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“Never brought any of the other governesses round to meet me before.”
“Confound it, man.” Edgar threw down the broken halves of the pencil. “If you’ve something to say, just say it.”
Grafton grinned. “Tsk, tsk. Rather touchy on the subject, are we?”
Edgar scraped his palm over his eyes and then down across his nose and mouth. “You’ve no idea.” He abandoned all pretense of working and settled back in his chair. “I can’t stop thinking about her. I’m going mad, I think. She’s just so good with the children and she’s so...”
“Pretty?”
“Lights up every room she enters. She doesn’t keep her opinions to herself, either, let me tell you.”
Grafton snorted. “So I observed.”
“I knew I was going to regret hiring the lady. I knew the second I laid eyes on her that she would drive me mad by inches.”
“Wouldn’t be the first beautiful governess to turn a nobleman’s head, now would she?”
“That’s the bloody problem. My father had a nasty habit of ruining servants. Scullery maids, upstairs maids, governesses... he tupped anything in skirts. No pretty girl was safe from him. It sickened me. I did what I could to stop it but I was gone at school much of the time...”
“I remember,” said Grafton. “You spoke of him sometimes. Your voice always held such revulsion. I thought that you were better off, because you had a real father, but then I began to wonder if perhaps my situation was preferable.”
Grafton was the illegitimate son of an earl, who had financed Grafton’s schooling, but refused any other form of assistance or contact. Edgar had met Grafton during his first year at Cambridge.
“Better to have no father,” agreed Edgar.
“I met him once, your father,” Grafton said carefully. “You’re nothing like him. Nothing at all. For one thing, I know you to be a good man, who would never even look at an unwilling woman.”
Edgar grimaced. “No difference, don’t you see? Even willing, she’s my servant. It’s an unequal balance of power. Dallying with her makes me no better than the old duke.”
“You’re too hard on yourself. The lady was strong-minded and more than capable of fending for herself, from my observation of her.”
“It doesn’t matter if I have the best of intentions, if I mean to treat her with respect and keep her at a distance. If my actions speak differently than my words, I’m no better than he was.”
“Can you trust Miss Perkins to make decisions that are right for her?”
Edgar thought about that for a moment. “She may think they’re right for her, but she’s so young, Grafton. Remember when we were that young? The idiotic things we did?”
Grafton chuckled. “I remember waving our bare arses at a group of matrons while we were standing up in a donkey cart. Inebriated out of our minds. Utterly sotted.”
“Exactly. I made very, very poor decisions. I never touch brandy now. And I’m not about to begin indulging in governesses. The only sensible thing to do is avoid her. I hired a governess to restore peace and order and she’s producing the opposite effect. Consuming my thoughts. I need to redirect my attention where it needs to be—here, at the foundry.”
“With a bunch of sweaty, unwashed men? I’d rather think about pretty girls, myself.”
“You know what I mean,” Edgar said impatiently. “We’ve got to solve the problem of the boiler system. It’s still too heavy.”
Grafton nodded. “That we do. But sometimes if you try too hard at something, it will elude you, I’ve found. Maybe what you need is a bit of a holiday from all this.” He gestured around the office. “You’re wound up too tightly. You’re bound to snap, just like that poor pencil.”
Edgar glanced down. Another broken pencil in his palm. He added it to the pile of fragmented wood littering his desk.
A holiday. It wasn’t the worst idea. But not for Edgar, for Miss Perkins and the children.
She’d told him the twins missed the seaside. And he’d told her there was seashore in England.
His family used to holiday at Southend, less than a day’s journey from London.
“Grafton, you’re brilliant.”
“Clearly,” said Grafton. “So you’ll be leaving for a spell then?”
