Page 11 of The Enigmatic Governess of Buford Manor
With a feigned seriousness plastered on his face, he jested, “You do not think I will suit two heads?” He placed his hand on his heart and cocked his head to the side. “I believe it will only add to my charms.”
Betsey giggled and turned to flee the room, but Nicholas called out to her as she retreated.
“Why haven’t you dressed for the gala?”
“We are not to attend tonight,” his cousin scrunched her nose. “Grown-ups only.”
“Shame that,” Nicholas commented, turning back to adjust his neck scarf. “I was hoping you would come on my arm.”
Betsey paused and whirled around, her blue eyes wide with awe.
“You would have me as your companion?” she gasped, her pale cheeks tinging pink with the notion.
“Of course,” he answered. “Who could possibly be a more enchanting consort than my darling cousin?”
“I can think of any number of people,” Harry piped from the doorway. “Krampus, Jezebel, Iago – “
“Off with you!” Betsey squealed, her mouth pinching in defiance. “You would not know enchanting if it slapped you in the rump!”
“Now, children,” Nicholas chided. “That is quite enough. I am sorry that you cannot attend tonight but know I would much rather be spending my evening with you than – “
“Than dozens of the most charming women in East Anglia?”
Nicholas grinned sheepishly at the woman who watched him pensively from the doorway.
“Mother,” he laughed. “I was just coming to you.”
“I sent for you a quarter of an hour ago,” she replied, shooing the children from Nicholas’ bedchambers.
“Miss Eloise is searching for you,” she told his cousins sternly. “You must stop giving her such trouble. Especially you, Betsey. She will leave and then who will tend to you?”
“Yes, Your Grace,” they chorused in unison, lowering their small heads in shame. “We are sorry.”
Nicholas thought that Betsey seemed strangely void of contrition but he made no comment as his mother dismissed the duo and they scampered from the room.
“Apologies for the delay, mother. As you can see, I was bombarded.”
The Duchess of Buford snickered, finally allowing the sternness to slip from her face.
“They are quite a pair, are they not?”
“Good children, the both,” Nicholas replied, stepping toward his mother.
“Let me gaze at you, my beautiful son,” she sighed, reaching up to adjust the lapel of his shirt. “To where has the time vanished?”
He peered at her pensively, sensing a slight melancholy in her words.
“Are you well, mother? You speak as if you come bearing terrible news.”
The duchess smiled warmly and nodded, her raven hair glimmering against the bejeweled combs, a tiara entwined in the stands.
“Of course, I am well, darling. I was only thinking it was not long ago that you went through the manor, evading your own governess but it was long ago, was it not?”
“Was it? It seems to me that I look precisely as I recall as a small boy. I daresay, you have not aged but a day in that time.”
“Oh, Nicholas,” his mother sighed. “It is not me you should be wasting your puffery upon.”
He stifled the groan which threatened to spill from his lips and pursed his mouth together, stepping back.
