Page 1 of The Governess and the Rogue

Chapter One

P.O. Steamer “Pera”

Alexandria to Marseilles

March 1858

Beatrice Layton crossed the moonlit deck of the ship, her cheek still burning from the stinging slap she’d received. She’d be fortunate if it didn’t leave a bruise. And if it did, she thought bitterly, she’d have no one but herself to blame.

Everyone from Calcutta to Bombay had warned her not to take a position as governess with the deplorable Dimsdale family. The parents were well-known tyrants, and their four children even worse. Bea had observed the little villains often over the years, shouting at their mother, striking their native bearers, and driving off one ayah, nanny, and governess after another.

When the time had at last come for the Dimsdales to quit India, there had been no one left for them to hire to look after their beastly brood on the months-long voyage home. No servant desperate enough—or stupid enough—to take them on.

Not until Bea.

Drawing her thin, knitted shawl tighter about her arms, she walked to the ship’s railing just as she did every night after dark, preparing to make her obligatory wish on the evening star. It was a longstanding ritual, taught to her by her late mother. One practiced whether Bea was at home or abroad, on land or over water. She was loath to abandon it.

Not that it ever worked.

Bea had wished for countless things in the past two decades and none of those wishes had come true. That she persisted owed more to honoring her mother’s memory than it did to any intrinsic faith of her own. The late Sybil Layton had believed in stars and wishes and all manner of lovely romantic things. As a girl, Bea had believed in them too.

But she was no longer a child of six. She was a woman of six and twenty, alone in the world, with only herself to depend upon. Harsh reality had long ago leached the romanticism from her soul. She’d been forced to be practical. To see things as they were, rather than wishing for some star-sent miracle to change them.

Nevertheless…

Some childhood habits were excessively hard to break.

She approached the rail of the ship, searching the sky. There was a full moon tonight. It shone as bright as a naphtha lamp, shimmering in concert with an abundance of twinkling stars. Their light was reflected in the sea below—an endless expanse of softly rippling black water that stretched, unbroken, toward the horizon.

It had been two days since Bea had seen land. And it would be many more until she saw it again.

Endless days, and every one of them a trial. And for what? For the price of passage back to England? To a country where she had no friends or family to welcome her? Where the best she could hope for was a chance to find another position?

Her shoulders slumped. She leaned against the rail, feeling the uncharacteristic prickle of tears at the back of her eyes. In moments like this, she wondered why she kept going. But she had little choice. It was either persevere in her present position, or⁠—

A deep, masculine voice sounded behind her. “You’re not thinking of jumping, are you?”

Bea’s heart leapt in alarm. Spinning around with a start, she came face to face with a gentleman she’d never seen before.

But not a gentleman. A soldier.

He was unshaven, clad in an old wool cavalry coat and trousers, and balancing some of his weight on the cane in his right hand. It was that which first caught her attention. The rest of him came second—the broad shoulders, tousled golden hair, and weary ice-gray eyes that glinted with a trace of wry humor.

Her mouth went dry. “I beg your pardon?”

“I wouldn’t advise it,” he said. “We’d both end up drowning.”

Bea took an unconscious step backward. The ship’s rail pressed against her back. “We?”

“I’d have to leap in after you, wouldn’t I?” he said. “That’s what heroes do.” His mouth quirked briefly. “Or so I’ve been told.”

Her pulse accelerated as he came to stand beside her at the rail. He was a full head taller than she was and smelled, very faintly, of bay rum.

She hadn’t been personally introduced to everyone on the ship, but after the land portion of the journey from Suez to Alexandria, she knew them well enough by sight. And this man—this rogue—wasn’t among the passengers she’d seen.

He must have boarded at the docks in Alexandria, else she would have noticed him. He was the sort of man a woman would notice, even if she didn’t have a mind to.

“You should know,” he said, casting a glance out at the water. “It’s not as calm as it looks from this distance. And it’s cold. If you must throw yourself over the side, I’d advise you wait until we’re nearer to Greece.”