AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Tomes, you mean?”
“I know wot I said.”
“No time to waste,” wailed Chloe, flopping on the sofa next to Betty. “But which one of us should ask him?”
Two pairs of eyes lanced in Matilda’s direction. She peered behind. No one else there.
“Me? But… Mr Hawkins would be far more amenable to you, Chloe.”
A shake of the head, her young charge’s mouth crammed with biscuits, crumbs cascading, and Matilda debated whether she herself had the tenacity for this type of employment.
“Yer’ll have more chance of success, Miss Griffin,” Betty cooed. “It needs a governess’s stern touch. He’s in the Academy’s main room.” And she winked.
Winked?
“Well, maybe I’ll ask at dinner.”
“He’ll have made plans by then, Miss Griffin,” lamented Chloe.
“In that case, I shall attempt to find Mr Hawkins at luncheon.”
Shaking her head, Betty poured the slopped tea from saucer to cup. “He’ll be in the basement then.”
“Well I…”
“Have no worry, the Academy’ll be empty at this time of day. All the nobs are busy shopping for horses, Hessians or whores.”
Matilda was fighting a battle of decorum doomed to fail in this household.
The housekeeper wafted a silver teaspoon. “And as me da used to say to Ma when he fancied a jig, ‘No time like the present.’”
Matilda was fairly sure that a jig was not the Celtic dance she was familiar with.
“If you think so…”
Two heads nodded in utter complicity.
“Shall I fetch a shawl though? Saffron is rather–”
“Perfect,” said Betty with a grin. “Yer look like an egg yolk.”
Trusting Mr Hawkins would not scramble her wits, Matilda stalked for the door with determined intent. It was true that Chloe had worked hard and deserved a day out, but snooping over her shoulder she noted the troublesome twosome sharing a satisfied nod.
She’d been outmanoeuvred by a sly-boots of a housekeeper and a girl of thirteen.
Some days, she was a woeful governess.
Right,left, left, right…
Seth found the repetition of walloping the stuffing out of the pads nailed to the Academy wall quite soothing.
It appeased his frustration over Liam, who’d punched a fist through an ale-house window, punctured the ire that had expanded when Lord Dunton had broken the weighing machine by using it as a swing, and placated his worries over the packed schedule for this week.
Although a laborious time of it was in fact welcome, in order to distract his thoughts from the tempting trail of scented buttercups about the place.
A faint “ahem” came from behind.
“No tea, Betty. I’m busy.”
