A silence fell, thicker than the soup had been.
Nancy pushed her plate away; her appetite vanished. She set her napkin down with care, as if detonating a mine.
“If you’ll excuse me, I have letters to write.”
Oscar did not try to stop her. He watched as she left the room, back straight, chin high, every step a challenge to the laws of physics and common decency.
When the door closed, he sat for a long time, the only sound the soft ticking of the clock on the mantel.
He did not regret hiring the governess. It was the sensible choice, the necessary one. But he regretted, intensely, the look on Nancy’s face as she learned it was a fait accompli.
He poured himself a glass of wine and stared into its depths, searching for comfort and finding only his own reflection.
Sometimes, he thought, people needed to be forced into what was good for them. But sometimes, too, it was possible to go about it all wrong. He decided, as he drained the glass, to make it up to her.
A thought occurred to him of a way to mend the rift, or at least to salve it. A new dress, perhaps? For an upcoming ball.
Oscar smiled, imagining her in it, imagining her reaction when he presented it. He smiled wider, imagining the argument that would surely follow.
CHAPTER 23
Clara burst into the drawing room, brandishing a scrap of paper and a stub of blue crayon, hair already unraveling from its morning ribbon. “Look!” she yelled, vaulting over the settee. “I drew her again.”
Nancy, who had just managed to arrange the household ledger into some approximation of order, set her pen down and braced herself. “Who have you made this time, little madam?”
Clara thrust the drawing forward. It was the usual: a heroic, three-headed woman with a shock of orange hair and arms radiating like spokes from a wheel. The name “Mama” was scrawled across the bottom, letters tipping forward in a race to be first.
Henry hovered behind, peering with both pride and reservation. “It’s got too many arms,” he whispered, as if confessing to a minor heresy.
“It’s for hugging more people,” Clara countered, eyes narrowed in challenge.
Nancy crouched beside her, the ledger abandoned. She studied the picture with grave attention, then looked up at the girl. “I believe you’ve outdone yourself. No ordinary mother could handle two of you at once. Only an extraordinary one would suffice.”
Clara glowed, her scowl replaced by the ineffable self-assurance only children and mad generals possess. “Will you put it in your room?”
“I will frame it and hang it by the window,” Nancy said, “so everyone who passes the house will know we are supervised by the world’s most vigilant mother.”
Henry sidled in, tugging Nancy’s sleeve. “Do you think she’s up there?” he asked, voice so small it might have vanished if not for the echo in the high plaster ceiling. “In heaven?”
Nancy saw the look in his eyes—an old, battered hope, recycled too often for a five-year-old. “I am sure of it,” she said, quietly. “And if she’s paying any attention at all, she’s shaking her fist and telling me to stop letting you eat sugar before breakfast.”
Henry smiled, a quick, rare thing, then nodded with the gravity of a man who had just closed a treaty.
Nancy reached for both their hands, held them fast. “Now. Let’s get this masterpiece somewhere safe before the Duke sees it and faints at the thought of a woman with so much power.”
Clara laughed, Henry giggled, and the two of them trundled off in search of fresh mischief. Nancy, left behind, rolled the drawing and slid it into her pocket, where it would no doubt leave blue residue on every other possession for weeks.
The next morning began with the kind of orderly quiet that always precedes catastrophe. Nancy found herself in the same drawing room, once more grappling with the house accounts. This time, she made it all the way to the second page before the disruption arrived.
Mrs. Tullock appeared in the doorway with the brisk, no-nonsense step of a woman who had already organized three disasters before noon. “Your Grace,” she announced, “the new governess is here.”
“Already?” Nancy checked the clock—barely past the hour. “You may show her to the second drawing room. I’ll be along in a moment.”
Mrs. Tullock nodded and retreated, her passage leaving a wake of uprighted vases and cowed maids.
Clara and Henry exchanged a long glance across the breakfast table. Clara spoke first, as always. “Is she for us?”
“She is for all of us,” Nancy replied, with what she hoped was reassuring finality. “But we will decide together if she suits.”
