Rules for a Proper Governess

“You’ll have to run sometime. You’ll leave them high and dry, just like you did me and your dad, and all your friends. You wouldn’t let us have Basher McBride when you led him to my mates, and now you’re telling us to leave him alone again. You are his tart, I know it. And I’m not having it.”

Jeffrey grabbed Bertie by the front of her dressing gown, jerking her to him. She suppressed a yelp, but she fought, fists pounding his shoulders. Jeffrey yanked her dressing gown open . . . and found the barrel of Sinclair’s revolver pressed to his head.

“No,” Bertie said, fading back in dismay.

Sinclair dug the pistol deeper into Jeffrey’s temple. “Let go of her, leave the silver, and get out of my house,” he said. “If I ever see you again, I will shoot you. If you don’t go, I will shoot you right now. Do you understand me?”

Jeffrey swallowed, his eyes wide, believing. He opened his hands and released the folds of Bertie’s dressing gown.

“Out,” Sinclair repeated.

Jeffrey kept his eyes on Sinclair’s pistol as he backed away. “Right, right, I’m going.”

His hand stretched toward the valise as he passed it, and Sinclair took a step toward him. “I said leave it.”

Jeffrey clenched his fist, turned swiftly, and made for the window. He opened it easily, climbed through, and disappeared into darkness.

Sinclair shut the window on the freezing draft and found the lock broken, obviously forced by Jeffrey. No matter, he’d have Macaulay repair it in the morning.

Sinclair turned back to Bertie. In the light of the one lamp, her blue eyes were huge in her pale face, lamplight shining on the thick braid of hair that flowed over her shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” she was saying. “He came tonight—he said he’d hurt you and the kids, kill you even, if I didn’t help him. I thought a bit of silver you never use wouldn’t do no harm. He’d be caught as soon as he tried to pawn it, the idiot.”

Sinclair didn’t hear her. He laid the gun carefully on the table and went to her.

“Never mind.” Sinclair brushed back Bertie’s warm hair as he drew her close. He kissed the top of her head. “It doesn’t matter, lass.”

Bertie was shaking, and Sinclair realized after a heartbeat that she was crying. His Bertie, the courageous woman who looked at life and all its grimness with a bright smile, was crying in remorse.

Sinclair tilted her face up to him. “Stop, love.”

Bertie’s face was wet with tears. Sinclair leaned down and kissed one away, then he kissed her parted lips. She kissed him back, her mouth trembling, her hands curling on his chest. Her warmth wove around Sinclair despite the situation, intoxicating him.

The silence in the house meant they were alone in the night. Sinclair moved his touch to her bu**ocks, firm and sweet under the gown, his arousal hot and stiff under his loose dressing gown and nightshirt. Nothing existed but her kisses, her unfettered body against his . . .

Ice-cold wind blew into his back as the window slid up again. Sinclair heard the c**k of a pistol.

Instinct took over. Sinclair flung Bertie down, the two of them landing on the carpet, limbs tangling. The gun boomed at the same time, and then there was another cry of surprise and pain, one too high-pitched to belong to Macaulay.

Sinclair was on his feet and out the dining room door, snatching up the falling body of Andrew, who had blood on his chest and looked up at his father with confusion in his eyes.

Bertie, her lungs constricting, snatched up the pistol Sinclair had laid on the table and rushed to the window. No one was there. She saw Jeffrey’s form vaulting to the top of the high garden wall and over, but he was too far away to stop.

She turned back, discarding the pistol on the sideboard, to where Sinclair cradled Andrew in the doorway. Andrew was still breathing, little gasping pants, blood all over his chest.

“Bertie, help me.” Sinclair’s voice was harsh.

Bertie fell to her knees. Sinclair ripped open Andrew’s nightshirt, exposing his pale chest and a red, gaping wound. Sinclair shrugged off his robe and stripped off his own nightshirt, kneeling in nothing but his underbreeches. He wadded up the nightshirt and pressed it to Andrew’s shoulder.

“Hold that right there,” he said to Bertie. “Use as much pressure as you can. I have to take out the bullet.”

“A doctor . . .”

“Too long to wait. I’ve done plenty of field surgery, taken bullets out of my friends.”

None of them had been eight years old, Bertie would wager. She obeyed, leaning her weight on the nightshirt, warm from Sinclair and now stained red with blood.

Andrew’s eyes were closed, his face waxy. But his chest still rose and fell. That was something. As long as the chest went up and down, Andrew was alive.

Footsteps thumped on stairs, from above and below, the household rushing to see what was the matter. Cat trailed them, gripping her doll in both arms, her face pale.

Sinclair moved the cloth enough to spread the lips of the wound. “Hold him down,” he said to Bertie. “I’ll need clean water, and a needle and thread,” he snapped over his shoulder.

Footsteps pounded again as the servants hurried to obey. Cat sank down on one of the dining room chairs, her blue eyes wide, but Bertie couldn’t leave Andrew to go to her.

Sinclair dipped his already bloody fingers into the wound, and in one go, closed his fingers around the bullet and drew it out.

Andrew’s eyes flew open, and he screamed. Bertie held him, her heart beating wildly, and wanted to scream with him. Andrew cried out once more, then slumped back to the floor, eyes closing, but his chest rose again with his breath.