Rules for a Proper Governess by Jennifer Ashley Page A

pushed past the governess, who smelled strangely of fish, and gave the ladder and scaffolding a calculating eye. “The workmen might frighten them anyway.”
    The governess’s look of chill disapproval evaporated with her desperation. “If you believe you can fetch them down, young woman, you’re welcome to try.”
    Bertie pulled off her gloves and tucked them into her pocket. She spit on both palms, rubbed them together, jumped, and caught a horizontal pole of the scaffolding.
    She used her feet and legs to carry her onto the first board, then started climbing the bars, moving upward quickly. Such things had been easier when she’d been ten, she reflected as she pulled herself up, but she’d kept herself limber.
    “You in the circus?” one of the men yelled from below.
    Bertie didn’t answer. She knew she could have climbed the ladder, as the children had, but she’d decided that swinging up like an acrobat would better catch their attention.
    She was right. Both Cat and Andrew were staring at her, round-eyed, by the time Bertie reached the top board and walked fearlessly down its narrow length toward them.
    Bertie sat down next to Andrew with a thump, swinging her legs over the side as he did. She made a show of gazing around her. “Ooh, lovely. Quite a view from up here, innit?”
    She could see down the short length of the street and then out across Hyde Park, down to the Row and the houses of Knightsbridge beyond.
    “There’s the Serpentine,” Bertie pointed out. “See?”
    Andrew climbed to his feet for a better view. He braced himself on an iron pole, leaning out alarmingly far. Caitriona silently seized the back of his jacket, holding him steady.
    Cat had come up here to make sure Andrew didn’t fall, Bertie realized. Cat pretended to be sullen, but a truly sullen girl would have walked away or stood below, bored, until her brother was either rescued or had fallen to his death.
    “Let’s go boating on the Serpentine!” Andrew shouted.
    “Sounds a treat,” Bertie said. She’d never been boating on the Serpentine but she’d watched others do it while she stood by, envious.
    “You’re not going boating,” the governess called up. “You’ll be going back to your studies, Master Andrew, so you can grow up to be a fine barrister, like your father.”
    Mentioning studies was not the best way to entice a boy home, Bertie thought. Andrew clutched the pole.
    “I’m not going to be a barrister,” he shouted down. “I’m going to be a ghillie, like Macaulay, and hunt game. Or a soldier, like Uncle Steven, and shoot enemies.” He raised an imaginary rifle and made explosive noises as he potted his target, human or animal.
    “You come down here at once!” The governess had returned to commanding.
    “Might be too cold for boating,” Bertie said conversationally. “But maybe not for tea. Do you have tea in the mornings? I bet you have truly wonderful teas, with cakes and buns, with lots of butter and jam.”
    “No,” Cat said without inflection. “Miss Evans makes us take our tea very weak, with no milk or sugar, and only a bit of plain bread, no jam or even butter.”
    “Oh.” No wonder the kids had run away from Miss Evans. She sounded a right tightfisted old biddy. “Well, I’ve got a few coins in me pocket,” Bertie said. “How about tea at a shop?”
    Both children stared at her, Andrew with his arm around the pole. “We’ve never been to tea in a shop,” Andrew said. He looked wistful a moment, before his disarming grin returned. “Can it be a great, big tea?”
    “As much as you want.” Bertie wasn’t sure exactly how much it cost to have tea and cakes in a shop in Mayfair, but surely she had enough left for it. She’d planned to have her tea or luncheon out today, like a fine young lady, before heading home to be plain old Bertie again.
    “We’ll come then,” Andrew said, mind made up. “What’s your name?”
    “It’s Bertie.”
    Andrew laughed. “That’s a