Page 7 of The Governess and the Rogue

She wasn’t conventionally beautiful. She was too starchy and solemn for that. But⁠—

The devil.

She was attractive.

Jack’s blood simmered with a disconcerting warmth. He brutally suppressed the reaction. It was easy enough to do for a man of his experience. He hadn’t reached the advanced age of four and thirty without learning something about how to command his emotions.

“The sky will clear again,” he said, a trifle gruffly. “It always does.”

Miss Layton folded her arms, twining her meager knitted shawl about her. “But not tonight.”

“No,” he acknowledged. “Probably not.”

She lapsed into silence, still staring out at the sky.

Jack regarded her for a long moment. “Let me guess,” he said. “You had a frightful row with your employer about the violent conduct of your young charges, and now you find yourself in fear for your position?”

“I wouldn’t call it a row,” she said. “That would imply that there was an argument with two opposing sides.”

“But you did speak to the children’s mother?”

“She did most of the speaking.” Miss Layton readjusted the ends of her shawl with uncharacteristically anxious fingers. “Or rather, the shouting.”

Jack’s brows sank with displeasure. “Don’t say that she blamed you for her child’s misconduct?”

“She blamed me for upsetting her peace.”

“In other words⁠—”

“In other words, there was no satisfactory resolution. The best I received was an admonishment to speak to her husband. Which is what I intend to do if I’m ever successful in running the man to ground. I’ve not seen him since we departed Alexandria. I’m told he spends most of his time in the gaming saloon with the other Pukka sahibs.”

Jack gave a humorless laugh at the ironic emphasis she put on the phrase. He was no great believer in pedigree himself (his own lineage notwithstanding), but even he had to admit that the majority of his fellow countrymen who had settled in India fell short of the Hindustani expression for excellence.

Instead of drawing the very best gentlemen, India had, in recent decades, become the preferred destination for grasping men and women who had failed to make their mark in British society. Middle-class autocrats, eager to ape that very society in a foreign land, and to lord their privileged positions over that place’s native inhabitants.

It was one of the many dark aspects to the expansion of Empire. One Jack had witnessed all-too-often during his years in service to the Crown. For that reason alone, he was glad to be returning home.

“What?” Miss Layton asked, hearing his dry chuckle.

“Nothing,” Jack said. “Only that I don’t disagree with your assessment.”

“I made no assessment. I wouldn’t dream of doing so.”

“Your implied assessment, then.” He resettled his fingers on the handle of his cane. There was a chill in the air tonight that hadn’t been present last evening. Jack could feel it in the bones of his injured leg—a deep, pitiless ache. He did his level best to ignore it.

“How will you run Mr. Dimsdale to ground?” he asked.

“I sent a message to him through his valet this morning,” Miss Layton said.

“And?”

She gave Jack a suspicious look. “Do you always take such an interest in solving other people’s problems?”

Jack offered a vaguely apologetic smile in reply. “One of the hazards of being in charge of a brigade of men. I was often obliged to make their business my business.”

“Need I point out that I’m not one of your men?”

“You may believe, ma’am,” he replied gallantly, “that I could never mistake you for one.”