Page 1 of The Trouble With Her Duke
Prologue
December 4, 1815 Danforth Manor Somerset, England
A woman’s scream pierced the quiet of the manor. It was quickly followed by a slamming door and shoes stomping down the stairs. Damon Devereaux, the sixth Duke of Danforth, strode from his study and braced himself for the coming storm.
As usual, she was muttering under her breath as she came down the curved staircase into the main hall. That voice. That nasally whining voice had begun to grate on his nerves around week two. He couldn’t make out what she was saying, but her flushed face, as red as beetroot, spoke volumes.
He had had a feeling this would happen, but he’d hoped they could at least have made it to Christmas. Fishing into his pocket, he withdrew several banknotes he had ready, just in case.
They’ve done it again.
His seven-year-old twins were masterful at pranking. And they’d outwitted yet another governess. Mrs. Tartan had made it to the two-month mark. Eight weeks. It had been six months since a governess had accomplished that milestone. Mrs. Pritchett, their previous governess, had barely lasted a fortnight. He’d been in London and not witnessed the grievous episode; however, Jenkins, the butler, had described it to him.
“Moths, Your Grace,” Jenkins had told him in his usual placid voice when Damon had returned. “In her armoire. They must have been quite famished.”
Damon bit his tongue, determined not to smile as he recalled the incident.
The moths had eaten holes through all of Mrs. Pritchett’s clothing in one day. The next morning, she’d turned in her notice and left it with Jenkins, along with an itemized bill for the ruined apparel.
Predictably, the twins had declared their innocence, believing the moths had been butterflies. Damon suspected they knew the difference, but he couldn’t be sure. They had only just learned about the study of lepidopterology.
Mrs. Tartan slammed her valise down on the last step. Her hat was askew and looked like it had been trampled on. “Your Grace, in all my years of teaching, I have never experienced the likes of your two children. They wear the smiles of angels but have the deceitfulness of devils,” the gray-haired woman huffed.
“See here, Mrs. Tartan. While I can appreciate that my children are more challenging than most, I will not have them slandered,” he ground out.
“Slandered?” She harrumphed. “Your Grace, Attila the Hun would have been easier to manage than your children.” She wagged her finger at him. “Oh, they are clever. I’ll give them that. But breaking those two will take more than the Roman army.” She handed him a folded sheet of vellum. “My notice of resignation.”
“Madam, my children are not wild horses that need to be broken.” Damon was trying very hard not to lose his temper. “I accept your resignation. My carriage will take you to Bath.” He handed her the banknotes and added, “I trust this is adequate compensation for your services and any inconvenience you may have encountered while in my employ.”
The woman’s eyes widened at the five twenty-pound notes in her hand. “Thank you, Your Grace.” Quickly, she stuffed the money into her reticule.
Damon nodded and turned to his butler. “Jenkins, have Colby drive Mrs. Tartan to the Endicott Hotel along with the rest of her belongings and instruct them to charge me for one night.”
“Very well, Your Grace,” Jenkins replied as he handed the valise to a footman.
“I bid you good day, Your Grace,” Mrs. Tartan said.
“What did they do?” Damon asked as she adjusted her hat. “You never said.”
She regarded him in silence for a moment. “Do, Your Grace?”
“You’ve accused my children of being worse than Attila the Hun. I would like to know what they did to merit such a claim.”
“Perhaps the question is, what didn’t they do?” she replied in a stilted tone. A shudder shook her. “This morning’s surprise was a bullfrog at the bottom of my armoire. It left excrement in my shoe. Excrement, Your Grace! And that’s not all. There was the mouse in my commode, the pigeon in my hatbox, and the toad in my sewing box. I listed everything in my letter of resignation.”
“Thank you for enlightening me,” Damon said. He would not give this woman the satisfaction of reacting to her list of grievances.
He wanted to feel sorry for her, but couldn’t. The constant reports on his children—every day for the last month—had worn his patience thin. It was as though she were a child tattling on her siblings rather than a governess with twenty years of experience. The woman was incapable of wrangling two kittens, let alone two seven-year-olds. “Please leave a forwarding address. If there was any damage to your possessions,” he said tightly, “I will have it repaired or replaced and sent to you. Is there anything else?”
The woman straightened her shoulders and puckered her lips in disapproval—a look he had found as irritating as his children had. “Jenkins has my sister’s address,” she said in a stiff voice, thumping her black umbrella three times on the marble floor. She strode to the entrance where Jenkins stood, holding the door. Stopping, she looked back at Damon over her shoulder. “I cannot decide who is worse—the boy or the girl. Good luck, Your Grace.”
“Good day, madam,” Jenkins said, closing the heavy oak door behind her.
Good riddance. Damon hoped never to encounter another Mrs. Tartan again. “Jenkins, tell the children I would like to speak to them in my study.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
Six governesses in two years.
