Much time for what? “No, I’ll go,” Bertie said, at last withdrawing her hand from the duchess’s rather formidable grip. “I’ll know what to get. And if my dad’s there . . . well, it’s best if it’s me.”
Eleanor’s eyes narrowed. “Hmm. Well, I’ll send Franklin with you anyway. He’s a rather good boxer, though he’s such a slim young man. If you need him, you shout for him. But you’d best set off if you’re going, before . . . oh, dear. Too late.”
Franklin had darted out the front door. As it swung closed, Bertie heard a loud growl, and then a giant of a man shoved the door open again and walked inside. He stopped, greatcoat in hand, and looked around with a stare like an eagle’s. He had the most golden eyes Bertie had ever seen, which made him seem all the more eaglelike.
“Hello, my dear,” Eleanor said warmly. “This is Miss Bertie Frasier, new governess to Andrew and Caitriona. She’s going off to fetch her things, and I of course said she must ride in the coach—Franklin has gone for it. I take from the look on your face that your meeting did not go well, but fortunately there is plenty of whiskey upstairs and some nice cakes Cook made for you. Cat and Andrew are staying for tea, so do be kind, Hart, and don’t frighten anyone, at least for ten minutes.”
Throughout the rapid speech, the Duke of Kilmorgan simply stared at Bertie, pinning her in place as his wife had done. He was a handsome man, no doubt—with dark red hair, a strong face, a solid body, and fine clothes—but a frightening one.
Bertie decided she preferred Mr. McBride, with his sudden smiles and flashes of temper, his bearlike voice, and warmth in his gray eyes. One could be comfortable in Mr. McBride’s presence. Bask in it. With the duke, Bertie would have to be on her guard all the time. Not comfortable at all. And yet, Eleanor regarded him with vast fondness even as she babbled at him.
“Uncle Hart!” a voice screeched from above. “Catch me!”
The duke looked up in alarm as a missile dropped at him from the railing half a flight up. “What the devil do you think you’re doing?” the duke roared, even as he opened his arms and caught Andrew. Andrew, instead of being alarmed, threw his arms around the formidable man’s neck, and laughed.
Eleanor made shooing motions at Bertie. Franklin had popped back inside, stiff no longer, and waved at her to follow. Bertie cast a worried look at Andrew, but Eleanor shook her head, smiling, and kept flapping her hands, driving Bertie away.
Bertie fled. “Whew,” she said to Franklin as he opened the door of a black polished coach. “Are they always like that?”
Bertie was right about the reception of the duke’s coach in her father’s street. It was a fine carriage, right enough; a landau, with lovely horses and a coachman in a red coat and high hat to drive it.
Bertie had never lived anywhere so nice as the inside of that coach. The seats were leather, soft and supple, the walls polished wood, the curtains velvet, and there was carpet on the floor. It was warm too, with boxes of hot coals to keep her feet toasty.
She hated to leave the landau’s confines for the chill of the East End street, but Franklin, who’d ridden up top with the coachman, opened the door as soon as the carriage stopped in front of the lodgings where Bertie lived with her father. Every person on the street stopped to stare as Bertie hopped from the coach’s step to the door of the house, the footman handing her down like a posh lady.
“Won’t be a tick,” Bertie said to Franklin, pretending to ignore her neighbors, and went into the house’s dim interior.
“Where the devil have you been?”
The bellow came as soon as Bertie opened the door of their flat on the second floor. Gerald Frasier, Gerry to his mates, staggered into the front room, face stubbled with graying beard, his eyes bloodshot. Hung over, Bertie thought. And bad too. Just my luck.
“I’ve been working,” Bertie said. “Earning an honest living.” She ducked past her father before he could grab her and entered her own bedroom, which was sparsely furnished, but clean and neat. Bertie liked everything in its place.
“Working?” Gerry shouted as he came after her. “What’cha mean, working? You were with a man, weren’t you?”
“No,” Bertie said. The only way to deal with her father when he was like this was to be firm. “You know me better than that.” She opened the drawer of her bureau and withdrew clean underthings, which she tucked into a valise.
Her father came close to her, peering at her for signs that she’d spent the night in bed with a man. Gerry was always terrified Bertie would run off with a bloke—one he didn’t control. Or be taken by one of the full-in-pocket villains who commanded teams of young thieves and prostitutes around here. Her dad might be a drunken lout, but he didn’t want anyone touching his daughter.
The trouble was, Bertie wished she’d spent all night with a man—Sinclair McBride. Lying in her bed last night, knowing he was a floor under her at his desk, likely running his broad hand through his shorn hair while he read his papers, had kept her restless. She hadn’t been able to cease thinking about how he’d kissed her, or the fire in his gray eyes when he’d planted himself in front of the door of his study and challenged her.
Her father grunted. “What work were you about then?”