clearly wondering at her master’s senses, but she was polite as could be as she set down the tray, and friendly with Cat and Andrew.