Page 38 of The Governess and the Rogue

“To be a governess?” She flashed him an incredulous glance. “Are you in jest?”

“I’m in earnest.”

She huffed. “You must never have known any governesses.”

It was a fair point.

Jack hadn’t known any. Not intimately.

“My little sister had a governess. Miss Cray, her name was. A nervous little woman. She drank, I believe. But,” he added, “that was my sister’s doing.”

Bea’s hand froze midway to laying down a card. “Your sister induced her to drink?”

“My sister’s behavior induced her to drink.” Jack’s mouth curled at the memory of all the shocking scrapes Kate had embroiled herself in over the years. “Kate was a hellion. She’d try the patience of a saint. My parents were at pains to constrain her behavior.”

Bea played her card. “Did they succeed?”

“Lord no. Thankfully, Kate found someone she wished to marry. She’s his problem now.”

“And what of Miss Cray?”

“Pensioned off to a cottage on one of our estates,” Jack said.

A strange expression crossed Bea’s face. “That was extraordinarily kind of your family.”

Jack shrugged, returning his attention to his cards. What could he say? That his father had once been something of a servant himself? An alleged bastard, raised as a stable boy on Jack’s mother’s childhood estate?

It was a family scandal, rumors of which had still been plaguing the Beresfords at the time Jack joined the army. Not at all the sort of thing a chap should be sharing with a stranger. Even if that stranger was his fake fiancée.

“We Beresfords aren’t typically top lofty sorts,” he said instead. “Not unless we have to be.”

“Does anyone have to be?” Bea wondered.

“Arrogance has its uses. One never knows when one might have to deliver an edict.” Jack paused. “By the by, I’ll be joining you on your midnight rambles this evening.”

Bea cast him another glance over the top of her cards. There was a look in her eyes that was difficult to read.

Jack’s stomach tensed. “I trust you don’t object?”

“On the contrary,” she said at last. “I should be glad of your company.”

Chapter Thirteen

Later that night . . .

Jack grimaced as Maberly massaged salve into Jack’s injured leg. It was all part of the treatment the surgeon in Cairo had prescribed—medicated salve, massage, and applications of ice and heat, to be administered first thing in the morning and before retiring at night. Maberly had learned the basics of it before Jack had been discharged from the hospital in Cairo. Still…

“Must you be so bloody rough?” Jack asked crossly. “You’re not tenderizing a piece of mutton for the table.”

Maberly made no reply, but his fingers kneaded Jack’s spasmed muscles with a fraction less pressure. A lantern hung behind him, illuminating the periphery of the cabin, but leaving the rest in shadows.

It was nearly eleven o’clock. Almost time for Jack to meet Bea above deck for their promised rendezvous in the moonlight.

But practical matters must inevitably come first.

Jack leaned back in his berth, closing his eyes rather than witness his batman’s medical ministrations. All things considered, he preferred not to look at his leg. Whenever he did, it never failed to lower his spirits. And he wanted his spirits up tonight when he met Bea on the deck.

“You’re awfully silent this evening,” he remarked to Maberly. “Am I meant to take it as censure?”