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Physically tackling her probably wouldn’t work. Damn, Chance swore to himself. The one prospect who seemed even marginally acceptable, and he’d bungled things badly. Worse, he’d somehow allowed her the upper hand, it would seem, because now he was all but groveling, as if she would be doing him some marvelous favor if he hired her. Confounding woman! “I wish you would reconsider. And I do apologize again.”
Julia hesitated. She really did need the money she would earn. It would be nice to know she had a roof over her head when the sun set tonight, one she did not have to pay for out of her meager funds. She turned, took another look at Chance Becket. His eyes really were the color of a storm-tossed sea…which should have less than nothing to do with her decision. “I…um, that is—”
“Papa? Buttercup is very hungry.”
Both Chance and Julia swiftly turned their heads toward the doorway.
“Alice,” Chance said abruptly, “you were to remain upstairs.”
The child’s bottom lip came forward in a pout. “I’ve been upstairs forever, Papa.”
Julia was entranced. From her lovely dark blond curls to the tips of her white satin slippers, the child could have modeled for one of Botticelli’s angels. Clearly she was her father’s child but redone in a delightfully soft and feminine form. “She’s precious and the very image of you, Mr. Becket,” Julia said quietly. “How your heart must swell each time you look at her. How old is she?”
Chance answered before he could think too much about the surprising comment or the question. “Alice is five. Her mother’s been gone for six months, and I’m afraid I’ve allowed her to run a little wild. She should be in the nursery.”
“She should be where she’s happy to be,” Julia said, smiling at the child. “And clearly she wishes to be with you.”
Chance ran a hand over his hair, then impatiently pushed at a lock that escaped the ribbon. “I should introduce you.”
“Yes, thank you, but I think Alice and I can get to know each other on our own,” Julia said, already walking toward the child. She went down on her knees a few feet away from Alice and said, “Hello. I’m Julia and I’m very pleased to meet you, Alice. Is that Buttercup? She’s very pretty.”
Alice looked at the yellow rabbit tucked under her arm. “He’s a boy.” She held out the toy. “See? Papa and I tied a blue ribbon around his neck. Isn’t he a boy, Papa?”
Chance walked across the room to stand beside his daughter, one hand on her shoulder. Mine, his gesture announced without words, although he didn’t consciously realize what he was doing. Treat her well or prepare to deal with me. “This week, yes, Buttercup is a boy. Where is your nurse, young lady?”
Alice shrugged. “She’s napping, Papa. She’s always napping.”
“When she isn’t nipping,” Chance growled quietly, and Julia looked up at him, seeing her opportunity and immediately seizing it.
“I could take up my duties today, Mr. Becket. At this very moment.”
“Really, Miss Carruthers?” Chance leaned down to kiss his daughter’s head. He should have thought to produce Alice earlier, for she seemed to be his trump card. “Run along upstairs, poppet. I’ll come join you very soon.”
But Alice was looking at Julia, who was still on her knees on the carpet. “You’re pretty. Mama was pretty. Would you like to come to tea?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart. We’ll have to ask your papa.” Julia got to her feet and looked at Chance. Waited. Then he smiled, and her heart skipped a beat.
“So we’re quite settled then, Miss Carruthers?”
“Yes, Mr. Becket, I suppose we are. Quite settled.”
The woman was transformed when she smiled, Chance realized, going from pretty enough to very nearly beautiful. If only he didn’t think she might be smiling because she had bested him in some unspoken contest between them. “We’ll discuss your wages at another time. But I must warn you, Miss Carruthers, we are not remaining in London above another two days.”
“We’re not?” Julia asked, her heart doing another quiet flip as Alice slipped her small hand into hers. “You have a country residence, sir?”
“I do. But we travel to Romney Marsh, to my father’s estate, where you and Alice will remain while I return to London and my duties at the War Office. Are you still so anxious to be in my employ, knowing you’ll once more be stuck in the back of beyond?”
Julia squeezed Alice’s hand. “I can think of nothing I would enjoy more, Mr. Becket, than being Alice’s nanny, no matter where that takes me. But I will say that London, I find, holds very little appeal. I much prefer the countryside.”
“And I wish you joy of it, Miss Carruthers. I’m sure my family will welcome both you and Alice to Becket Hall with open arms.”
“And you, sir?” Julia dared to ask, because Alice had accepted her and she knew her battle was already won. “You don’t enjoy Kent?”
The woman was entirely too insightful for his comfort. It was time for him to be done with this. “Wind and marsh and sea and mist. And sheep. More sheep than people, except for the people who are mostly sheep themselves.” Suddenly he wished to be alone. “No, Miss Carruthers, I do not enjoy Kent. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have important matters to attend to while you and Alice have your tea.”
“Papa, you promised,” Alice said, letting go of Julia’s hand to scamper after him as he turned to leave the room.
Chance was instantly contrite, guilty. “I did, didn’t I, poppet. All right. You take Julia upstairs and show her the nursery, and I will be there…momentarily.”
Alice turned back to Julia once her father had disappeared down the hallway. “It’s all right, Julia. Papa forgets, that’s all. Mrs. Jenkins says he doesn’t care about me, but that’s not true. He’s sad with Mama gone.” Then the child smiled. “But soon we’ll visit all my aunts and uncles and my grandpapa and we’ll all be so happy.”
“You’re a very wise little girl.” Julia held out her hand and Alice took it. “Tell me, do we like Mrs. Jenkins?”
The little girl sniffed, gave a toss of her golden curls. “No, Julia, we do not like Mrs. Jenkins at all. She snores and she smells when she breathes. I’m so glad she’d rather poke a stick in her eye than go to live at Becket Hall. And now Buttercup and I have you, and she can go away.” Alice looked up at Julia. “Why would anyone want to poke a stick in her eye?”
“A good question, as I nearly did just that a few moments ago with your papa,” Julia said as they headed up the stairs, three whole flights, to the top of the house. “Oh, isn’t this pretty,” she said as they stepped into a large room with too few windows. “Aren’t you a lucky little girl.”
Alice became very serious. “No, I’m a motherless child and can never be happy again,” she said, clearly parroting someone else’s words.
“Mrs. Jenkins said that?”
Alice nodded, holding Buttercup close. “She is very put out that I am not dressed head to toe in black because Papa said I shouldn’t. And when I laugh she tells me I’m unnatural. What is that? Unnatural?”
“It’s nonsense, that’s what it is, and nothing to worry your pretty little head about,” Julia said, looking around the room, ready to slay dragons for this child. Or at the very least pop open one of the small, high windows and stuff Mrs. Jenkins out of it, onto the flagway below. “Ah, and here comes our tea, I believe.”
Alice scrambled into one of the chairs set around a low table, stuffing Buttercup into another one as a lace-capped maid carried in a large tray.
The maid stopped, wide-eyed. “Who are you?”
Julia took the tray before the maid dropped it. “I’m Julia Carruthers, Miss Alice’s new nurse…nanny. And you are…?”
“Bettyann. Good afternoon and welcome to you,” the girl said, dropping into a quick curtsy before casting her gaze toward the slightly ajar door on the far wall. “Will Mrs. Jenkins be leaving soon then, miss? She will, won’t she?”
“In there, is she?” Julia asked, following Bettyann’s nervous gaze, realizing that the uneven sounds she had been hearing were not that of wind in the eaves but rather deep snores coming from the other room. Anything less than cannon fire was not going to rouse Mrs. Jenkins. Certainly not Alice slipping out of the nursery, as she’d done only minutes ago. “Is this usual for Mrs. Jenkins?”
“Yes, miss. She mostly stays in there, and then Miss Alice flits about the house, getting underfoot—not that any of us minds, you understand. Will she be leaving then, miss?”
“Before the cat can lick its ear,” Julia said, feeling rather powerful in her new position. “I will be accompanying Miss Alice to…to Becket Hall.”
“Oh, very good, miss, very good. Miss Alice? You’ll want to eat while your porridge is warm. There’s plenty, miss, and more bowls in that cabinet over there. I’ll fetch you one.”
“Fetch two, please, Bettyann, as Mr. Becket will be joining us.”
“Oh, no, miss. He just went out. I saw him myself as he went. Mr. Gibbons said a messenger came and Mr. Becket told him everything was settled here and he had to go to the War Office to attend to something. Something very important, because Mr. Becket is very important.”
“Papa’s gone? But he promised.”
Bettyann’s features softened as she looked at the child. “He’ll be back, sweetings. And now you have Miss Carruthers.” The maid looked apprehensively at Julia. “You will stay?”
“My bags are stored with the landlord at the White Horse in Fetter Lane. If it would be possible for someone to fetch them?” Julia asked, already searching in the pocket of her gown for her purse. Her still very slim purse.
“Mr. Gibbons will send one of the footmen directly, miss. But I don’t know where to put you, begging your pardon. And Mrs. Gibbons is abed with a putrid cough these past two weeks. I suppose Mr. Gibbons might know. Oh dear, oh dear. This is all so above me.”
Before Bettyann suffered an apoplexy, Julia said, “Just have the bags taken to Mrs. Jenkins’s room, if you will.”
“But Mrs. Jenkins—”
“Will be gone,” Julia said, handing the maid a few coins.
“Before the cat can lick its ear. You said that. Oh, miss, won’t that be a treat,” Bettyann said, grinning, showing the space where one of her bottom teeth had once resided. “And Mr. Becket says you are to do this?”
“Mr. Becket has engaged my services, yes,” Julia answered, believing she’d ducked the full truth quite smoothly.
“Come sit down and eat, Julia,” Alice said around a mouthful of porridge. “Buttercup wants to tell you all about his trip to the moon last night and all the lovely cheese he brought back with him. He flew there on a huge bird named Simon.”
“A bit of a dreamer, Miss Alice is, miss,” Bettyann said, smiling.
“And what is childhood for if not dreams,” Julia answered, motioning for Bettyann to be on her way. “Once you’ve spoken to this Mr. Gibbons, please come back and escort Miss Alice and Buttercup down to the drawing room and stay with her while I speak with Mrs. Jenkins.”
“Going to be a bit of a row, is there, miss?”
“Not if I find what I think I’m going to find behind that door, no,” Julia said, wondering what had gotten into her that she felt so brave. But when she sat down across from Alice, she knew. A motherless child, as she had been a motherless child. They were going to get on together so well.
The father, however, could prove to be more of a problem. But then, as her own father had often told her, it was better to begin as one planned to go on. Although he also had sighed more than once over her rather headstrong manner.
Still, everything about her new position was wonderful. A sweet child to care for. A return to Kent, to her beloved slice of England. She’d only been in London for less than a day and already she knew that the journey had been a horrible mistake. If not for the notice in the newspaper left on a bench by a traveler, she would have already been on another coach, heading back to Rye, even more perilously close to poverty than she had been and with no prospects.
She had decided to seek her future in London for a reason. The newspaper had been left on the bench for a reason. She had seen Mr. Becket’s advertisement for a reason. Little Miss Alice had come downstairs for a reason.
Julia was not by nature a superstitious sort. Nor did she put much stock in Dame Fate. She truly believed a person made her own luck. But even she had to believe that this time there may have been a reason.
As for Mr. Becket himself? She would make sure that her good luck also became his good luck. She would become, in the next hour or two, indispensable to the man. She would begin as she planned to go on.
“Hmm, what lovely porridge,” Julia said to Alice and picked up her spoon.
CHAPTER TWO
CHANCE LEANED BACK ON the squabs of his town coach, muttered an automatic curse as Billy jerked the reins and the horses lurched forward. Even after all these years, he thought, Billy made a much better powder monkey than he did a coachman.
Then Chance frowned, returning his mind to the just-completed meeting with Sir Henry Cabot, one of the chief assistants at the War Office.
“How good of you to present yourself so promptly, Mr. Becket. We were afraid we might have missed you, that you’d already gone on your way.” He’d put down his pen that he had been holding poised over a sheet of thick vellum. “As long as you insist upon leaving us to travel to Romney Marsh, the minister has decided that you should linger there for a fortnight, perhaps even a month, if you were to discover anything of note.”
“Anything of note about what, sir?” Chance had asked as Sir Henry had dipped his pen and begun writing once more. “I had only planned to escort my daughter to Becket Hall and then almost immediately return here.”
“Yes, yes, Becket, but the minister says you’re to be in no rush. He’s spoken to Lord Greenley in the Naval Office and together they’ve decided you might as well make yourself useful,” Sir Henry had said, frowning over what he’d written and then sanding the page.
“Useful, sir?” With Sir Henry, Chance knew his contribution to any conversation was to say a word or two occasionally, except when he simply nodded his agreement with some statement.
Sir Henry had held a thick stick of wax over the candle flame, then pressed the War Office seal onto the page. “There, done. Useful, yes, that is what I said. You did reside in the area for some years, am I correct? You know about the freetrading.”
Chance frowned. “Very little, sir. I didn’t actually…spend much time at Becket Hall.”
“Really? I wouldn’t have either, had I been you. Horribly rural. Well, nevertheless, nobody would suspect you of anything, as you’ll simply be visiting with your family—and with your daughter along, as well. All will seem perfectly normal, with you above suspicion.”
“Suspicion of what, sir?” Chance had asked this question already fairly certain he knew the answer. And Sir Henry hadn’t disappointed him.
“You’re to nose about quietly, Becket, speak to the Preventative Waterguard stationed up and down the coast, as well as the volunteers, dragoons and Customs officials. See what you can ferret out on your own, as well. Smuggling is everywhere on the coast, but lately we’re hearing very disturbing news from Romney Marsh. We’re bloody hell losing a fortune in revenue, not to even think about the secrets that could be flitting back and forth between the Marsh and Paris. We are at war, and those bumpkin idiots are ferrying Frenchmen to our shores. Traitors, that’s what they are, the lot of them.”
“They’re men who can’t feed their families on what their own country pays them for wool, so they take the wool to France, almost within moments of it being sheared off the sheep’s back, then bring back a few casks of tea or brandy to sell here. This is nothing new, Sir Henry, the Marshmen have been freebooting for centuries. War with France won’t stop them.”
“Becket, when I require a lecture on the matter, I will apply for one. This latest bit we’ve heard is much more than the actions of a few malcontents. There’s talk of a very large, well-organized gang operating from the Marsh. Your mission is to personally speak to our representatives and make them aware that we are aware of their ineptitude in not capturing and putting a stop to these troublemakers.”
“And to capture a few of them myself, so you can parade them here to be hanged in chains as a warning to their compatriots, I suppose?” Chance had asked the man, not at all happy about this turn of events.
“A young, strong, strapping fellow like yourself? The idea isn’t outside the realm of possibility. But I believe you’re being facetious now, Becket, and we surely don’t wish you to put yourself in any personal danger,” Sir Henry had said, handing over the paper plus another he’d pulled from a drawer. “You may use these in any way you deem necessary, one from the War Office, one from the Naval Office. They explain your mission and give you our full authority to go where you want, when you want. We’re counting on you, son. Some arrogant bastard has gone so far as to deliver casks of French brandy to the residence of Her Royal Highness, the Princess of Wales.”
And she’d drunk it with her ladies-in-waiting, Chance knew, shaking his head now as the coach slowly moved through the afternoon traffic. Wisely he’d refrained from sharing that particular knowledge with his lordship. And now he was on his way back to Upper Brook Street, planning a departure for Becket Hall in the morning, before anyone could press more demands on him.
Which brought Chance back to the most recent addition to his small traveling company, the amazingly forceful Miss Julia Carruthers. Would she be ready to travel?
Chance smiled wryly. The woman would probably be ready to travel in an instant. All she’d have to do is slide a leg over her broomstick.
Still, anyone was better than Mrs. Jenkins. How could Beatrice have countenanced such an unsuitable woman? Worse, how had he not noticed that the woman was totally unacceptable?
The answer to both questions, of course, was that neither he nor Beatrice had paid all that much attention to Alice. Children were kept in the nursery, out of sight, often out of mind. Indeed, Alice had been rarely in London with them, and they had been even more rarely in the country with her. In the circle of society in which he and Beatrice moved, that was natural, that was accepted.
And wrong. So very wrong.
The months after Beatrice’s short illness and death, even though he’d sent for Alice, Chance had been too busy at the War Office to spend any real time with the child.
No, that was a lie. He could have found time for his daughter; he simply hadn’t.
And yet, Alice seemed to worship him, which was more than embarrassing. He’d almost rather she hated him or was indifferent to him.
Alice needed stability. She needed a good home and people who loved her. Besides, in that gaggle at Becket Hall, one small child could hardly make much of a difference. She’d simply be absorbed, taken up the way Ainsley Becket had taken up Chance, had taken up all of them.
And then he, Chance Becket, would be free to return to London and get on with this dreary business that was supposedly the ordinary, civilized life he had always wanted.
The coach drew to a halt, and Chance opened the door before jumping down lightly to the flagway without waiting for the groom to let down the stairs. “Be prepared to travel to Becket Hall at six tomorrow morning, Billy,” he called up to the coachman. “Both coaches. And Jacmel, as well.”
Ignoring Billy’s heartfelt “Huzzah!”, Chance climbed the few steps to his front door two at a time and entered without waiting for the footman, who should have already been there opening the door for him.
The entire ground-floor foyer, in fact, was empty; nobody there to meet him, greet his guests or even protect his home. These things had always taken care of themselves, his life moving along without a ripple. How was he to know that it was the ailing Mrs. Gibbons who held the ship steady and not his butler?
He stripped off his hat, gloves and the greatcoat he’d worn to protect him from the damp mist of a London evening and headed up the stairs. Toward the noise he could hear. Voices, raised.
“Here, here,” he reprimanded when he saw half his staff—what had to be half his staff—gathered around the closed doors to the drawing room. “What’s all this about?”
