Rules for a Proper Governess by Jennifer Ashley Page A

velvet, and there was carpet on the floor. It was warm too, with boxes of hot coals to keep her feet toasty.
    She hated to leave the landau’s confines for the chill of the East End street, but Franklin, who’d ridden up top with the coachman, opened the door as soon as the carriage stopped in front of the lodgings where Bertie lived with her father. Every person on the street stopped to stare as Bertie hopped from the coach’s step to the door of the house, the footman handing her down like a posh lady.
    “Won’t be a tick,” Bertie said to Franklin, pretending to ignore her neighbors, and went into the house’s dim interior.
    “Where the devil have you been?”
    The bellow came as soon as Bertie opened the door of their flat on the second floor. Gerald Frasier, Gerry to his mates, staggered into the front room, face stubbled with graying beard, his eyes bloodshot.
Hung over
, Bertie thought.
And bad too. Just my luck.
    “I’ve been working,” Bertie said. “Earning an honest living.” She ducked past her father before he could grab her and entered her own bedroom, which was sparsely furnished, but clean and neat. Bertie liked everything in its place.
    “Working?” Gerry shouted as he came after her. “What’cha mean, working? You were with a man, weren’t you?”
    “No,” Bertie said. The only way to deal with her father when he was like this was to be firm. “You know me better than that.” She opened the drawer of her bureau and withdrew clean underthings, which she tucked into a valise.
    Her father came close to her, peering at her for signs that she’d spent the night in bed with a man. Gerry was always terrified Bertie would run off with a bloke—one he didn’t control. Or be taken by one of the full-in-pocket villains who commanded teams of young thieves and prostitutes around here. Her dad might be a drunken lout, but he didn’t want anyone touching his daughter.
    The trouble was, Bertie
wished
she’d spent all night with a man—Sinclair McBride. Lying in her bed last night, knowing he was a floor under her at his desk, likely running his broad hand through his shorn hair while he read his papers, had kept her restless. She hadn’t been able to cease thinking about how he’d kissed her, or the fire in his gray eyes when he’d planted himself in front of the door of his study and challenged her.
    Her father grunted. “What work were you about then?”
    “An honest job, I said.” Bertie piled more stockings in the valise and opened the drawer to add the picture of her mother. Her mother smiled up at her from the framed photo with all the warmth Bertie remembered.
    “Doing what?” Gerry demanded
    “Looking after children, if you must know.” Bertie added hair ribbons, a brush, and a few toiletries, and closed up the soft case.
    “Eh?” Gerry stared. “What do
you
know about looking after children?”
    “I’ve looked after
you
all this time, haven’t I?” Bertie gave him a warning look. “They’re a good family, so you stay away from them.”
    Gerry’s bloodshot eyes opened wider as he tripped after her to the front room. It was cold in here—her father hadn’t started a fire or put on a kettle for tea. Sighing, Bertie detoured to the kitchen to poke the kindling in the stove and throw in a few lit matches. She emptied the tea kettle, rinsed it by pumping water into the sink, filled it, and set it on to boil. She put tea into the teapot, but pouring would have to be up to her father.
    “You get a nice hot cup inside you, and you’ll feel better,” Bertie said, returning to the front room. “And have another sleep after that.”
    Gerry watched Bertie pulling on her gloves again, then he looked at the valise, and everything came together for him.
    “Where the devil do you think you’re going?”
    Really, he could rival Andrew for noise. “I told ya. I have a job. I have to go back.”
    “Back where?” Gerry seized her by the arm. “You put away that valise and make