How to Sin Successfully

‘The other five governesses. I did mention them, Miss Caulfield. Did you miss the dissolute-rake part, too?’

Maura’s chin went up, determined not to show her surprise. She hadn’t listened as well as she’d thought. ‘You’ve been very clear, ma’am. Thank you again.’ The ‘dissolute’ part was unfortunate. She might have launched herself from the frying pan and into the fire, exchanging one dissolute male for another. But she doubted anyone could be as dissolute as Wildeham, the man her uncle had chosen for her to marry. Besides, she doubted she’d see much of this roguish Earl of Chatham. Dissolute rakes weren’t exactly the stay-at-home types when surrounded by the entertainments of London. It was difficult indeed to be rakish at all by staying home.

An hour later, a hired hackney deposited her in front of the Earl of Chatham’s Portland Square town house and departed with the last of her coins. In her estimation, it was money well spent. On her own, she would have walked for hours and never found the place. To put it mildly, London was daunting! Never had she seen so many people crammed together in one place. The traffic, the smells and the noises were enough to intimidate even the heartiest of country souls. Maura shaded her eyes and looked up at the town house.

It fit in perfectly. It was daunting, too, all four soaring storeys of it. There was nothing for it. The only way ahead was forwards. She picked up her things and walked up the steps to face her future. Forewarned was forearmed. She would focus on the positives. One positive was that her plan was proceeding according to schedule. Another was the address.

When she’d set out from Exeter, she’d imagined being placed in the comfortable home of a well-to-do family, possibly one hoping to launch a daughter on to the bottom rungs of society. Never had she thought to find a position in an earl’s home. Of course, she’d also never thought to have to find a position in the first place. For that matter, she’d never thought to leave Exeter. She’d faced a lot of ‘nevers’ in the past month she’d not expected to encounter.

As a gentleman’s daughter, the granddaughter of an earl, she’d been raised to expect more, although those assumptions had been misplaced. She could have kept those assumptions intact. Her uncle had made it clear she could live in comfortable luxury and marry a title, but for a price she’d been unwilling to pay. Even now, with Exeter a week and miles behind her, that price made her shudder in the noon sun.

Her lack of co-operation had made it impossible to stay so here she was, a stranger alone, ready to start her life afresh, which was a nice way of saying she’d cut all ties to her uncle’s family. It had either been cutting ties with them or cutting ties with her true self and in the end she’d hadn’t been able to bring herself to that ultimate sacrifice. So, they’d been left to their own devices and she was now left to hers. There could be no going back, although she was certain her uncle would try. She wouldn’t let him discover her. She’d disappear into the earl’s household and her uncle would eventually give up and find another way to fulfil his obligations to the odious Baron Wildeham.

Her resolve firm, Maura raised the carved lion-head knocker and let it fall with a heavy clack against the door. Inside, she could hear the undignified running of feet and a yelp, followed by a giggle, followed by a crash. Maura winced at the sound of something shattering. There was a shrill scream. ‘I’ll get it! It’s my turn to get the door!’ Then chaos spilled out on to the front step.

Maura saw it all happen in slow motion. The door flew open, answered by a man in stockinged feet and dishabille, dark hair ruffled in disarray, shirt-tails flying. He looked like no butler she’d ever seen. But Maura hadn’t the time to appreciate the odd sight. Behind him, two children came barrelling into the corridor. They skidded to a tardy and incomplete halt behind him and … oomph!

Their momentum set off a chain reaction, sending them all down in a heap, Maura at the bottom, looking up over the tangle of arms and legs into the bluest eyes she’d ever seen. Even with two children heaped higgledy-piggledy on them, she was not immune to the fact that those blue eyes went with an entirely masculine body of hard ridges and muscled planes which, at present, had landed on her in a most indelicate manner.

‘Hello.’ He grinned down at her, walnut-dark hair falling in his face with casual negligence.

‘I’m here about the position,’ Maura managed to get out, but she immediately regretted it. ‘Position’ wasn’t quite the best word to use, although given the situation, she was fortunate to formulate any coherent thoughts with all that well-muscled maleness pressing down on her.

‘I can see that.’ Mischief twinkled in those blue eyes, suggesting he wasn’t oblivious to their unorthodox circumstances, circumstances, she noted, he didn’t seem to mind. Whoever he was, he should be chagrined. No tutor or footman worth his salt would be caught in such raucous behaviour if he valued his post. But it was clear this attractive mess of a man wasn’t the least bit worried. He was laughing, quite possibly at her, as he rose and helped the children up.

Everyone apparently thought the accident a great lark. The children were both talking at once. ‘Did you see the way I came around the corner?’

‘I grabbed hold of the banister post and sling-shotted myself into the hall!’

Slingshotted? Great heavens, was that even a word?

‘You were amazing, William. It was like you were a cannon ball!’ the blue-eyed man put in with an inordinate amount of enthusiasm.

‘We broke Aunt Cressida’s vase!’ The little girl giggled nervously.

The man ruffled her hair. ‘Don’t worry, it was ugly anyway.’

Unbelievable! Had they forgotten about her? Maura was halfway to her feet, struggling with the tangle of her skirts and luggage when a large hand reached down for her. ‘Are you all right?’ The rich baritones of his voice were easy and friendly, further sign he was a man who took nothing too seriously.

‘I shall recover.’ Maura tugged at the fitted jacket of her travelling costume and smoothed her skirts, trying to restore some proper order to the encounter. ‘I am the new governess. Mrs Pendergast assigned me just this morning. I should like to speak with Lord Chatham, please.’ That should get some results.

His eyes twinkled with more mischief, if that was possible. ‘You are speaking with him.’ He gave her a gallant half-bow at odds with his dishabille. ‘The Earl of Chatham at your service.’

‘You’re the earl?’ Maura tried not to gape. Dissolute earls weren’t supposed to be handsome, hard-bodied males who flirted with their eyes.

The corners of his eyes crinkled in amusement. ‘I believe we’ve established that. Now, what shall we call you?’ He fixed her with a white-toothed smile that probably made most women go weak at the knees. Maura liked to think her knees were weak from having been ploughed over on the doorstep instead. He turned to the children, who were staring up at him with wide eyes full of obvious hero worship. ‘We can’t very well call her “new governess”. That’s no sort of name at all.’ They started to giggle again.

The little girl smiled up at him and clapped her hands. ‘I know! I know! We’ll call her Six.’ The little girl curtsied very prettily. ‘Hello, Six, I’m Cecilia and I’m seven. This is my brother, William. He’s eight.’ She laughed again. ‘Six, seven, eight, we’re all numbers in a row. That’s funny. Uncle Ree, did you get my joke? Six, seven, eight?’

‘I most certainly did, my dear. It was the funniest one yet.’ The earl smiled down at her indulgently and wrapped his hand around her considerably smaller one. The gesture was endearing and it succeeded in doing queer things to Maura’s stomach.

‘Perhaps we should step inside,’ Maura suggested, well aware, even if they weren’t, that their little coterie on the porch was drawing stares from the street.

‘Oh, yes, do forgive me.’ The earl jumped into action and ushered them all indoors to the hall where the remnants of Aunt Cressida’s vase were being swept up by a maid. ‘Now we can have proper introductions and …’ He paused, his brow furrowing as he groped for the right words. ‘And a pot of tea. That will be just the thing. You’ll have to excuse me; I seem to have left my manners on the floor with the vase.’ He pushed a hand through his dark hair, looking entirely likeable.

She’d not been ready for that. She hadn’t planned on liking him, Maura realised as they settled for tea in the drawing room, children included. What she had expected was a middle-aged man with greying side-whiskers, lecherous eyes and wandering hands, a man like her uncle’s crony Baron Wildeham.

Tea came and Maura discreetly looked towards the doorway. ‘Are your wards going to join us?’ There were four tea cups on the tray. Surely the children weren’t staying for tea?

The earl looked at her queerly, gesturing to the children. ‘They’re already here.’ Then he laughed, his mouth breaking into his easy smile. ‘Mrs Pendergast didn’t tell you, did she? That tricky old woman, no wonder she got someone here so quickly.’

Maura sat up straight, feeling defensive. ‘She mentioned the wards were young.’

‘She’d be correct. It’s William and Cecilia I need a governess for,’ the earl explained, motioning that she should pour out.

Maura was glad for something to do, something to occupy her hands while her mind restored order. There’d be no young girls to shepherd into society as she was expecting. Instead, there were two slightly precocious children who slid through the hallways in stockinged feet. She told herself she could manage. She’d helped her aunt with her young cousins, after all. She just needed to readjust her thinking.

‘How do you take your tea, milord?’ Her hand hovered over the sugar and cream.

He dismissed those offerings with a wave of his hand. ‘I take it plain and you can call me Riordan or Mr Barrett if you wish.’ There was a tinge of bitterness in his voice. What had Mrs Pendergast said about the death of his brother? The new earl seemed a reluctant heir. Maura wished she’d listened more closely.

‘Neither is appropriate, as you well know.’ Maura passed his tea cup and tendered a smile, hoping to ease the disagreement. Arguing with one’s employer on the first day was no way to start. ‘I should call you Lord Chatham.’ She smiled again, looking for a better subject of conversation. What had her governesses done on the first day? She sipped her tea and racked her brain for an appropriate next step.

‘Lord Chatham?’ He arched a dark eyebrow in query. The expression drew attention to his eyes, twin-blue flames flickering with life and mischief.

‘I think that would be best, under the circumstances.’ She knew that would be best. He was a dangerous sort of man when it came to a woman’s sensibilities with his good looks and penchant for informality. A half-hour in his company had proven it. He hadn’t even bothered to put his coat on or tuck in his shirt-tails.

To her surprise, he laughed and leaned forwards, smiling wickedly over his tea cup. ‘You weren’t under any circumstances on the porch, you were under me.’

‘Lord Chatham! There are children in the room.’ But the children didn’t seem to mind. They were laughing. They did that a lot, she noticed, no doubt encouraged by the irrepressible audacity of their guardian. Laughter was well and good, but they would have to learn to control it just a bit.

‘So there are.’ He rubbed at his chin in thought for a moment, although she had the distinct impression he was teasing her. ‘If we are to be formal, I’ll need to call you something more than Six.’ He was smiling again, flirting outrageously with his blue, blue eyes while saying nothing technically objectionable at all.

From her perch on a chair, Cecilia looked crestfallen. ‘I want to call her Six. It will ruin the joke if we don’t.’

Lord Chatham quirked another eyebrow in Maura’s direction, a little smile hovering about his lips while he waited for her response. Good heavens, the man was a handsome devil. Cecilia’s lip began to quiver. Maura felt a moment’s panic. She didn’t want to be the governess who made her charge cry within the first half-hour. Her next words came rushing out to forestall any tears. ‘Sex is fine.’

Sex is fine? Maura clapped a hand over her mouth, but it was far too late.

‘Is it? That’s good to know.’ Lord Chatham’s smile widened in good humour.

Maura blushed hotly in mortification. What had happened to her tongue? It had done nothing right since her arrival. ‘Six,’ she stammered. She turned towards Cecilia. Anything was better than looking at him. ‘You may call me Six if you like, Cecilia. It can be our special name.’

Cecilia beamed at her and Maura knew the sweet taste of victory, a taste she’d barely swallowed before Lord Chatham said, ‘And me? Perhaps I should have a special name for you, too. Shall I call you …?’ He let the question hover provocatively, forcing her to interrupt if she didn’t want him to provide an answer. He would say it, too. If the last half-hour had shown her anything of his character, it was that.

‘Miss Caulfield. You should call me Miss Caulfield,’ Maura supplied hastily. The situation was fast spiralling out of control. She should establish her authority before it slid away entirely. She didn’t want Chatham thinking she could be swayed by a simple smile. ‘Cecilia, why don’t you and William go upstairs to play while I settle in? Then we can spend the afternoon getting acquainted over a walk in the park.’

Maura recognised her error immediately. Sending away the children meant she was left on her own with the outrageous Lord Chatham. ‘I must apologise for my slip of tongue.’