Rules for a Proper Governess by Jennifer Ashley

move. “Don’t be stupid,” he heard himself say. “You can’t go now. It’s too late for you to be waltzing through the streets alone.”
    Bertie blinked in surprise. “What are you talking about? I walk around at night all the time. But if you’re so worried, you can call up that fancy carriage of yours. I wouldn’t mind riding back to Whitechapel like a princess.”
    Sinclair shook his head. “My coachman’s gone to bed. You’ll stay here tonight and go in the morning. No wait—you’ll go when I’ve found another blasted governess. If Cat and Andrew like you, then you can watch them until I bring home the next victim.”
    Bertie raised her brows at the word
victim,
but Sinclair wouldn’t take it back. That was exactly what these poor women were. Sinclair couldn’t handle his own children, and everyone knew it.
    “And how long will that be?” she asked.
    “Damn it all, I don’t know. Macaulay will go to the agency tomorrow. I can’t. Too many cases to review.” Sinclair glanced at his desk piled high with paper.
    “Make up your mind,” Bertie said, planting her hands on her hips. “You think I came here to rob you, so you want me out. When I say,
fine, I’ll go,
you say,
no, stay and look after me children
. I will tell you something Mr. Basher McBride.” She moved closer to him, her finger lifted in admonishment. “I don’t work for nothing. I get paid an honest wage when I do an honest job. I’ll stay and make sure the mites are all right, but you have to make it worth me while. A crown I’ll have for it.
And
you won’t charge me for breakfast.”
    “A crown—?”
    She looked uncertain. “Too much, you think? All right, a half crown then, but nothing less.”
    “Good God.”
    What the
hell
was he doing? Sinclair should wake up Richards, never mind the coachman’s sleep, and tell him to haul this young woman back to the gutter from whence she came.
    But something told him to do anything to keep her around, to keep her smiling like this at him. Her presence was a warmth in the coldness, light breaking through the ponderous dark.
    She was speaking again. “If you hold looking after your children so cheaply, it’s not a wonder you got a governess who ran away at the first sign of trouble.”
    “What are you talking about, woman? I pay my governesses fifty pounds a year. Do you want the position or not?”
    Bertie’s mouth dropped open, her eyes round. “Fifty
pounds
? Good Lord, I’d put up with the devil himself for that much. Miss Evans is a perfect fool.” She blinked again. “A moment, are you offering me a job?”
    “I told you, yes, until a new governess can be sorted out. Wages and board, and an allowance for clothes.” Her worn frock would have to go—she’d have to look the part. Mrs. Hill would throw a fit, but then she’d rise to the occasion, as she always did. Macaulay, a thoroughly egalitarian man, would shrug and nod, seeing nothing wrong with an East End working-class girl taking care of the McBride children, as long as she could do it.
    “Clothes.” Bertie looked down at the wool dress, the skirt stained with mud from London streets and rent in several places, including her backside, as though she’d sat on something rough. “What sort of clothes?”
    “Ones that don’t look as though you’ve been wrestling dogs in them.”
    Her smile beamed out like bright sunshine. “I haven’t been wrestling dogs. Only your kids.”
    Did Sinclair want to know what had caused Miss Evans, a haughty woman, to run off and leave Andrew and Cat with Bertie? Or was it best that the adventure never came to his ears?
    He made himself step out of the way of the door. “Mrs. Hill, my housekeeper, will sort you out. You’ll take breakfast in the nursery. The governess’s bedroom is next to it.”
    Right above this one, in fact. Bertie looked at the ceiling, already knowing that. Sinclair would be in this study all night, poring over the briefs, knowing that right above his