Free The Game and the Governess by Kate Noble Page A

tub.
    “Brilliant!” Ned blurted out, mustering his will. “Marvelous!”

    “NOW, YOU TWO,” Phoebe Baker commanded in her sternest governess voice as she dodged the thwack of a twisted wet towel, “stop fooling about!”
    But Rose and Henry Widcoate, wearing dressing robes, seemed unable to end the Towel Wars, at least not before declaring a clear victor and making the defeated party forfeit their lands and riches.
    “Say ‘uncle’!” Rose cried.
    “Why?” Henry asked, perplexed. He was six to his sister’s eight, and therefore not well schooled in the nuances of towel warfare.
    “‘Uncle’ means that you give up!”
    “Oh.” Henry’s eyes went wide with understanding. “But I don’t give up. I’ve hit you six times, you’ve only hit me four!”
    Thwack! “Five now. And the loser has to give over their dessert tonight.”
    “Then I definitely don’t give up!” Henry spun his towel, readying it for a furious strike.
    Time for the cavalry to step in.
    “If you don’t cease hostilities right now, tomorrow will have double the spelling lessons!” Miss Baker said, hands on her hips.
    That was, apparently, sanction enough from a stronger empire to force an end to the Towel Wars.
    Rose and Henry blinked up at her, as if they had only just realized she was in the room with them. Their hair was still wet from their baths, water dripping into their eyes.
    “Oh, yes, hello,” she said, giving a short wave. “I’ve been here this entire time. I have witnessed your crimes and must insist upon a negotiated armistice before dinner.”
    “Sorry, Miss Baker,” they answered in unison.
    “What’s an armistice?” Rose piped up, bouncing up and down on the balls on her feet. Rose was always the bouncy one. Quick, and with more energy than she knew what to do with. Henry was the quiet, contemplative child, who—as evidenced by the recent conflict—could find trouble very easily when led into it by his sister.
    But both were curious—and having curious pupils made up for quite a bit in the governess trade.
    “An armistice is a cessation of hostilities.” Blank looks were her answer. “A promise of peace.”
    “Like when the Boney man was shipped off to the island by Wellington?” Henry asked.
    “Sort of,” Phoebe replied, satisfied with a six-year-old’s understanding of a war that had ended only shortly before he was born. One whose legend was quickly outstripping fact, as in all things.
    History, of course, was written by the victors.
    “Now, you both will be quite sorry if you don’t get ready for dinner. Your father has arrived home from Hollyhock, and you are expected in the drawing room before your supper. Nanny has laid out your best suit, Henry. And your lovely pink dress, Rose.”
    Both froze. Because, as young as they were, and as breezy as Phoebe tried to make her speech, Rose and Henry knew all too well what their best clothes and an audience with their father meant.
    “We are going to have a Questioning, aren’t we?” Rose asked, suddenly without her bounciness.
    Phoebe looked into the imploring eyes of her young charges. She could have lied to them. She could have soothed and petted and cooed the way she wished to.
    But that was not what governesses were for.
    “Yes,” she replied crisply. “I imagine so.”
    Rose groaned and fell in the most dramatic possible fashion face-first into a stuffed chair, while poor Henry simply brought his thumb to his mouth reflexively.
    “Now, now,” Phoebe chided, crouching down to Henry’s level and gently removing the thumb from between his teeth. “None of that. This is not worthy of the thumb, Henry.”
    “But we hate the Questioning!” Rose moaned, flopping over in the chair.
    “Does the prospect of the Questioning make gravity affect you so much you can no longer stand?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. Rose, knowing that tone, managed to pull herself to her feet, however sulkily.
    “Why all this nonsense? Your father only