There was something about the way she said that with such a scandalized shudder that made him think that he was missing some vital piece of information. “Has Norbert done worse than howl today, Lady Flatman?” Because if Simpkins had fed him chicken again, or worse, let him near a pie man, Harry would not be responsible for his actions. Just in case, he scanned the pavement for the foul evidence until Lady Flatman jabbed him in the arm with her finger.
Hard.
“I am not talking about your disgusting dog.” She was bristling now, her face contorted in a scowl so fierce it would curdle milk. “For it is you that I find moredisgusting!”
“Me?” Harry looked around again, although Lord only knew what for. “What have I done?” Apart from go to the Admiralty before the cock crowed, work until he was cross-eyed on nonsense not of his making, and return home exhausted. His day had been so full, he hadn’t even had time for any luncheon. He was pretty certain a man in his prime wasn’t meant to survive on two hasty slices oftoast in the small hours any more than he could with just five hours of sleep. Thanks to tiredness and hunger, he could barely spell his own name.
For one futile moment, he hoped that he was hallucinating this entire conversation until Lady Flatman prodded him again.
“Have you noshame, Captain? I know that morals are lax in the navy and that a sailor has a girl in every port—” She dropped her voice to a hissed whisper. “But moving yourfancy womaninto your house, here in the genteel environs of Hanover Square, while decent families reside all around you, is beyond the pale!”
“I can assure you that I do not have a fancy woman, Lady Flatman!” The very chance would be a fine thing when he barely had the time nowadays to sleep in his bed, let alone have some recreation in it beforehand.
“I saw her!” His pious neighbor looked at him down her crooked nose as if he were the steaming mess Norbert had left on her doorstep. She pointed to the severe slate gray bun on top of her head. “Red hair and…” She flapped her hand in the vicinity of her bosoms, which sat significantly lower than the pert pair owned by the flame-haired vixen she was complaining about. “Let’s just say she looks the sort who would tempt.”
Harry didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or be affronted by the suggestion. He picked affronted purely because he thought it was the one his neighbor would find more acceptable. He figured it was better that she witness his outrage than to acknowledge his woeful lack of any whiff of a fancy woman or to admit that, for all her faults, there was no denying that his new governess was exactly the sort who tempted—damn her. The hair and bosoms alone were enough to turn his head. Add in the finer-than-fine green eyes, the tart, sultry mouth, and all that alabaster skin, and she was practically a siren. Thankgoodness she had an objectionable personality and was atrocious at her job, as every idiot knew that sailors and sirens did not mix—as his last disastrous dalliance with a siren was testament. Elizabeth, Lord bless her treacherous soul, had quite put him off sirens for life.
“Miss Rowe is not my fancy woman, Lady Flatman, and I resent the implication both on her behalf and mine!” Sometimes a man had to stand up and be counted rather than nod—even if that meant locking horns futilely with the perennially outraged Lady bloody Flatman! “Miss Rowe is the governess I have hired to look after my nieces and nephew in my sister’s absence!” In case that wasn’t rebuttal enough, he felt compelled to elaborate. “And she is not just any old governess, Lady Flatman, she is one of the best. From Miss Prentice’s School for Young Ladies, no less, hired at immense cost because she was trained as one of thecrème de la crèmeand with a string of impeccable references to prove it!”
None of which he had seen, nor would he believe after the shambles he had witnessed in her classroom yesterday, but still!
“So the shame is on you, Lady Flatman, for casting such egregious aspersions on her fine character and, I feel aggrieved to add, on mine!” It felt good to expel some of his pent-up anger at his objectionable and holier-than-thou neighbor. Pointless, of course, in the grand scheme of things, as it would only make the woman hate him more, but cathartic. It also couldn’t hurt to vocalize his vehement denial of any attraction he might harbor for the flame-haired, Confucius-quoting temptress, because he absolutely would not succumb to it.
Only an idiot stuck his hand in the fire twice.
“Shame. On.YOU!” He gathered up his horse’s reins and looked down his own nose in disgust as he stomped off toward his own front door while fresh but righteous anger bubbled in his gut.
Fancy woman!
As if he had any free hours left in his week to enjoy one! The last time he had spent time alone with a woman in the altogether had been…
He searched his mind.
Well… he almost had a passionate affair with a lusty Scottish widow when he had visited the Glasgow shipyard last autumn.
Or at least he assumed it would have been a passionate affair if it had got that far. The clandestine kiss he had enjoyed with her in an alcove at the Officers’ Ball had certainly felt promising until a crisis involving a shortfall of rigging had called him back to London. Which meant…
Good grief!
Could things really be more depressing? Was it really last summer that he had last taken a tumble between a willing woman’s sheets? That was almost a year! Or had it been last spring—in which case, it was over a year, and somehow, that depressed him further.
And more importantly, surely it wasn’t natural for a man in his prime to go without that for so long? No wonder his mood was so low and he had lost all the spring in his step. He had been blaming being overloaded with work at the Admiralty for his unsettling dissatisfaction with his life when his lack of a very different sort ofsatisfactionundoubtedly had a hand in it! It probably explained why he had experienced such a visceral and inappropriate jolt of lust for his useless governess yesterday too.
Instantly, his melancholy was replaced by relief, because it wasn’t natural!
It wasn’t natural at all—thank goodness! But it was easily fixed.
Which also meant that Miss Rowe wasn’t special in any way at all. Harry did not need to worry about having his head turned againby a dangerous siren because history was not about to repeat itself. His overwhelming reaction to her yesterday hadn’t been so much her as the fact that she wasfemale.
A man in his prime wasn’t designed to go without for so long and despite all of Flora’s constant nagging that at thirty it was long past time that he stopped sowing his wild bachelor oats, got back in the saddle, and found himself a wife, she had a point. While he was a good decade away from being a high enough rank to consider marriage, the real problem was that since his promotion to the Admiralty, he had woefully neglected sowing any wild bachelor oats at all!
His field of oats was barren!
He had some serious catching up to do.
But where the blazes was he supposed to find the time when the blasted Admiralty and the bloodyBoadiceacurrently took all of it?
He pondered that new worry while the groom relieved him of his horse and Simpkins relieved him of his coat, then banished it to add it to his list of things to do. Right now, he had a bigger problem to contend with. He jerked his head toward her classroom. “Dare I ask how today went, Simpkins?”
