The Governess Game (Girl Meets Duke #2)(26)

And whether Chase Reynaud wished it or not, Alexandra would make certain they received it. She would not participate in transforming them into well-mannered, empty-headed, docile young ladies who wouldn’t cause him any trouble.

She’d help them become women who couldn’t be ignored.

“Well, Rosamund?”

After a pause, Rosamund set aside her book. “Very well.”

Alexandra suppressed a triumphant grin. The girl was humoring her, and probably out of sheer boredom, but it was a start. “Then we have a great deal to do. To start, we’ll have to rig our ship.” She went to the window and yanked the curtain from its rod. Not precisely sturdy canvas, but for their purposes, it would make an adequate sail. She looked at Rosamund. “Do you know where we might find a coil of rope?”





Chapter Eleven


“Lie back on the bed for me.”

From his seat on the edge of the mattress, Barrow regarded him. “That is not in the terms of my employment.”

“Just do it, will you?”

Barrow complied. “Mind, I am only doing this because it’s five o’clock, and I value being on time for dinner more than I value my pride.”

“No, no. Not like that. On your side, facing me. Prop yourself on one elbow and rest your head on your hand.”

“Are you going to draw me like one of your French girls?”

“And keep your boots off the mattress. It’s new. Finest quality a shameless rake can buy.”

Barrow rolled his eyes.

“Now.” Chase lifted a gilt-framed mirror and positioned it on the wall opposite the bed. “Tell me, can you see yourself?”

“Partly.”

“Which parts? The good parts?”

“That’s it.” Barrow rolled to a sitting position. “I’m done.”

“Come along, man. I can’t do this by myself.”

“Well, I can’t run the Belvoir estate by myself. You’re the one with power of attorney.” He sighed and gave in. “A few inches to the left. Now up. A bit more. No, no. That’s too much.”

Chase strained under the weight of the mirror. “Hurry up, would you?”

“Tilt it forward a smidgen . . . There.”

“Took you long enough.” Chase drew a nub of chalk from his pocket and marked off the corner. Then he set the mirror down with a groan of relief.

“Now,” Barrow said, “we need to discuss the land steward at Belvoir Manor. He might be a wizard with crop rotation, but he can’t write a report worth sheep dung. You need to pay him a visit yourself and sort matters.”

Chase checked his marks with a level, then hammered two hooks into the wall. “We have a hundred other matters needing attention. The planting’s done for the summer anyhow.”

“In point of fact, the planting was not yet done when I first raised the subject. In February. You’ve been avoiding the discussion for months.”

“I have not been avoiding the discussion.” He hefted the mirror again, hanging it on the hooks. “I’ve been avoiding my uncle.”

“The duke’s too ill. He won’t even know you’re there.”

“He’ll know I’m there,” Chase said softly. “He always knows I’m there.”

Eager to change the subject, he turned and propped his hands on his hips, surveying his handiwork. The Cave of Carnality was finally complete. Now it could start living up to its name.

“Very well,” he told Barrow. “I’ll make the journey to Belvoir soon.”

“Excellent. I will pin a date to that promise, I hope you realize.” Barrow rose from the bed, reached for his hat, and headed for the door. “But it will wait for tomorrow. I’m late getting home as it is.”

“Give Elinor a kiss for me.”

“The hell I will,” Barrow said, shutting the door behind him. “Find your own wife.”

That wouldn’t be happening. But a little matrimony had never stood between him and a kiss.

God, that stupid kiss. Days ago now, and he remembered the taste of Alexandra as clearly as he recalled his own name. Fresh and sweet. Like cool water straight from a mountain stream.

Enough.

He left the retreat through the kitchen, locking the door after him, and mounted the stairs to his bedchamber, intending to change for the evening.

He hadn’t even reached the first landing when a piercing cry pulled him to a halt midstep. It was followed by a blood-chilling scream. Not a girlish scream, but a womanly one—coming from the direction of the nursery.

Alexandra.

He jogged up the remaining flights of stairs, pausing on the third landing for breath. The silence was ominous.

Dear God, they’d killed her.

He took the last flight of stairs at a sprint, rushed down the corridor, and flung open the door to the nursery, steeling himself for the sight of her bloodless corpse splayed on the floor.

The scene that greeted him, however, was anything but lifeless.

“Ready the cannon.”

They took no notice of his entrance. Chase used the following moments to survey the nursery. At least, it had been a nursery. He wasn’t certain what it had become since Millicent’s funeral early that morning.

The girls’ beds had been pushed side by side, with a gap of merely a few feet between them. The curtains had been removed from the windows and strung from the bedposts. Standing amid it all, Daisy squinted into a spyglass fashioned from a discarded paper cone, and Rosamund brandished a crescent-shaped object that resembled nothing so much as a cutlass.