“Noted,” said Miss Rowe, not noting anything down at all. “One and five. Sharp.”
“You will find all the equipment you requested in those boxes.” The numbered stack lived out of the way in a corner to keep the deck clear. He pointed to the labels affixed to the sides of each, wondering what it was about her that made him all flustered when he hadn’t found much to like about her so far beyond her seductive appearance, and he certainly did not want to like her likethat!
“For convenience and expediency’s sake, I’ve listed what is inside of each.” He had modeled the inventory on a ship’s manifest, allalphabetical and complete with a grid to keep an accurate tally of what needed replacing when things inevitably perished. “That way you can count everything out and count it all back in again.” If the abacuses lasted a week in the clumsy hands of his sister’s offspring, it would be a blasted miracle.
Her gaze scanned his comprehensive tally but still gave nothing away, making Harry feel once again that he was the one being judged, exactly as he had in Miss Prentice’s study. Miss Rowe had watched him then like a specimen under a microscope. With open curiosity and yet still with complete and somewhat superior indifference. As if from that one meeting alone he had been weighed, measured, and found wanting.
It had been most unsettling at the time, and it still galled that he had handled that whole interview wrong. In his panic, mere hours after he had watched his blasted sister’s ship sail toward the horizon, too late to stop her, he had been so desperate to secure a governess to handle the mess Flora had left him with that he had allowed himself to be—frankly—bullied. As a result, instead of putting Miss Rowe through her paces to ensure she was the right candidate for the job, it had been he who had to jump through hoops. Leaving him now in two minds as to whether he had been either blindsided or hoodwinked.
Aside from all Miss Prentice’s gushing claims about herindispensableprotégé, which he had no way of substantiating because he had been too befuddled by that meeting to insist upon further references, Harry knew nothing about the woman beside him. Nothing beyond the fact that she was punctual—a definite point in her favor—barely reached his shoulders, was too damn attractive for her own good, and was as sparing with her words as she was with her praise.
“Does this all meet with your satisfaction, Miss Rowe?” He wasgoing to pry some acknowledgment for his efforts out of her distracting, pursed lips if it killed him.
“It is very ordered.” He could not read any reaction at all in her very green eyes as she ran her fingertip over the neat pile of new books lining the bookshelf. A bookshelf Harry had personally dragged in from his study at close to midnight last night so that she had somewhere to store everything neatly. “Almost military in its precision.”
Finally, she had noticed something he had done well! “I applied the same logic to this layout as I do on board a ship, Miss Rowe.”
“A place for everything and everything in its place.”
“Precisely.” He smiled and when she failed to smile back, felt compelled to defend the process of his sound logic further. “Chaos only wastes time.” Thanks to the unmitigated chaos of the last four days, he had wasted so much of it that it would likely take another week to just catch his tail. He had never been so behind in his work. For the children, it turned out, ate all his time for breakfast. And luncheon. And dinner. In fact, this ordered classroom had barely come about in the nick of time because it had taken him and Simpkins until close to one this morning to achieve, as it had been a particularly trying day.
The worst day of the four so far, and that was saying something when the previous three had been unbearable.
After a full day at the Admiralty, he had relieved a frazzled Simpkins of sentry duty as soon he had rushed home so that his second-in-command could have well-earned rest from herding the Pendleton brood, eat some dinner, and doubtless cry in a corner. Stupidly, Harry had thought it might be a good idea to take the lot of them out for a bracing walk to allow Norbert to do his business because the stubborn mutt refused to do it in the garden. Harry had hoped, fruitlessly it turned out, that the exercise would be all it took to getthe disorderly brood in the mood for bed. Two birds, as it were, and one stone.
In theory, it had been a sound plan.
In practice, it turned out, not so much. Largely because he had foolishly failed to factor in Norbert’s talent for sniffing out food or the brute strength he could unleash to get to it. Therefore, when the mutt’s sensitive nostrils had caught a whiff of the unsuspecting pie seller, he had almost yanked Harry’s arm out of its socket as he dragged him in hot pursuit of the pastries.
What had happened next was not an ordeal he was proud of, as he had been forced to purchase the dog three steak-and-kidney puddings before Norbert would release the pie man from the end of the alleyway he had pinned him to. Then had learned the hard way that it wasn’t just chicken that disagreed with the beast’s bowels.
In a place where bowels had no place—Norbert had used the only trees available to empty them—the two potted, miniature conifers flanking his imperious neighbor Lady Flatman’s pristine doorstep.
The mere memory of the incident made him shudder.
The memory of Lady Flatman’s understandably explosive reaction to the violation made him shudder some more before he remembered to paste a more appropriate expression back on his face.
Miss Rowe gave him an odd look but didn’t comment, thank goodness, sparing him from having to explain to her the depravity he had been forced to endure. Instead, she moved to the three identical pencil pots, frowning at the three rulers lined up together exactly one inch apart beside the similarly arranged compasses and notebooks.
“I see no sign of chaos here, Captain.” Somehow, she managed to ensure even that compliment sounded like an insult, making him wonder why she so obviously didn’t like him when he had bent overbackward to cater to her every whim. Then wonder why he cared about her opinions at all when he was the one paying her wages!
“Discipline is the soul of an army, Miss Rowe.” Was that Nelson or Wellington? He was so aggrieved he couldn’t remember.
“Perhaps so—but we must also be mindful that these are children andnotsoldiers.” Her smile was insincere. “But obviously I will bear your sentiments in mind.” Which he took as tantamount to her telling him he was an idiot because she knew better.
He considered countering, then decided against it. As Sun Tzu so sensibly said, the most prudent know when to fight and when not to fight, and he had more important things to do today than wasting time correcting his prickly new governess,
As Miss Rowe scrutinized the rest of his handiwork, he surreptitiously scrutinized her to see if he could gauge some more of her apparentsuperiormeasure. He had always, with just one notable exception, been a good judge of character. But so far, she baffled him. If she was the irreplaceable educational paragon Miss Prentice had promised, he saw no sign of it. However, her eyes, which were everywhere, hinted that she possessed an inquisitive and clever brain. The plain, sensible dress and unfussy bun suggested she was the sort to brook no nonsense, but she lacked the gravitas necessary, in his humble opinion, to enforce it.
If he, with all his years of experience managing men, could not make those children behave without pathetically resorting to bribery, he feared for her sanity. Toss her petiteness and the exuberant Norbert into the mix, and he feared for her safety too. For all her bold, direct stares when she did deign to speak to him, and all the subtle ways she found to look down her dainty, upturned nose at him, she still seemed ill-equipped to rise to the challenge his irrepressible family presented.
That cold dose of pragmatism forced him to reevaluate the situation at speed, as was his way, only this time that unique skill of identifying a problem long before it happened gave him no satisfaction. If he was right about her, the children would eat her alive and there wasn’t much he could do about it beyond watch them spit out the bones.
If he was lucky, he estimated he had a week before she quit and left screaming in surrender. Thanks to Miss Prentice’s clever manipulation of his dire situation, Harry had done something he hadn’t done in years. He had hired the wrong person to do the job. Miss Rowe was a mistake. A small, snooty, and costly one. But one he had no choice but to live with.
He could not dismiss her. Not yet at least. No matter what the grounds or provocation. Beggars could not be choosers and he was a desperate man, so no matter how ineffectual she proved to be or how unsuitable or unpleasant, he had to keep her for as long as he could.
However, as was also his way when he sensed storm clouds gathering, his problem-solving mind was already planning a contingency. He made a mental note to tell Simpkins to start sourcing her first replacement immediately. To line them up like cannon balls in readiness for the bloody, senseless conflict ahead. Forewarned was forearmed, after all, and poor Miss Rowe was destined to be the first of many who would fall before blasted Flora returned—that was the sad fact—so he would need to be nimble, resourceful, and think well ahead to mitigate for all the inconvenience. All the things he excelled at. Cold comfort after he had allowed himself such high hopes.
