Governess Quotes

Ann turns to me. I know she's waiting for some hint of kindness-a kiss, an embrace, even a smile. But I can't muster any of it.
"You'll make a fine governess." My words are like a slap.
"I know," she answers, a slap of her own. ~ Libba Bray

I see you are in a dilemma, and one of a peculiar and difficult nature. Two paths lie before you; you conscientiously wish to choose the right one, even though it be the most steep, straight, and rugged; but you do not know which is the right one; you cannot decide whether duty and religion command you to go out into the cold and friendless world, and there to earn your living by governess drudgery, or whether they enjoin your continued stay with your aged mother, neglecting, for the present, every prospect of independency for yourself, and putting up with the daily inconvenience, sometimes even with privations. I can well imagine, that it is next to impossible for you to decide for yourself in this matter, so I will decide it for you.

At least, I will tell you what is my earnest conviction on the subject; I will show you candidly how the question strikes me. The right path is that which necessitates the greatest sacrifice of self-interest -- which implies the greatest good to others; and this path, steadily followed, will lead, I believe, in time, to prosperity and to happiness; though it may seem, at the outset, to tend quite in a contrary direction. Your mother is both old and infirm; old and infirm people have but few resources of happiness -- fewer almost than the comparatively young and healthy can conceive; to deprive them of one of these is cruel. If your mother is more composed when you are with her, stay with her. If she would be unhappy in case you left ~ Charlotte Bronte

I'll keep the girl out of trouble," Gray said, in what seemed to him a rather magnanimous gesture. "I'll watch out for her."
"Oh, I've no doubt you will. But who's going to watch out for you?"
Gray's nerves prickled. So, it wasn't the girl Joss was concerned about. No, he expected Gray to cock it all up.
"Right, Joss. I'm an unprincipled, lecherous bastard." He paused, waiting for his brother to argue otherwise.
He didn't.
Gray protested. "She's a governess, for the love of gold. Prim, proper, starched, dull." Soft, he thought in counterpoint. Delicate, sweet. Intriguing.
"Ah. So you'll dally with any chambermaid or serving wench who'll lift her skirts, but you'd draw the line at seducing a governess?"
"Yes. Have a look at me, man." Gray smoothed his brushed velvet lapel, then gestured upward at the banners trimming the freshly tarred rigging. "Look at this ship. I'm telling you, my libertine days are over. I've gone respectable."
"It's easy to change your coat. It's a great deal harder to change your ways. ~ Tessa Dare

That would never do, I'm sure,' said Alice: `the governess would never think of excusing me lessons for that. If she couldn't remember my name, she'd call me "Miss!" as the servants do.'

Well. if she said "Miss," and didn't say anything more,' the Gnat remarked, `of course you'd miss your lessons. That's a joke. I wish YOU had made it.'

Why do you wish I had made it?' Alice asked. `It's a very bad one.'

But the Gnat only sighed deeply, while two large tears came rolling down its cheeks.

You shouldn't make jokes,' Alice said, `if it makes you so unhappy. ~ Lewis Carroll

Perhaps I won't tire of her," Gray protested, just to be contrary. Because, apparently, that was how brothers behaved.
"Perhaps a dolphin will fly out of your arse. And here's an argument even you can't refuse. Grayson Shipping doesn't need a reputation for delivering damaged goods. You want me to hand George Waltham an impregnated governess?"
"I wouldn't get her with child. Give me that much credit, at least."
"I give you credit for nothing. Let's try this one last time, shall we? You made me this ship's captain. If I'm the captain, what I say goes. And I say you don't touch her. If you can't abide by my orders, take command of the ship yourself and let me go home."
"Go home and do what? Squander your fortune and talent on dirt farming?"
"Go home and take care of my own family. Go home and do what I damn well please, for once."
Cursing, Gray leaned against the wall. He knew Joss would make good on that threat, too. It hadn't been easy, coaxing his brother out of mourning. Gray had resorted to outright bullying just to convince him to take command of the Aphrodite, threatening to cut off his income unless he reported to London as agreed. But he needed Joss, if this shipping concern was to stay afloat. He'd worked too hard, sacrificed too much to see it fail.
And if Joss didn't become a willing partner, it all would have been in vain.
"Stay away from the girl, Gray."
Gray sighed. "We're on the same ship. I can't help but be near her ~ Tessa Dare

Ah, there's the governess voice. All stern and disapproving. It makes me feel like a naughty schoolboy. ~ Lisa Kleypas

The only people who ever called me were my dad, my brother, assorted Vaders to tell me to come early or late to work (including Sean, but he always sounded grumpy that he had to call me, so it wasn't as big a thrill as you'd think), Tammy to tell me to come early or late to tennis practice, and Frances. I glanced at the caller ID screen and clicked the phone on. "What's up, Fanny?"
From the time Mom died until I was eleven, Frances the au pair had hung out in the background of my life. Once Sean overheard someone calling her Fanny, whch apparently is a nickname for Frances. We found this shocking. I mean, who has a nickname that's a synonym for derriere? Who's named Frances in the first place? So the boys started calling her Fanny the Nanny. Then, Booty the Babysitter. Then, Butt I Don't Need a Governess. This had everything to do with the nickname Fanny and the fact that she tried not to get upset at being addressed in this undignified manner when she was trying to raise compassionate, responsible children. It had nothing to do with her having an outsized rumpus. Frances had a cute figure, if you could see it under all that hippie-wear. ~ Jennifer Echols

She felt safe for a while and derived solace from the reflection that there would always be church. If she were a governess all her life there would be church. There was a little sting of guilt in the thought. It would be practising deception.... To despise it all, to hate the minister and the choir and the congregation and yet to come - running - she could imagine herself all her life running, at least in her mind, weekly to some church - working her fingers into their gloves and pretending to take everything for granted and to be just like everybody else and really thinking only of getting into a quiet pew and ceasing to pretend. It was wrong to use church like that. She was wrong - all wrong. It couldn't be helped. Who was there who could help her? She imagined herself going to a clergyman and saying she was bad and wanted to be good - even crying. He would be kind and would pray and smile - and she would be told to listen to sermons in the right spirit. She could never do that.... There she felt she was on solid ground. Listening to sermons was wrong... people ought to refuse to be preached at by these men. Trying to listen to them made her more furious than anything she could think of, more base in submitting... those men's sermons were worse than women's smiles... just as insincere at any rate... and you could get away from the smiles, make it plain you did not agree and that things were not simple and settled... but you could not stop a sermon. It was so unfair. The se ~ Dorothy M. Richardson

His limp had been very pronounced that day, and he had been self-conscious, feeling - as he often did - as if he were playing the role of an impoverished governess in a Dickensian drama. ~ Hanya Yanagihara

Had the girl had any common sense, she would have dropped the line at once. But she had no sense. She made no sense. She was a pale English rose of a governess, adrift in a watery wilderness, on her way to a grueling post on a godforsaken island, when any fool could have told her-a woman so lovely need never work for her keep.
Had the men around her any sense, they would have cut the rope immediately. But they were idiots, bloody shite-for-brains idiots, too entranced by the pretty girl in peril to reach for their knives.
Had Gray his own knife, he would have drawn it. But he wasn't wearing his knife, because he wasn't the captain on this ship, was he? Nor an officer, nor even part of the crew. He was just a stupid, overdressed passenger who hadn't strapped on a goddamned knife that morning because it might ruin the lines of his goddamned brand-new coat. ~ Tessa Dare

Listen, then, Jane Eyre, to your sentence: tomorrow, place the glass before you, and draw in chalk your own picture, faithfully, without softening one defect; omit no harsh line, smooth away no displeasing irregularity; write under it, 'Portrait of a Governess, disconnected, poor, and plain.'

"Afterwards, take a piece of smooth ivory--you have one prepared in your drawing-box: take your palette, mix your freshest, finest, clearest tints; choose your most delicate camel-hair pencils; delineate carefully the loveliest face you can imagine; paint it in your softest shades and sweetest lines, according to the description given by Mrs. Fairfax of Blanche Ingram; remember the raven ringlets, the oriental eye;--What! you revert to Mr. Rochester as a model! Order! No snivel!--no sentiment!--no regret! I will endure only sense and resolution. Recall the august yet harmonious lineaments, the Grecian neck and bust; let the round and dazzling arm be visible, and the delicate hand; omit neither diamond ring nor gold bracelet; portray faithfully the attire, aerial lace and glistening satin, graceful scarf and golden rose; call it 'Blanche, an accomplished lady of rank. ~ Charlotte Bronte

Of course we will send postcards to Nutsawoo. And we shall bring him back a present as well. In fact,' she went on, with the instinctive knack every good governess has for turning something enjoyable into a lesson, and vice versa, 'I will expect all three of you to practice your writing by keeping a journal of our trip so that Nutsawoo may know how we spend our days. Why, by the time we return, he will think he has been to London himself! He will be the envy of all his little squirrel friends,' she declared.
Penelope had no way of knowing if this last statement was true. Could squirrels feel envy? Would they give two figs about London? Did Nutsawoo even have friends? ~ Maryrose Wood

It was at "Little Lodge" I was first menaced with Education. The approach of a sinister figure described as 'the Governess' was announced. ~ Winston Churchill

One is only as good as one is useful. ~ Noorilhuda

Reader, I married him.

It turned out the sounds I heard coming from the attic weren't the screams of Mr Rochester's mad wife Bertha. It wasn't the wife who burned to death in the fire that destroyed Thornfield Hall and blinded my future husband when he tried to save her.
After we'd first got engaged, he'd had to admit that he was already married, and we'd broken off our engagement. He'd asked me to run away with him anyway. Naturally, I'd refused.
But later, after we were properly married, he insisted that it hadn't happened that way. It turned out there had been no wife. It turned out that it had been a parrot, screaming in the attic. The parrot had belonged to his wife. She had got it in the islands, where she had also contracted the tropical fever that killed her. She'd died long before I came to work for him as a governess. That was never Bertha, in the attic. ~ Francine Prose

She boasted the general battle-ax demeanor of an especially strict governess. This was the kind of woman who took her tea black, smoked cigars after midnight, played a mean game of cribbage, and kept a bevy of repulsive little dogs.
Alexia liked her immediately. ~ Gail Carriger

You're suggesting the mysterious X. Where do we look for him?'

Poirot said:

'Obviously in a close circle. There were five people, were there not, whocould have been concerned?'

'Five? Let me see. There was the old duffer who messed about with his herb brewing. A dangerous hobby-but an amiable creature. Vague sort of person. Don't see him as X. There was the girl-she might have polished off Caroline, but certainly not Amyas. Then there was the stockbroker-Crale's best friend. That's popular in detective stories, but I don't believe in it in real life. There's no one else-oh yes, the kid sister, but one doesn't seriously consider her. That's four.'

Hercule Poirot said:

'You forget the governess.'

'Yes, that's true. Wretched people, governesses, one never does remember them. I do recall her dimly though. Middle-aged, plain, competent. I suppose a psychologist would say that she had a guilty passion for Crale and therefore killed him. The repressed spinster! It's no good-I just don't believe it. As far as my dim remembrance goes she wasn't the neurotic type.'

'It is a long time ago.'

'Fifteen or sixteen years, I suppose. Yes, quite that. You can't expect my memories of the case to be very acute. ~ Agatha Christie

Eventually, a governess realized I needed spectacles. When I first put them on my face, I can't even tell you ... it was like a miracle." "Finally seeing properly?""Knowing I wasn't hopeless." A knot formed in her throat. "I'd believed there was something incurably wrong with me, you see. But suddenly, I could see the world clear. And not only the parts in the distance, but the bits within my own reach. I could focus on a page. I could explore the things around me, discover whole worlds beneath my fingertips. I could be good at something, for once. ~ Tessa Dare

For the first part of the journey Maia kept her eyes on the side of the road. Now that she was really leaving her friends it was hard to hold back her tears.
She had reached the gulping stage when she heard a loud snapping noise and turned her head. Miss Minton had opened the metal clasp of her large black handbag and was handing her a clean handkerchief, embroidered with the initial A.
"Myself," said the governess in her deep gruff voice, "I would think how lucky I was. How fortunate."
"To go to the Amazon, you mean?"
"To have so many friends who were sad to see me go."
"Didn't you have friends who minded you leaving?"
Miss Minton's thin lips twitched for a moment.
"My sister's canary, perhaps. If he had understood what was happening. Which is extremely doubtful. ~ Eva Ibbotson

Was it a convent you escaped from, Miss Turner?" He turned the boat with a deft pull on one oar.
"Escaped?" Her heart knocked against her hidden purse. "I'm a governess, I told you. I'm not running away, from a convent or anywhere else. Why would you ask that?"
He chuckled. "Because you're staring at me as though you've never seen a man before."
Sophia's cheeks burned. She was staring. Worse, now she found herself powerless to turn away. What with the murky shadows of the tavern and the confusion of the quay, not to mention her own discomposure, she hadn't taken a good, clear look at his eyes until this moment.
They defied her mental palette utterly.
The pupils were ringed with a thin line of blue. Darker than Prussian, yet lighter than indigo. Perhaps matching that dearest of pigments-the one even her father's generous allowance did not permit-ultramarine. Yet within that blue circumference shifted a changing sea of color-green one moment, gray the next…in the shadow of a half-blink, hinting at blue.
He laughed again, and flinty sparks of amusement lit them.
Yes, she was still staring.
Forcing her gaze to the side, she saw their rowboat nearing the scraped hull of a ship. She cleared her throat and tasted brine. "Forgive me, Mr. Grayson. I'm only trying to make you out. I understood you to be the ship's captain."
"Well," he said, grasping a rope thrown down to him and securing it to the boat, "now you know I'm not."
"Might I ~ Tessa Dare

When a man marries, it's proof he can't govern his life. He needs a governess ~ Bangambiki Habyarimana

She'd become a governess. It was one of the few jobs a known lady could do.
And she'd taken to it well. She'd sworn that if she did indeed ever find
herself dancing on rooftops with chimney sweeps she'd beat herself to death with her own umbrella. ~ Terry Pratchett

He sensed a lonely childhood on some great decaying plantation, an echoing 'Great House' slowly falling into disrepair and being encroached on by the luxuriance of the tropics. The parents dying, and the property being sold. The companionship of a servant or two and an equivocal life in lodgings in the capital. The beauty which was her only asset and the struggle against the shady propositions to be a 'governess', a 'companion', a 'secretary', all of which meant respectable prostitution. Then the dubious, unknown steps into the world of entertainment. The evening stint at the nightclub with the mysterious act which, among people dominated by magic, must have kept many away from her and made her a person to be feared. And then, one evening, the huge man with the grey face sitting at a table by himself. The promise that he would put her on Broadway. The chance of a new life, of an escape from the heat and the dirt and the solitude.

Bond turned brusquely away from the window. A romantic picture, perhaps. But it must have been something like that. ~ Ian Fleming

I do not traditionally speak ill of women, but your governess is a cabbagehead ~ Sarah MacLean

Women are shockingly unforgiving of one another, but Mercy will come around. She is not passionate herself, you see, so she does not understand how I can love her but still consort with the governess. If you have found a woman who can stir both spirit and body, sir, do not give her up lightly. Do not. The alternatives can be damnably complicated. ~ Donna Thorland

You would rather die than be a governess? It's not prostitution, for heaven's sake!" Charlotte gaped, and Emily, pale and stricken as she was, stifled a giggle. "I shudder to think where you learned of such things," Charlotte said, standing. "The Bible," Anne snapped. "Allow me to recommend it to you." Good ~ Lena Coakley

Nowadays, people resort to all kinds of activities in order to calm themselves after a stressful event: performing yoga poses in a sauna, leaping off bridges while tied to a bungee, killing imaginary zombies with imaginary weapons, and so forth. But in Miss Penelope Lumley's day, it was universally understood that there is nothing like a nice cup of tea to settle one's nerves in the aftermath of an adventure- a practice many would find well worth reviving. ~ Maryrose Wood

I don't know what to do with you," he said, his voice growing curt with anger again. "Deceitful little minx. I'm of half a mind to put you to work, milking the goats. But that's out of the question with these hands, now isn't it?" He curled and uncurled her fingers a few times, testing the bandage. "I'll tell Stubb to change this twice a day. Can't risk the wound going septic. And don't use your hands for a few days, at least."
"Don't use my hands? I suppose you're going to spoon-feed me, then? Dress me? Bathe me?"
He inhaled slowly and closed his eyes. "Don't use your hands much." His eyes snapped open. "None of that sketching, for instance."
She jerked her hands out of his grip. "You could slice off my hands and toss them to the sharks, and I wouldn't stop sketching. I'd hold the pencil with my teeth if I had to. I'm an artist."
"Really. I thought you were a governess."
"Well, yes. I'm that, too."
He packed up the medical kit, jamming items back in the box with barely controlled fury. "Then start behaving like one. A governess knows her place. Speaks when spoken to. Stays out of the damn way."
Rising to his feet, he opened the drawer and threw the box back in. "From this point forward, you're not to touch a sail, a pin, a rope, or so much as a damned splinter on this vessel. You're not to speak to crewmen when they're on watch. You're forbidden to wander past the foremast, and you need to steer clear of the helm, as well."
"So that le ~ Tessa Dare

The Garden trapped me like an animal. The Governess sold me like livestock at an auction. And the mayor and his family would have made me their whore. I am shaking with rage. ~ Kristen Simmons

Jill, a comprehensive school teacher in her early thirties, has put her dark past behind her to become a lady in control of her own life. Successful in her career, soon to be divorced and with no emotional ties, she is content. Except that one morning, while trying to find work for a recalcitrant Year 9 class, she finds herself in a dark and murky street in Victorian England. The image soon disappears and she is back in the classroom, but the children she was teaching have gone and so has an hour of her life. Soon Jill finds herself living two parallel lives, one as a teacher and the other as a Victorian governess. And this is just the beginning ~ Jan Hunter

his hands moved busily among the puppets, choosing, discarding, until they pounced finally on the moon with her crystal eyes and her hands shaped like stars.
'I will be the moon,' Kyel said. 'You must make a wish to me.'
Lydea slid her fingers into the fox's head, with its sly smile and fiery velvet pelt. 'I wish,' she said, 'that you would take your nap.'
'No,' the prince said patiently, 'you must make a true wish. And I will grant it because I am the moon.'
'Then I must make a fox's wish. I wish for an open door to every hen house, and the ability to jump into trees.'
The moon sank onto the blue hillock of Kyel's knee. 'Why?'
'So that I can escape the farmer's dogs when they run after me.'
'Then you should wish,' the prince said promptly, 'that you could jump as high as the moon.'
'A good wish. But there are no hens on the moon, and how would I get back to Ombria?'
The moon rose again, lifted a golden hand. 'On a star.'
The governess smiled. The fox stroked the prince's hair while he shook away the moon and replaced it with the sorceress, who had one amethyst eye and one emerald, and who wore a black cloak that shimmered with ribbons of faint, changing colors.
'I am the sorceress who lives underground,' the prince said. 'Is there really a sorceress who lives underground?'
'So they --' Lydea checked herself, let the fox speak. 'So they say, my lord.'
'How does she live? Does she have a house?'
She paused a ~ Patricia A. McKillip

Felicity was in the process of unpacking her valise on the bed. "Then let us make sure no one else makes that mistake," she said, pulling out ribbons and laces, a set of fancy hair combs and a few cosmetic pots. "Nanny Tasha always said a lady's age should be a mystery." Miranda closed her eyes. Truly, she was starting to wonder about Lord Langley's choice of nannies for his daughters. Most of what the girls repeated from their dear caretakers sounded more like the advice of an experienced Cyprian, not that of a doting governess for small, impressionable children. Felicity ~ Elizabeth Boyle

Then, with a cheeky quirk of his brows, he leaned forward and murmured, "Would it be improper of me to admit that I am inordinately flattered by your attention to
the details of my face?"
Anne snorted out a laugh. "Improper and ludicrous."
"It is true that I have never felt quite so colorful," he said, with a clearly feigned sigh.
"You are a veritable rainbow," she agreed. "I see red and ... well, no orange and yellow, but certainly green and blue and violet."
"You forgot indigo."
"I did not," she said, with her very best governess voice. "I have always found it to be a foolish addition to the spectrum. Have you ever actually seen a rainbow?"
"Once or twice," he replied, looking rather amused by her rant. ~ Julia Quinn

Mr. Brundy, you are no doubt as well acquainted with my circumstances as I am with yours, so let us not beat about the bush. I have a fondness for the finer things in life, and I suppose I always will. As a result, I am frightfully expensive to maintain. I have already bankrupted my father, and have no doubt I should do the same to you, should you be so foolhardy as to persist in the desire for such a union. Furthermore, I have a shrewish disposition and a sharp tongue. My father, having despaired of seeing me wed to a gentleman of my own class, has ordered me to either accept your suit or seek employment. If I married you, it would be only for your wealth, and only because I find the prospect of marriage to you preferable –but only slightly!- to the life of a governess or a paid companion. If, knowing this, you still wish to marry me, why, you have only to name the day."

Having delivered herself of this speech, Lady Helen waited expectantly for Mr. Brundy's stammering retraction. Her suitor pondered her words for a long moment, then made his response.

"'ow about Thursday? ~ Sheri Cobb South

governess was not in yet; then, ~ Anne Bronte

The wife did not leave her own room, the husband had not been at home for three days. The children ran wild all over the house; the English governess quarreled with the housekeeper, and wrote ~ Leo Tolstoy

To a chorus of resonant barking, the instruments proceeded to adjust themselves into tune. A billy-goat, alarmed, aroused his harem, and distantly a muffled lowing broke out.

Philippa said, 'Oh dear. It must have cost a fortune. Did Gideon ever do this to you?'

Kate thought. 'No, but I did it to him. He hadn't called to see me for a week, so I sent eight bell ringers to serenade him at cock-crow and his mother's parrot dropped dead, quoting Luther.'

'What did it say?' Philippa said. Sitting on the sill, with her long brown hair falling over her night robe, she looked, in the darkness, like the daughter who had come back from Turkey: calm and smiling and soignée.

'Music is a fair and lovely gift of God, and deserves to be extolled as the mistress and governess of the feelings of the human heart,' said Kate, surprised. ~ Dorothy Dunnett

The girl really needed to let him go.
This was the voyage Gray went respectable. And it was off to a very bad start.
It was all her fault-this delicate wisp of a governess, with that porcelain complexion and her big, round eyes tilting up at him like Wedgwood teacups. She looked as if she might break if he breathed on her wrong, and those eyes keep beseeching him, imploring him, making demands. Please, rescue me from this pawing brute. Please, take me on your ship and away to Tortola. Please, strip me out of this revolting gown and initiate me in the pleasure of the flesh right here on the barstool.
Well, innocent miss that she was, she might have lacked words to voice the third quite that way. But worldly man that he was, Gray cold interpret the silent petition quite clearly. He only wished he could discourage his body's instinctive, affirmative response.
He didn't know what to do with the girl. He ought to do the respectable thing, seeing as how this voyage marked the beginning of his respectable career. But Miss Turner had him pegged. He was no kind of gentleman, and damned if he knew the respectable thing. Allowing a young, unmarried, winsome lady to travel unaccompanied probably wasn't it. But then, if he refused her, who was to say she wouldn't end up in an even worse situation? The chit couldn't handle herself for five minutes in a tavern. Was he truly going to turn her loose on the Gravesend quay? ~ Tessa Dare

There is perhaps no more rewarding romance heroine than she who is not expected to find love. The archetype comes in many disguises - the wallflower, the spinster, the governess, the single mom - but always with one sad claim: Love is not in her cards. ~ Sarah MacLean

The Governess when she thought that she'd be lucky to sell even 50 books to family and friends. But she has been so very thrilled ~ Ellise C. Weaver

He should have told her that whatever her station in life - cook, housekeeper, companion, governess, whatever, it mattered naught to him so long as she exchanged it for the position of his baroness. And ~ Grace Burrowes

I did not then understand that we - the women of that academic community - as in so many middle-class communities of the period - were expected to fill both the part of the Victorian Lady of Leisure, the Angel in the House, and also of the Victorian cook, scullery maid, laundress, governess, and nurse. I only sensed that there were false distractions sucking at me, and I wanted desperately to strip my life down to what was essential. June ~ Adrienne Rich

You will catch your death, Wife." Joseph opened his cape and enveloped her in its folds, which - happily for her - necessitated that he hug her to his chest. "I will be back as soon as possible." "We have much to do in your absence." "I've never seen this house so thoroughly decorated for the holidays. I can't believe there's another thing to be done." Louisa felt his chin come to rest on her temple. "We have a great deal of baking to do if we're to send baskets to the tenants and neighbors. I must write to the agencies to find us another governess, and you've set me the task of finding a charity worthy of your coin. Then too, I am behind on my correspondence, and if all else fails, I have your library to explore. I will stay busy." "While I will freeze my backside off, haring about the realm without you. ~ Grace Burrowes

I can't believe this. You go ashore for two hours of trade, and somehow you've exchanged an experienced sailor for a governess."
"Well, and goats. I did buy a few goats-the boatman will have them out presently."
"Damn it, don't try to change the subject. Crew and passengers are supposed to be my responsibility. Am I captain of this ship or not?"
"Yes, Joss, you're the captain. But I'm the investor. I don't want Bains near my cargo, and I'd like at least one paying passenger on this voyage, if I can get one. I didn't have that steerage compartment converted to cabins for a lark, you realize."
"If you think I'll believe your interest in that girl lies solely in her six pound sterling…"
Gray shrugged. "Since you mention it, I quite admired her brass as well."
"You know damn well what I mean. A young lady, unescorted…" He looked askance at Gray. "It's asking for trouble."
"Asking for trouble?" Gray echoed, hoping to lighten the conversation. "Since when does the Aphrodite need to go asking for trouble? We've stowed more trouble than cargo on this ship." He leaned back, propping both elbows on the ship's rail. "And as trouble goes, Miss Turner's variety looks a damn sight better than most alternatives. Perhaps you could do with a bit of trouble yourself. ~ Tessa Dare

My education started with Latin taught at home by a governess, I can't imagine why, and for some reason I attended the Infants Department of the Oxford High School for Girls before moving to the Dragon School at the dangerous age of 8 or so. ~ Tim Hunt

I intend to marry Michael, and squander all his money and run his life, and make sure he never again consorts with wicked women or gambles with licentious men. I promise I will henpeck him until he has no life beyond what I allow him, and when we die, I will lie in his arms through all eternity. ~ Christina Dodd

Gray waited a full verse before approaching her, prowling around her periphery and coming to rest behind her right shoulder. A few of the men gave him friendly nods, but most were too absorbed in their spirits and song to pay him any mind.
"What are you doing?" she asked, flicking him a glance through the swaying lamplight.
"Who, me?" he murmured. "I'm simply leaning against the foremast. You know, this tall bit of timber you weren't to go past."
She sipped her drink.
Gray pushed off the mast and crouched at her side. If she'd turn and look at him, they would be eye-to-eye. But she didn't. "The better question is, what the hell are you doing?"
"I'm enjoying myself," she said lightly, taking another drink. "I suggest you do the same." She passed the tankard to him and applauded with wild enthusiasm as the song came to its tuneless end.
Gray peered at the half-empty tankard, then lifted it to his nose and sniffed. Straight, unadulterated rum, the girl was drinking. That would explain the enthusiasm. Her applause concluded, she snatched the tankard back and downed a swallow to do a sailor proud.
Bloody hell. Gray suspected the only thing worse than watching over a prim governess would be watching over a soused one. ~ Tessa Dare

Hell is cold. Do you remember when you told me that? We were in the cellars of the Dark House. Anyone else would have been panicking, but you were as calm as a governess, telling me Hell was covered in ice. If it is the fire of Heaven that takes you from me, what a cruel irony that would be. ~ Cassandra Clare

So far had Douglas presented his picture when someone put a question. "And what did the former governess die of? – of so much respectability? ~ The Turn Of The Screw

His brows rose. "And how is it that you have come to be such an expert on scrapes and bruises?"
"I'm a governess," she said. Because really, that ought to be explanation enough. ~ Julia Quinn

Oh, it's awful! oh dear, oh dear! awful!" Stepan Arkadyevitch kept repeating to himself, and he could think of nothing to be done. "And how well things were going up till now! how well we got on! She was contented and happy in her children; I never interfered with her in anything; I let her manage the children and the house just as she liked. It's true it's bad HER having been a governess in our house. That's bad! There's something common, vulgar, in flirting with one's governess. But what a governess!" (He vividly recalled the roguish black eyes of Mlle. Roland and her smile.) "But after all, while she was in the house, I kept myself in hand. And the worst of it all is that she's already ... it seems as if ill-luck would have it so! Oh, oh! But what, what is to be done? ~ Leo Tolstoy

Rich women are not too put upon by their children. You don't have to do all the things for a child that those women who had to stay at home did. My Ann had a French governess who took care of her until she was twelve years old and went off to boarding school. ~ Clare Boothe Luce

Adèle is not answerable for either her mother's faults or yours; I have a regard for her, and now that I know she is, in a sense, parentless – forsaken by her mother and disowned by you, sir – I shall cling closer to her than before. How could I possibly prefer the spoiled pet of a wealthy family, who hate her governess as a nuisance, to a lonely little orphan, who leans towards her as a friend? ~ Charlotte Bronte

My mother? My own mother told my lady governess that if the baby and I were in danger then they should save the baby. ~ Philippa Gregory

Cat doesn't have to work. She's a woman of independent means. I settled enough money on her to allow her the freedom to do anything she wished. She went to boarding school for four years, and stayed to teach for another two. Eventually she came to me and said she'd accepted a position as a governess for the Hathaway family. I believe you were in France with Win at the time. Cat went for the interview, Cam and Amelia liked her, Beatrix and Poppy clearly needed her, and no one seemed inclined to question her lack of experience."
"Of course not," Leo said acidly. "My family would never bother with something so insignificant as job experience. I'm sure they started the interview by asking what her favorite color was. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Except for my net, everything I have need of in the world is contained in that bag - including a second hat and a rather sizable jar of cold cream of roses. Do not tell me you couldn't travel with as little. I have faith that men can be as reasonable and logical as women if they but try." He shook his head. "I cannot seem to formulate a clear thought in the face of such original thinking, Miss Speedwell. You have a high opinion of your sex." I pursed my lips. "Not all of it. We are, as a gender, undereducated and infantilized to the point of idiocy. But those of us who have been given the benefit of learning and useful occupation, well, we are proof that the traditional notions of feminine delicacy and helplessness are the purest poppycock."

"You have large opinions for so small a person."

"I daresay they would be large opinions even for someone your size," I countered.

"And where did you form these opinions? Either your school was inordinately progressive or your governess was a Radical."

"I never went to school, nor did I have a governess. Books were my tutors, Mr. Stoker. Anything I wished to learn I taught myself."

"There are limits to an autodidactic education," he pointed out.

"Few that I have found. I was spared the prejudices of formal educators."

"And neither were you inspired by them. A good teacher can change the course of a life," he said thoughtfully.

"Perhaps. But I had ~ Deanna Raybourn

It was clear that the house was run on a certain system, of either great pomposity or great denial - it was too early for her to make up her mind about which one it was. ~ Noorilhuda

Miss Minton knew she was going to be dismissed, and she thought this was perfectly fair. A governess who let her charge sail up the rivers of the Amazon and live with Indian tribes could hardly expect to keep her job. ~ Eva Ibbotson

And when the governess had left, he would slip out of his own room and peer at her door until her light was extinguished at last, before he returned to bed to stew anew in lust and yearning.
A habit that he'd kept to this day, whenever they happened to be under the same roof.
Her light turned off. He sighed. How long would he keep at this? Soon he would be twenty-seven. Did he still plan to stand in a dark passage in the middle of the night and gaze upon her door when he was thirty-seven? Forty-seven? Ninetyseven? ~ Sherry Thomas

Though sympathy tugged at her, Sophie's imagination made fearsome leaps. The grieving widower. The destitute governess. A motherless child. It had all the makings of a scintillating novel. ~ Laura Frantz

She should have read the damned play. She should have spent hours reading Shakespeare. The duke was making literature sound a lot more interesting than her governess had ever done. ~ Eloisa James