Octavius and the Perfect Governess: Pryor Cousins #1 Page 10

  The dress did make it difficult; she had to tuck it up several times, but Lord Octavius averted his eyes with scrupulous politeness and he held her hand whenever it was necessary—in fact, he held her hand even when it wasn’t necessary, but Pip decided not to point that out, because she rather liked it.

  And that was how Pip found herself halfway up a tree, perched on what the Reverend Gilbert White would have described as a smooth and pendulous bough, sitting alongside a marquis’s son, while a viscount who was perched two boughs above read aloud from the reverend’s book.

  It was perhaps the most unusual half hour of Pip’s life, and also one of the best, and when it came time to climb down she was quite disappointed. Her descent was tricky and awkward and unladylike, and she managed to tear six inches of her hem, but when they were back on solid ground and Lord Octavius asked, “Well? Was it worth it?” she said, “Yes,” quite emphatically.

  He grinned at her, then—that dangerously attractive grin—and her heart lurched and teetered on the brink of falling in love, but fortunately didn’t make that fatal plunge.

  Remember who you are, Pip scolded herself, turning away to watch the girls descend. Remember who he is. Who his father is. But it was perilously easy to forget the gulf in rank between them when they flew kites and climbed trees. Lord Octavius treated her as an equal, a friend, and that was even more beguiling than his too-attractive grin.

  His father is a marquis, she told herself sternly, and then she repeated that last word three times—marquis, marquis, marquis—as if it were a spell and had the power to stop her falling in love with Lord Octavius.

  “You lost the wager,” he informed her later, as they made their way back to Rumpole Hall, all six of them disheveled and rosy-cheeked and in high spirits.

  “What wager?”

  “That you could climb a tree in that dress.”

  “Oh.” Pip had forgotten there’d been a wager. “We didn’t set a stake, so it doesn’t count.”

  “It counts.”

  “What’s the stake, then?”

  “I’ll let you know,” Lord Octavius said, and then he smiled and looked away and whistled a few bars of a tune that Pip didn’t recognize.

  Marquis, marquis, marquis, she told herself, and she tapped her thumb and forefinger together three times for good measure.

  It didn’t help much.

  The men dined with them again that evening, and then they all played jackstraws until it was time for the girls to go to bed. Newingham continued his losing streak, much to his chagrin.

  “Cheer up, Bunny,” Mr. Pryor said, as they made their way to the schoolroom for Pip’s lesson in defensive techniques. “It’s only a children’s game.”

  That observation didn’t improve Newingham’s mood. He grumbled while Pip lit the candles, grumbled while Mr. Pryor moved the schoolroom furniture back against the walls, and grumbled while Lord Octavius peeled out of his tailcoat and turned up his shirt sleeves, but he stopped grumbling and watched intently when Pip went through the moves she’d learned last night. Newingham’s advice was surprisingly constructive. “Don’t punch with your hand; punch with your whole shoulder,” he said, and, “Try gouging his eyes out with your thumbs; they’re stronger than your fingers.”

  The moves came more easily than they had yesterday, as if they’d settled into her brain overnight. When Lord Octavius took her by one wrist and she couldn’t pull free, Pip didn’t feel helpless; she scratched his face and bloodied his nose with the heel of her other hand, and when he took her by both wrists, she broke his kneecap. Or perhaps she merely bruised it. It was all metaphorical, of course.

  Part of her wished that she really could punch and kick as he’d taught her, just to see if it really did work—and part of her hoped that she would never need to find out whether it worked or not.

  “What else could you do?” Newingham said, in his self-appointed rôle as examiner.

  “Scream like a banshee,” Pip said. “Kick his groin. Bite off his ear.”

  Lord Octavius grimaced expressively, and released her.

  “Well done, Miss Toogood,” Mr. Pryor said. He pushed away from the wall he’d been leaning against. “Let’s have a go, Bunny. You be Miss Toogood and I’ll be the villain.”

  “Why do I have to be Miss Toogood?” Newingham asked, as he obligingly peeled out of his tailcoat.

  “You’re shorter.” Mr. Pryor swaggered out into the center of the schoolroom and stood akimbo, leering villainously at the viscount.

  Newingham tossed aside his tailcoat, then approached Mr. Pryor with small and mincing steps, his gaze demurely lowered. When he came close, Mr. Pryor reached out and seized his arm.

  The viscount gave a high-pitched squawk.

  Pip watched open-mouthed as the fight played out, torn between laughter and horror. It was a game—they weren’t really trying to maim each other—but the altercation was faster and more brutal than anything she’d practiced with Lord Octavius. She gasped when the viscount threw a punch that would have undoubtedly broken Mr. Pryor’s nose if he hadn’t pulled it at the last moment, gasped again as he swung his elbow like a scythe, barely avoiding breaking Mr. Pryor’s nose a second time.

  Mr. Pryor yelped, although the elbow hadn’t actually connected, and reeled back theatrically, his hands clapped to his nose, then dropped to his knees. Newingham didn’t turn and run, which is what Pip would have done at that point; he closed in on Mr. Pryor and aimed a kick at his groin.

  Mr. Pryor flinched, and so did Lord Octavius, alongside her, but the kick didn’t land.

  The viscount mimed a second kick and then bent and pretended to bite Mr. Pryor’s ear off.

  “Ow!” Mr. Pryor said loudly. “Get off me, you brute!”

  The viscount straightened and strutted victoriously around the room, his arms upraised. “I win!”

  “You bit my ear,” Mr. Pryor said, climbing to his feet. “You actually bit my ear. I can’t believe you did that, Bunny!”

  Newingham lowered his arms. “I can’t believe I did it, either.” He scrubbed at his lips with one lacy cuff. “Excuse me, Miss Toogood, I need to wash my mouth out.” He snatched up his tailcoat and departed, wearing a slightly nauseated expression.

  Pip realized that she was still gaping like a yokel. She hastily closed her mouth.

  “Did he really bite you?” Lord Octavius asked, sounding as astonished as she was.

  “Yes, he really did,” Mr. Pryor said. “Which is disconcerting, to say the least. Usually it’s women who bite my ears.” He grinned at Pip and winked.

  Beside her, Lord Octavius bristled. “For God’s sake, Dex, she’s not one of your widows.”

  Mr. Pryor laughed. “I know that. Keep your hair on.” He fingered his ear, and grimaced. “Excuse me. I need to wash Bunny’s spit off me.”

  And then he, too, was gone.

  “I apologize for my cousin,” Lord Octavius said, once the door had closed behind Mr. Pryor. “He can be a little coarse.”

  “It’s perfectly all right.” Pip assured him, while wondering what on earth Mr. Pryor had meant by his remark about women biting his ears.

  Was the biting of ears something that women did to their lovers?

  Was it something that men expected them to do?

  That they liked?

  Pip thought it sounded rather unpleasant for both parties.

  “Do you think you could do that if you had to?” Lord Octavius asked.

  The cogs of Pip’s brain jammed and for a few dreadful seconds she wasn’t certain what it was he was asking her—and then he gestured to the space in the middle of the schoolroom where Newingham and Mr. Pryor had been locked in mock combat. “Could you fight like that?”

  Pip put aside her puzzlement over the biting of ears and focused on Lord Octavius’s question. His very serious question.

  Could she fight as Newingham and Mr. Pryor had fought? Could she strike someone that swiftly? That brutally?

  “I don’t know,” Pip sa
id. “I’m not as fast as Lord Newingham, nor as strong.” It stung to admit that, but it was the truth.

  “Newingham’s been fighting for years and you’ve only been doing this for two days.” Lord Octavius smiled at her, a friendly smile that made his eyes crease at the corners. “And remember: you don’t have to be as fast or as strong as Newingham; you just have to be fast enough and strong enough to get away from the baron.”

  He took a step closer and reached out and took one of her hands in both of his, curling her fingers into a fist. He guided it in a punch to his nose. “Surprise him, hurt him enough to make him let you go, don’t panic, and you’ll be all right.”

  Pip’s heartbeat sped up. Her throat was too tight for words, almost too tight for breath. She nodded, aware of his hands cradling her fist, warm and strong.

  “Should be all right,” Lord Octavius amended soberly. “But I can’t promise you will be.” He frowned and let her hand go. “You should leave this household, Miss Toogood. As soon as possible.”

  Pip didn’t want to leave the baron’s household, and perhaps it was foolish but she no longer felt there was any reason to. She wasn’t afraid of Rumpole. Not after these lessons. The baron wasn’t young and strong and fast, like Lord Octavius. He was overweight and nearly sixty, and if she had to she would fight him off. But she didn’t think she’d have to, because the baron was no longer a threat. Not because he’d changed, but because she’d changed.

  Baron Rumpole might be a braggart and a bully, but he wasn’t a complete fool. She knew how to hurt him, and he would recognize that in her and wouldn’t touch her. She knew it. She felt it.

  “Miss Toogood?” Lord Octavius said, still frowning at her. “You will leave, won’t you?”

  “I’ll think about it,” Pip said.

  This answer didn’t please him. His frown deepened, furrows proliferating across his forehead.

  Pip turned away and began to put the chairs back in their proper places—and as she did, she realized she was alone in the schoolroom with him. Newingham had gone. Mr. Pryor had gone. The only two people left were herself and Lord Octavius.

  On the heels of that sudden realization came a flood of unfamiliar feelings. She felt flustered and self-conscious and awkward and a little too warm, but more than all of those things, she felt aware of Lord Octavius. Aware of his presence in the room. Aware of the creak of the floorboards as he moved the desks back into place. Aware of his breathing. Aware.

  She wasn’t looking at him, and yet all her attention was on him. She could feel him behind her, hear each step that he took, and she knew that he was still frowning, just as she knew that Baron Rumpole was no longer a threat.

  When there was no more furniture to rearrange, she turned to face him and saw that she’d been right: Lord Octavius was still frowning. “You’re locking your door at night, aren’t you?” he said, rolling down his shirt sleeves.

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” His frown lessened. He shrugged into his tailcoat.

  A new emotion found its way into the mix: anxiety. If anyone discovered her here with Lord Octavius they’d think it a tryst.

  Pip crossed swiftly to the door. “We’re alone,” she said. “If one of the servants should find us and tell Lord Rumpole, I’ll lose my position.”

  He glanced up, and she saw him make the same realization she had. Surprise wiped the last of the frown from his brow—and then she saw the awareness strike him too, saw the exact second when he became as conscious of her as she was of him, alive to their aloneness and its possibilities.

  Her own awareness of him doubled. Tripled. It seemed to vibrate in the air between them, a hum too faint to be heard but not too faint to be felt. It shivered over her skin and made her breathless. It felt like fear, except that it wasn’t fear at all. It was the exact opposite of fear. It was expectancy. Hope that something would happen between them. That perhaps he would kiss her.

  But Pip wasn’t stupid. She had no intention of ruining her reputation and therefore her life, so she held the door open. “Good night, Lord Octavius,” she said briskly.

  Lord Octavius wasn’t stupid, either. Nor was he a villain. Mr. Pryor, had he felt that awareness, might have lingered to steal a kiss, but Lord Octavius was a gentleman. He crossed the schoolroom and stepped through the doorway—and then he hesitated. “About that wager . . .”

  “What about it?”

  “I’ve decided what the stake was.” He smiled at her, and it wasn’t the smile of a gentleman. It was a smile that held a little mischief, a little wickedness.

  Pip felt the shiver and the breathlessness again, only this time it was partly fear, a paralyzing mix of anticipation and nervousness.

  Lord Octavius reached out and tilted her chin up with one fingertip.

  “What are you doing?” Pip asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.

  “Claiming my prize.”

  She should have stepped back, but she didn’t, and so Lord Octavius dipped his head and kissed her.

  It was a brief kiss. A light kiss. His lips brushed against hers for a fleeting second, while her heart thundered in her ears, then he lifted his head. “Good night,” he said, and he was gone, striding down the corridor.

  Pip stood in the doorway long after Lord Octavius’s footsteps had faded into silence. The impression of his kiss lingered on her lips—warm and tingling and unexpected.

  Her first kiss.

  Her first kiss ever, and it had been from the son of a marquis.

  Lord Octavius had kissed her. He’d kissed her, Pip Toogood. He’d kissed her, and it was startling and marvelous and altogether wonderful. She felt as if she was floating two feet off the floor.

  Then uncertainty crept in.

  Why had Lord Octavius kissed her? Was he angling after a dalliance?

  It was a horrible thought, and it quenched the tingling delight most effectively. Pip no longer felt as if she was floating. In fact, she felt rather ill.

  A dalliance. An affair, after which she’d be discarded, and not just discarded but ruined.

  But no, she wouldn’t believe that of Lord Octavius. She couldn’t believe that of him.

  Mr. Pryor, with his swagger and his smirk and his mention of women biting his ears, was the type for dalliances—she could believe he’d ruined a woman or two in his time—but Lord Octavius was altogether too honorable.

  Although he had kissed her, and that hadn’t been honorable at all. It had been reckless and reprehensible—kissing her where anyone might see them.

  Pip laid her fingers on the doorframe and tapped: once, twice, thrice. The familiarity of it steadied her. She heard her father’s voice in her ear: Thrice for luck, Pippa-mine.

  She tapped again, firmly and deliberately: one, two, three.

  Three times for good luck. Three times to ensure that her world kept spinning on its axis and that nothing went awry.

  “It was just a wager,” she said aloud, to herself and to her father, whose memory hovered nearby.

  Just a wager. Just a moment of foolishness. Nothing that would topple her world, because she wouldn’t allow it to.

  Pip tapped a third time, three little pecks of sound—tup, tup, tup—just to make certain.

  Chapter Twelve

  Octavius met his cousin on the stairs. “Do you need me tonight?” Dex asked.

  “Need?” Octavius repeated blankly, his mind still caught up in kissing Miss Toogood—the surprise on her face, the softness of her lips.

  “To help you dress.”

  “Uh . . .” All Octavius wanted to do was to retire to his bedroom and think about that kiss. Had it been a mistake? Had he ruined his chances with Miss Toogood? “Uh, yes.” Because it was important that the baron learned his lesson. No, it was more than important; it was crucial. Because if Miss Toogood decided not to marry him, he needed to make certain she was safe in this household.

  Dex came with him to his bedroom. Octavius changed shape and dressed in maid’s clothing. They were
getting good at this, he and Dex.

  He made his way swiftly and silently down the main staircase. The dining room was dark. So was the library. It appeared that the baron had retired for the night.

  Damn.

  Octavius stood for a moment in the shadowy corridor, scowling, and then his thoughts slid sideways to that brief, sweet kiss.

  He hoped it hadn’t been a horrible mistake. He hadn’t intended to kiss Miss Toogood tonight, but the moment had presented itself: the empty schoolroom, the empty corridor, the shadows and the warm glow of candlelight, the two of them alone together . . . It had been a moment of unsurpassed opportunity—a golden opportunity—the sort of opportunity that usually never presented itself, and he’d simply had to take it. To take the chance. To take the risk.

  It had been stupid and spontaneous, and he hoped it hadn’t been a colossal mistake.

  It didn’t feel like a colossal mistake. It felt like the beginning of something significant and life-changing.

  He hoped it felt the same way to Miss Toogood.

  Octavius slowly retraced his steps, along the corridor and up the main staircase. In taking his chance with Miss Toogood, he’d missed his chance with the baron. But it had been worth it. Everything that had happened since his arrival in Hampshire, every interaction with Miss Toogood, only strengthened his conviction that they were meant for each other.

  He remembered the softness of her lips, the way her eyes had widened in surprise.

  She hadn’t stepped back, hadn’t slapped him, hadn’t called him a scoundrel or a knave or a lecher. She would have been within her rights to do any or all of those things, because it had been knavish of him to spend two evenings teaching her how to fend off unwanted advances and then to kiss her himself.

  But she hadn’t slapped him or called him names, so he was going to assume that while his kiss had been unexpected, it hadn’t been unwanted.

  Octavius grinned and hiked up his skirts and climbed the stairs two at a time. Unexpected, but not unwanted. Yes, that was how he was going to interpret—