Rules for a Proper Governess

Sinclair approached Caitriona and reached for her hand. “I miss her too, Cat.”

Caitriona pulled back from him. “I want Bertie.”

Sinclair’s chest rose with a hard breath and the hand that he’d held out to her clenched. For another frozen moment, no one in the hall moved.

Then Sinclair turned stiffly toward the stairs, not looking at either of them. “Bertie, get her to bed,” he said in a hard voice, and he started down, his footsteps heavy in the silence. Bertie and Cat heard him open the door to his study; then the slamming of it echoed up and down the stairwell.

Bertie swallowed, her throat hurting. She made herself push away from the wall and go to Cat. “Come, sweetheart,” she said, holding out her hand.

Bertie took Caitriona back to her bed and tucked her in. Cat reached for Bertie as she made to turn away, and something in the child’s eyes made Bertie stop. This little girl, since Bertie’s arrival, had shown almost no emotions at all—the opposite of Andrew, who could change moods in a flash. Cat only watched everyone else, as though she waited for something, maybe had done so for so long that she’d forgotten what she waited for.

Right now, though, Cat’s eyes held fear. Whatever the dream had been, she didn’t say, but it was clear she didn’t want Bertie to go.

Bertie gave her a smile, unwound herself from Caitriona’s grip to pull the armchair to the bed, and reached for the mending basket.

Bertie’s hands shook as she started again with the needle, the fingers that Sinclair had taken into his mouth burning like bands of fire.

“Bertie.” The word came out cracked, and Sinclair cleared his throat. “Miss Frasier.”

Bertie stood in front of Sinclair’s desk in his study the next morning, her heart thumping. Sinclair was on his feet on the other side of it. He’d barely glanced up at her from the papers he was reading, or tidying, or whatever he was doing when she came in, and now she waited, her chest tight, for him to continue.

The desk was a solid barrier between them, like Hadrian’s Wall, built to keep ancient Scots—Sinclair’s ancestors—from overrunning England. At least, that’s what the book Bertie had been reading to Andrew and Cat said Hadrian’s Wall was about. Sinclair wasn’t coming out from behind it, and the desk blocked her way to him.

Bertie’s head ached, almost as much as her heart did. Her left hand was stiff, because she’d clenched it in her sleep. Once Cat had been sleeping deeply, not moving in dreams, Bertie had gone to bed, only to lie awake herself. Whenever she did drop off, she dreamed of Sinclair’s mouth on her fingers, the warm firmness of his lips, the heat of his tongue. When she woke this morning, she found her hand curled into her palm so hard she’d had to pry it open and rub away the stiffness.

Bertie had emerged from her bedroom, dressed but sandy-eyed, only to be told by Aoife that Mr. McBride wanted a word.

“Did ya want to say something to me?” Bertie asked, not bothering to smooth her speech. Mrs. Hill had been teaching her to talk more properly, but Bertie was in no mood to try this morning. “Aoife said you wanted a dickey bird.”

“I do.” Sinclair finally looked at her. He had a pen in his hand, but he held it so tightly it might snap in two any moment. “Miss Frasier. My children are fond of you, but I will understand if you would like to go.”

Chapter 9

“Go?” Bertie asked in sudden panic. The world seemed to drop out from beneath her feet. “Go where?”

Sinclair’s eyes flickered, the warmth that had filled them last night gone. “I mean resign. Give notice. Take yourself elsewhere.”

Bertie took a step toward the desk. “Ya want me to leave?”

Sinclair studied her for a long time, the mouth that had felt so sinful on his finger tightening. “I’d have thought you would want to go.”

“Why?” The word burst out before she could stop it. Bertie’s throat was dry, not helping her aching head. “Because I twitted you about your lady, and then threw myself at you?”

The pen fell. Sinclair’s fists balled, then he opened them, as though he’d had to force himself to, and cleared his throat again. “No, because I behaved . . . improperly toward you.”

Bertie’s eyes widened. Improperly? He thought he’d been improper? That was a laugh. “You were much more improper with the widow.”

A crease appeared between his brows. Why did he not leap around the desk and start shouting at her, instead of holding it in until he cracked? His large body, trapped under layers of his pristine suit, swayed a little, as though he kept himself in place with great effort. “Miss Frasier . . .”

So formal. No longer Bertie, but Miss Frasier, as though she truly were the governess. “Really,” she said. “What you did with me—it weren’t nothing.”

“It wasn’t nothing, that’s the point.” His voice grew a little louder.

“Eh?” Bertie stared at him until his meaning trickled through her numb brain. “No, what I mean to say is . . . I didn’t mind.”

The crease between his brows deepened. “But you should mind.”

“Well, I didn’t, and maybe you think that means I’m a tart, like I said that widow was, but—” Bertie cut off her words with effort, no idea why she was babbling. “You didn’t do nothing—anything—wrong. Didn’t even kiss me.” But the way Sinclair had suckled her fingers, the way he’d leaned into her, had been stronger than kissing. The encounter had been about bodily passion, a desire she’d never known. She wanted to know it again, and more.