Octavius and the Perfect Governess: Pryor Cousins #1 Read online

  Quintus might be an old sobersides, but none of them stood on formality in his house. Octavius let himself in the door without plying the knocker, cast his hat and gloves alongside the others on the pier table in the entrance hall, and made for the sitting room and the low rumble of masculine voices.

  Everyone was there, the full set of Pryors, drinking claret and discussing horseflesh. Ned had his feet up on the rosewood sofa table, philistine that he was.

  Conversation halted as Octavius stepped into the open doorway.

  “Otto,” his brother said, lowering his glass. “How are you?”

  “Prime twig,” Octavius said, although it wasn’t exactly the truth. He’d been feeling out of curl all day, restless and bored. He crossed to the decanters, poured himself some claret, then leaned against the sideboard and looked at his brother and cousins, lounging in various armchairs and sofas.

  His restlessness and his boredom merged into something close to anger. Not at Ned for the forfeit, not at Dex for abandoning him last night, but anger that Rumpole was walking around, a threat to women, and none of them was doing anything about it.

  But what could they do? What could anyone do?

  Octavius drank a mouthful of claret and thanked God that he’d been born male. He hadn’t realized, until last night, just how truly awful it was to be a woman.

  “What about that roan of Weatherby’s?” Quintus said. “Got good movement.”

  Dex shook his head. “Too short in the hock.”

  Octavius topped up his glass, crossed to a sturdy sofa, and flung himself down on it. “I want to do something about Baron Rumpole,” he announced.

  Conversation halted again. Everyone turned their heads to stare at him. He saw astonishment on all four faces.

  “Define ‘something,’” Sextus said in that cool, aloof way of his.

  “I want to stop him preying on women.”

  “We can’t,” Quintus said reasonably. “Short of castrating the man, there’s no way to stop him.”

  Octavius drank his claret, scowling at the glass, wishing he could castrate Rumpole and knowing that he couldn’t. But if he couldn’t castrate the man, perhaps he could scare him so thoroughly that he’d never touch another woman again?

  The question was, how?

  Imprisonment was a toothless threat against a man such as Rumpole. His pockets were too deep. Nothing less than hellfire would scare him.

  Octavius sipped his claret, and eyed Dex thoughtfully.

  After a moment, Dex noticed him watching. He put down his wine glass. “Look, Otto, I’m sorry about last night—”

  Octavius waved the apology aside. “You could dangle him over a pit of flames.”

  “Uh . . . what?” Dex said.

  “Rumpole,” Octavius said. “You could dangle him over a pit of flames until he gives his word never to molest another woman.”

  “Lord, are you still on about Rumpole?” Ned said. He swung his feet down from the sofa table and stood. “I must be off. See you tomorrow.”

  Octavius glowered at his cousin as he left the room. Ned’s heavy footsteps echoed in the hallway, then the front door opened and closed. Octavius turned his attention back to Dex, who was still looking at him with a bemused expression. “Rumpole,” he said again. “You could do it, Dex.”

  “Where would I get the pit of flames from?” Dex asked. He didn’t deny that he could do the dangling, because that was the gift Dex had chosen from their Faerie godmother: levitation. He could make any object—including himself—lift off the ground.

  “You could dangle him over the Thames,” Octavius suggested. “Drop him in it, even.”

  “What if he drowned?” Dex countered. “Can you imagine what Grandfather would say? Using my magic to kill someone?”

  Octavius grimaced. He could well imagine what their grandfather would say. And even if ridding the world of Baron Rumpole wouldn’t be a bad thing, murder was.

  He heard a muffled footstep by the sitting room door. He glanced over, but the open doorway was empty.

  A floorboard creaked, and then another one.

  Octavius exchanged a glance with Dex.

  Dex rolled his eyes. “We can hear you, Ned.”

  “Damn it.” Ned became visible just inside the doorway. He scowled at them, turned, and left without a word of farewell. Once again the front door opened and closed.

  Dex gave one of his loud cackles of laughter. Quintus laughed, too, and even Sextus cracked his aloof façade and smiled.

  Octavius didn’t laugh. He frowned, and turned his attention back to Baron Rumpole.

  Men like Rumpole didn’t have consciences—and nothing Octavius could do or say would make Rumpole grow one. Leopards couldn’t change their spots, after all . . . but perhaps leopards could learn lessons? If the lesson was applied forcefully enough.

  Could he teach Baron Rumpole a lesson so painful that the man changed his behavior?

  Was that possible?

  His ears caught a faint shuffling sound, followed by the groan of a floorboard. Octavius raised his voice: “We can still hear you, Ned.”

  A pungent oath came out of the air. Ned’s footsteps thudded back down the corridor. The front door opened and then closed with a slam.

  Even Octavius laughed this time.

  Octavius left not long after Ned and headed for Brooks’s, but he didn’t feel like claret and conversation at his club any more than he’d felt like claret and conversation at his brother’s house. Walking was good. It gave him time to think.

  He did a circuit of St. James’s Square, then headed back to Piccadilly and up Old Bond Street, past the Albany, where Ned had his rooms. He traversed Mayfair, and then his feet took him in the direction of Brook Street, where Baron Rumpole had his London residence. The house was nothing out of the ordinary, four stories of gleaming windows and marble pediments, just one more elegant townhouse in a street filled with similar properties. Octavius turned into the mews at the rear of those houses and slowed to a stroll, examining the Rumpole residence from the back: the servants’ entrance, the coal cellar, the outhouse.

  As he watched, a housemaid emerged from the servants’ door. She set off along the mews at a brisk pace.

  Octavius followed her, noting the details of her appearance: the mobcap and the starched apron, the dress, the cuffs and the collar, the shoes.

  When the woman reached the corner, Octavius stopped following her; he’d seen enough.

  Octavius acquired all his clothing from a tailor, but he was aware that not everyone had that luxury. He knew that shops existed where garments were sold ready-made, and even shops where clothes were sold used, but he had no idea where to find them.

  Fortunately, the jarvey he hailed knew of several such places. Twenty minutes later Octavius found himself outside an emporium in Holborn. This bustling establishment held all the items he required for his next encounter with Rumpole. He exited the emporium with a large parcel under his arm. The jarvey he’d hired was still waiting. Octavius gave directions to his grandfather’s house on Hanover Square. “Wait here,” he told the jarvey, when the hackney came to a halt outside that imposing edifice. “I shan’t be more than a few minutes.”

  Octavius ran up the steps and let himself inside without knocking. His grandfather-the-duke was in his eighties and no longer ventured out of Gloucestershire, but Octavius’s father-the-marquis and mother-the-marchioness were in London, along with their retinue of servants. Two footmen were lighting the hundreds of candles in the great chandeliers in the vestibule, under the watchful eye of the butler.

  They all looked around at his entrance. One of the footmen teetered slightly on his stepladder.

  “Lord Octavius?” the butler said, in that stately manner that all butlers had. “Your parents are—”

  Octavius waved this aside. “Didn’t come to see m’ parents, Titmus. Came to see you.”

  “Me, sir?”

  “Yes. Tell me, Titmus, at what times of the day is one least l
ikely to meet a servant on the servants’ stairs?”

  Titmus blinked. “The servants’ stairs?”

  “Yes.”

  His question answered, Octavius went back to his rooms in Albemarle Street, where he spent the rest of the evening plotting.

  He decided to draft Dex to his cause. Accordingly, he sent a message around to his cousin in the morning asking him to be at home in the early afternoon and to give his valet a few hours off. He didn’t explain why.

  Dex sent back a note. One sentence only: I am your most obedient servant. The words didn’t look sarcastic, but Octavius knew that they were.

  Octavius took a hackney to his cousin’s rooms even though it was a mere ten minutes’ walk to Clarges Street. He unwrapped the bulky parcel of servant’s clothing in Dex’s bedchamber.

  “Lord,” Dex said. “I see why you told me to give my man the afternoon off.” He picked up the apron and the mobcap, examined them critically, then looked at Octavius. “You planning on wearing these?”

  Octavius nodded. “I need you to help me dress.”

  “This about Rumpole?”

  Octavius nodded again. “I’m going to teach him a lesson, and it’ll be best coming from a woman.”

  Dex considered this for a moment and then said, “But a servant?”

  “I’d wager he practices droit de seigneur,” Octavius said.

  “Masters’ rights?” Dex grimaced. “I should think that he does.” He unpacked the parcel, spread the clothing out on his bed, and said, “Right, let’s get started.”

  Half an hour later, Octavius peeped from the door of the house in which Dex had his rooms. He scuttled down the steps and out onto the flagway.

  He’d walked through Mayfair thousands of times before, but walking these streets as a female was quite different from walking these streets as a male. Octavius felt disconcertingly self-conscious. He tried not to hunch his shoulders, tried not to dart nervous glances around. He was dressed as a servant; odds were that no one would notice him. After all, he never noticed servants.

  It turned out that he’d been overly optimistic. He was noticed several times on his walk from Clarges Street to the Brook Street mews. A footman made an extremely lewd suggestion in Berkeley Square, someone surreptitiously pinched his bottom as he waited to cross Grosvenor Street, and one of the grooms in the Brook Street mews invited him into a horse box for a quick swive. Octavius was feeling mildly outraged by the time he reached Baron Rumpole’s townhouse. Did female servants have to deal with such annoying attentions every single day?

  He climbed the short, narrow flight of steps leading to the servants’ entrance. His palms were sweaty. He wiped them on his apron, then took a deep breath, eased the door open, and crept into the house.

  He was immediately presented with several choices: a short corridor terminating in a door, stairs leading up, and stairs leading down. Octavius chose the stairs leading up purely because they took him further from the servants’ hall in the lower reaches of the house. He tiptoed up one flight of narrow, uncarpeted stairs and came to a landing with another door.

  The stairs continued upward, but Octavius crossed to the door and poked his head out. He could tell at a glance that he’d reached family territory—the corridor was wide and carpeted, and an elegant Grecian dado decorated the walls.

  He slipped through the door and closed it quietly behind him. His heartbeat picked up speed, a quick pitter-patter of anticipation. He hoped Baron Rumpole was at home.

  Octavius smoothed his apron, patted his mobcap to make certain it was in place, and set out on the hunt for Rumpole.

  The first thing he came to was the main staircase. At this time of day, if Rumpole were at home he’d most likely be in the library or his study, both of which were probably on the ground floor.

  As a servant, Octavius shouldn’t be on the main stairs. He tiptoed down them anyway and found himself in an even wider corridor. He saw several doors, some open, some closed. He wished he had a prop of some sort—a feather duster, a jar of beeswax, a polishing cloth.

  He tried the open doors first, crossing swiftly to each one and peeking inside: a library, a drawing room, a dining room.

  Footsteps echoed in the corridor above. Heavy footsteps. Masculine footsteps. They came down the staircase.

  Octavius darted into the dining room and bent his attention to arranging the porcelain figurines on the mantelpiece. The footsteps went past the door. He glanced up and glimpsed Baron Rumpole.

  Rumpole didn’t see him.

  The footsteps continued and turned into the library.

  Octavius couldn’t have asked for anything more perfect. He grinned triumphantly and met his own gaze in the mirror above the mantelpiece—and recoiled when he saw himself.

  That’s not me, his brain said instinctively. But it was him. The blonde hair, the blue eyes, the soft, feminine mouth—right now those were his hair and eyes and mouth.

  Octavius shuddered. It felt wrong to be female. More wrong than any shape he’d ever taken.

  He turned away from the mantelpiece and the mirror. Best to get this over with quickly. Then he frowned. What possible reason would a maid have for entering the library at this time of day?

  He thought for a moment, then tiptoed across to the decanters lined up on the sideboard. He picked one up. He really should carry it on a silver tray, but he didn’t have one.

  Octavius squared his shoulders and marched briskly into the library.

  Rumpole was reading the Gazette.

  In Vauxhall Gardens at night, Rumpole had been somewhat intimidating; in his library in daylight he wasn’t intimidating at all, but he was repugnant. The man couldn’t help his coloring—the florid cheeks and coarse, sandy hair—but he could help the perpetual sneer on his mouth and the scowl that permanently knotted his brow.

  Octavius gave what he hoped was a realistic start. “Oh, I beg your pardon, sir,” he said, in as close to an East London accent as he could manage. “I didn’t realize anyone was here.” He bobbed a timid curtsy, scurried over to the sideboard, put down the decanter—and realized that he’d never seen a maid with a decanter before. Decanters were the territory of footmen and butlers.

  He cringed inwardly at this blunder. Damn. Would the baron notice?

  He turned to face Rumpole, bracing himself to meet suspicion and accusations of imposture, but the baron was looking him up and down, a comprehensive glance that stripped Octavius of his clothes.

  “You’re new,” the baron said.

  Octavius bobbed another timid curtsy. “Yes, sir.”

  Rumpole’s lips turned up in a smile. It wasn’t a nice smile. “Come here.”

  “Me, sir?”

  Rumpole threw aside the Gazette and stood. “Yes.”

  Octavius advanced, trying to look flustered and apprehensive, when what he really felt was exultant.

  “You’re a pretty one,” Rumpole said.

  Octavius knew he was. He’d deliberately given himself a shapely figure and a beautiful face. He tried to look bashful, fixing his gaze on the floor.

  Rumpole reached out and caught his chin.

  Octavius shrank back, but Rumpole dug his fingers in, and ouch, that damned well hurt.

  Rumpole forced his chin up. “Give me a kiss.”

  Octavius couldn’t prevent himself from recoiling—as much as he was able to recoil with someone holding his chin. “Please, sir, don’t.”

  “Do you want to lose your position?”

  Octavius shook his head as best he could with his chin still held fast. “No, sir,” he whispered, pretending to be afraid.

  “Then kiss me.” Rumpole hauled him closer and put an arm around Octavius’s waist. “Or I’ll see that you’re turned out into the street.”

  At Vauxhall, Octavius had been five foot two. Today, he’d given himself four more inches of height—and those extra inches made it much easier to slam his knee into Rumpole’s groin.

  The baron gave a strangled gasp, released
him, and doubled over.

  Octavius swung his fist and hit Rumpole’s nose with a gratifying crunch. Blood spurted. He watched in satisfaction as Rumpole toppled to the floor.

  “That will teach you,” he said, his East London accent slipping slightly.

  He turned on his heel and strode victoriously from the room, retracing his steps up the main staircase and along the corridor, buoyant with triumph. He’d done it! He had taught Rumpole a lesson the man wouldn’t quickly forget.

  Ahead of him, a door opened and a woman stepped out into the corridor. Octavius’s buoyancy evaporated. He ducked his head and scuttled past, heading for the servants’ door.

  “Are you all right?” the woman asked.

  The only person she could be speaking to was him. Octavius reluctantly halted. He turned towards her but didn’t dare meet her eyes. “Who? Me?” And then he added, “Ma’am.”

  “There’s blood on your apron.”

  Octavius looked down at himself. The woman was correct: a scarlet splash of blood decorated his apron. It looked quite lurid against the pristine whiteness of the fabric.

  Octavius covered his nose with one hand. “Bloody nose, ma’am,” he said in a muffled voice, and glanced up to meet her eyes.

  Time stood still. His heart seemed to stop beating. He forgot to breathe.

  Octavius had never given any thought as to what the ideal woman looked like, but now he knew. She had auburn hair and golden eyebrows and blue-gray eyes.

  It wasn’t one specific thing that signaled her perfection; it was many things. The alertness of her gaze. The stray tendrils of hair curling at her temples. The scattering of freckles across her nose. It was her earlobes and throat and chin, the line of her jaw. It was everything.

  Who was she, this perfect female?

  The woman appeared to be wondering who he was, too. “Are you new?” she asked, and even her voice was perfect, a low contralto.

  Octavius bobbed a curtsy, still holding his nose. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Miss,” the woman corrected him, and that word made his heart sing because it meant she was unmarried. “I’m Miss Toogood. The new governess. And you are?”