Unfortunately, as they were the children of a duke, Rupert could not tell them to toddle off and pester someone else. Instead, he tolerated them with tight-lipped smiles.
With a governess in the castle, the children’s hours would be better filled.
“Would you like to change your clothing, sir?” Billings eyed Rupert’s coat with barely concealed horror. “Or would you prefer to wait for the dinner hour?”
Rupert looked at the mantel clock. It was only just past three. Too early for dinner, but ridiculous to change into anything else. “I suppose dinner clothing would be appropriate, but I’ll forgo the coat for now. I have my drawings still to do.”
“Yes, Mr. Gardiner.” Billings went into the small antechamber that served as closet and bathing room for Rupert. Meanwhile, Rupert started shedding the mud-crusted garments. The day had proved fruitful, and he hoped the discussion with the duke on his observations would be satisfying.
Chapter 3
Alice’s second day in the castle, her first morning as the governess, was not an unqualified success. In fact, she qualified it as a minor disaster. Her nerves were somewhat frayed by the live frogs Lord James had introduced during their morning recitations. The amphibians had not bothered her as much as the shrieking of the boy’s older sisters.
Lady Isabelle and Lady Rosalind had enough power in their lungs to launch a British man-of-war out of a harbor. Returning the schoolroom to order afterward had taken time away from their study of geography.
“Lady Rosalind, will you kindly point out the location of India on the globe, please?” Alice had asked, ready to begin a lesson on that region.
Unfortunately, she learned at that point Lady Rosalind thought India a part of South America. The girl peered at the southern hemisphere for some time before asking, “Why isn’t India labeled?”
Lady Isabelle had laughed at her sister before proudly spouting off the names of all the crown heads of Europe to prove herself superior.
That had caused another argument.
The art instructor staying in the castle sent word shortly after twelve that he was ready for the children’s lessons. Alice sent them off, relieved beyond words to have an hour of quiet.
It was an hour she ought to spend organizing the schoolroom and preparing for the next lesson. Standing three floors above ground, looking out a window into the gardens, Alice yearned for something else.
The Clairvoir gardens were famous throughout England for their beauty. All of Society had sought news of how the duchess had rebuilt the castle in the past decade, and everyone sought to copy Her Grace. Even Alice, living on the fringes of Society in her uncle’s home, had heard about the statue garden. She still remembered one letter they had shared from a friend who had seen the work-in-progress.
A dozen commissioned statues of the favorite Greeks, a dozen more of historical figures, and all scattered about in beds of flowers meant to delight the senses.
And here she stood, with only a flight of stairs and a door between her and such magnificent beauty.
“Half an hour,” she said aloud, then nodded firmly. She could spare that much. She would be outside and back in so quickly she would not even need a bonnet and gloves. She briefly looked down at her dress.
The deep blue gown she wore was cut for practicality, not fashion. The neck was high, the sleeves long, and there were no feminine ruffles or flounces, or any lace to speak of. But what did she care? It was not as though she was going to a garden party. She meant to take a hurried stroll, be seen by no one, and return to the schoolroom on the upper floor.
That decided, Alice went out the door and found the servants’ staircase. When she accompanied the children, she was to keep to the main passages and stairs, but alone she could do as she pleased.
She passed a valet who gave her a quick bow and skirted by a maid who looked rather affronted at finding someone in her path. Then she was on the ground floor, and with just a few steps, she was out a door to the first terrace, which consisted of lawn furniture and tables meant for the household and guests to take their ease in the open air. Steps led down to the next level of gardens, and she took those quickly. After the first terrace where one could sit and enjoy the view, there were rose gardens, and then the slightly wilder gardens filled with riotous flowerbeds and columns of ivy; below that one she found the statues.
Her heart raced from her exertion, and Alice did not stop until she stood at the foot of the first statue she saw. “Who are you, then?” she asked the marble maiden. The woman stood holding a bowl in one hand and wheat in the other, looking out over the garden with a gentle expression.
Alice tapped her lip with one finger as she thought, before quietly whispering, “Hestia or Hera, a goddess of prosperity and harvest. Hm.” She went on to the next, the statue of a man holding a bow and surrounded by purple and pink butter-cup-like flowers. “Anemones. Ah, that makes you Adonis.” Alice smiled up at the Greek depiction of male beauty. Then she narrowed her eyes. He rather looked like the portrait of the duke she had passed on the grand staircase. “I wonder if the duke commissioned you, or if the sculptor sought to win his favor?” She giggled at herself and kept going.
Her time stolen from duty ran short. She needed to hurry, so as she went deeper into the gardens, she ran around the base of another statue to come to its front—and tripped over a pair of boots. Her momentum sent her sprawling face-first into the flowerbed.
Unladylike words trilled through her mind, learned when unsuspecting male relatives had let loose their caustic tongues within her hearing. But she clamped her lips against saying such things out loud, only to immediately taste dirt.
Alice tried to rise at the exact moment the owner of the other pair of legs attempted the same. Her foot slipped between a pair of ankles, tangling them both up. It also sent her face back into the flowers.
A rather masculine voice, likely belonging to those same legs, released a torrent of ill-tempered words. “What in blazes—if His Grace keeps allowing this, I will never complete my work.”
What did the duke have to do with a man lying about in the gardens, where anyone might trip over him? She ought to offer an apology, but given his brusque reaction to the accident, he might not deserve one.
Alice groaned and settled for rolling over, instead. The first thing she saw was the top of the statue she had been attempting to view from the front. The figure was that of an imperious-looking woman, pointing almost directly at where Alice lay. She blinked.
A face appeared above her, alarmingly close. “You aren’t one of the duke’s daughters.” He spoke almost gruffly, as though he disapproved of her anyway.
Thank heavens her spectacles remained in place. They allowed her to clearly make out every detail of the man kneeling at her side. He was a handsome fellow, despite the smudge of dirt across his cheek. He had black hair that fell across his forehead almost into his forest-filled eyes. His face was narrow, his lips wide, and a rather endearing little cleft marked the bottom of his chin.
All her female cousins from the tender age of fourteen to three and thirty would take notice of this man.
“Are you injured?” he asked, his black eyebrows pushing together. “Addled?”
Alice sucked in a breath. “I do not think so.”
He nodded and extended a hand to her. He wore thick leather gloves, well-scratched and dirty. Alice took the offered hand, and with a swift movement he pulled her to her feet. While she was taller than Society considered fashionable, this man still had half a head on her in height.