Pip spent the first week of her married life interviewing governesses. She interviewed tall governesses and short ones, young governesses and old ones, blonde governesses and brunettes, a redhead, and two governesses with gray hair. She asked them all the same two questions. “Which of these qualities is, in your opinion, the single most important one for girls to acquire?”
The latest candidate, a Miss Bollingbroke, was short, young, plump, and brown-haired. She had a lot of freckles and a pair of spectacles. She pushed the spectacles up her nose while she looked at the list Pip had given her.
Docility
Obedience
Confidence
Modesty
Deference
Humility
Miss Bollingbroke frowned as she read her way down the list, and then glanced at Pip. “The most important quality?”
“Yes.”
“Confidence,” Miss Bollingbroke said, and gave the list back to Pip.
Pip pursed her lips and made a mark on her paper, then she passed another list to Miss Bollingbroke. “Of these subjects, which would you teach girls and which would you not?”
Spelling
Arithmetic
French
Geography
Climbing trees
Pianoforte
Painting
Botany
Paddling in creeks
Deportment
Elocution
Embroidery
Flying kites
Miss Bollingbroke read her way down the list. “All of them,” she said, and gave the list back.
“All of them?” Pip said, dubiously. “Even climbing trees?”
“Of course. They’re children, are they not?”
Pip made another mark on her paper, and then sat back and studied Miss Bollingbroke. Unless she was mistaken, she’d just found the perfect governess. “You’re hired, Miss Bollingbroke.”
They talked about the girls for the next hour, about how confidence was the most important thing they needed to learn and that climbing trees, flying kites, and paddling in creeks were essential parts of their curriculum. Then Miss Bollingbroke departed, to be driven the twenty miles to Newingham’s estate in one of the duke’s liveried coaches.
Pip tidied up her notes—the list of qualities, the list of subjects, the list of candidates’ names with fourteen names crossed out and one, Miss Bollingbroke’s, with two stars alongside it.
A knock came on the parlor door. A maid peeked in. “Are you finished?”
Pip put her lists to one side. “Are you?”
The maid nodded. She was a very pretty maid, with curling blonde hair, large blue eyes, and a buxom figure.
Pip pushed back her chair and left the parlor. Together she and the maid climbed the stairs to the bedchamber she shared with Octavius. Once inside, Pip locked the door. “No pinches?”
“Not a single one,” the maid said, turning her back so that Pip could unfasten her dress. “No kisses either, or lewd comments. Nothing.”
“That’s good,” Pip said. “We can cross Linwood Castle off the list.”
The maid shucked her gown and petticoat and stood still while Pip undid the laces on her stays. “Thank heavens,” she said, once she was liberated from that garment. “I hate stays. Dashed uncomfortable.”
“Neckcloths look uncomfortable,” Pip said.
The maid removed her chemise. “They are, but not as uncomfortable as stays.”
Pip, who’d never worn a neckcloth, couldn’t argue this point.
The maid transformed into Octavius. “Ah,” he said on a sigh and closed his eyes. “So much better.”
Pip held out his drawers. “Where to next?”
Octavius opened his eyes. “Gloucestershire, then down to Somerset,” he said, not taking the drawers. “Then Dorset, then Surrey, then Kent.” He huffed out a breath that was half laugh, half sigh. “My family owns too many estates.”
Pip didn’t disagree. She’d been rather daunted by the list of properties when she’d first seen it. Not daunted by the work that lay ahead of them, but daunted by the Pryor family’s wealth.
“What would you like to do now?” she asked, still holding out the drawers. “Shall we go for a walk?”
“We could,” Octavius said, making no move to take the drawers. “Or . . .” He caught her other hand and pressed three kisses to her palm. “We could do something else.”
“But it’s the middle of the afternoon,” Pip protested.
“So?”
There was no rule that said they couldn’t make love in the afternoon, was there? “Or perhaps we could do both?” Pip suggested, rather breathlessly.
“We could do both,” Octavius agreed.
Pip dropped his drawers on the floor and let him lead her to the bed, where he kissed her a great deal more than three times.
Thank you for reading Octavius and the Perfect Governess. I hope that you enjoyed Octavius and Pip’s story!
If you’d like a glimpse into their married life, I’ve written a bonus scene for my readers’ group wherein an unexpected (but felicitous) event occurs.
Members of the readers’ group also receive an image of the Pryor family tree depicted in playing cards (as described by Octavius) and a free digital copy of the Pryor Cousins prequel short story collection, Maximus.
Maximus stars Octavius’s rather unpleasant great-grandmother, Selina, his grandfather (the eponymous Maximus), and a certain baleful Faerie godmother. Octavius’s father, uncles, and cousins also appear within its pages.
To read Pip and Octavius’s bonus scene, see the Pryor family tree, and receive a free digital copy of Maximus, join my readers’ group. Here’s the link:
The next book in the Pryor series, Decimus and the Wary Widow, features Octavius’s cousin, Decimus, and the frosty young widow he rescues from highwaymen.
“Utterly full to the brim with joy. This book is a love letter to joie de vivre.” ~BookSprout Reviewer
“Another wonderfully brilliant book. Larkin’s imagination is one of my favorite things on this earth.” ~BookSprout Reviewer
“I finished this in less than 24 hours. As always with Larkin, the characters are utterly believable and individual … there are no clones of classic heroes or heroines of the genre here. The dialogue is hugely entertaining. Definitely going into my collection of ‘keepers’!” ~BookSprout Reviewer
Decimus and the Wary Widow is available now.
The Pryor Cousins series runs concurrently with the Garland Cousins series. The first Garland novel, Primrose and the Dreadful Duke, tells the story of a duke with a dreadful sense of humor, a bookish spinster . . . and a murderer.
“Oh my gosh! This was one of the most enjoyable, smiling until my cheeks hurt, reads I’ve had in a long while.” ~NetGalley Reviewer
“From the first page the reader is plunged into a world of romance, suspense, and laughter.” ~Goodreads reviewer
“I read straight through the night. I kept telling myself that I needed to put it down and get some sleep, but it was so interesting and exciting that I just had to see what happened next. Finally, at 7am, I read the last word and thought ‘Wow, just wow.’” ~NetGalley Reviewer
Read Primrose and the Dreadful Duke today.