Nancy watched this exchange with increasing unease. "Miss Mercer, I appreciate the need for discipline. But the children are accustomed to some measure of liberty. They are not prisoners."
"Of course not, Your Grace." Edith’s voice remained even, pleasant, untroubled. "I only wish to do my duty."
Nancy fought the urge to rub her temples. She had dealt with governesses before—her own had been a master of the guilt-trip and the silent stare—but there was something about Edith’s composure that set her teeth on edge.
"Today," Nancy said, "the children will take a walk in the gardens with me. After that, you may resume your schedule. Does that suit?"
Edith blinked once. "As you wish, Your Grace. But if I may say, the children have not finished their reading for the day."
Nancy kept her smile sharp. "They will complete it later. Come, Clara. Henry. Let’s find our coats."
She shepherded the twins out, only looking back at the door when she was sure Edith could no longer see her face.
Something about Miss Mercer was wrong. Not wrong in the obvious, criminal sense—there was no trace of menace in her, not a thread of threat—but wrong in the way a portrait looks wrong when the artist has painted the eyes too close together. She was too still, too careful. And the children sensed it, as children always did.
CHAPTER 33
Oscar carried the bundle of letters he’d written Peter as he hurried through the halls, looking for Nancy.
The last forty minutes had been a sort of exquisite torture: he’d all but confessed the contents of his soul to Nancy, and she—unlike every other person in his life—had not laughed, nor recoiled, nor written him off as beyond repair. She’d listened. She’d even made a joke about his penmanship, which, coming from her, felt as intimate as any touch.
He could not decide if this had broken him or remade him.
He paused outside the drawing room, composed himself, and opened the door. Nancy was at the writing table, the very image of a woman lost in thought: elbow propped, chin balanced in her palm, green eyes narrowed at a sheaf of account papers as if by focus alone she might will the numbers to obey.
She did not look up. “If you are here to ask for biscuits, the kitchen is closed.”
Oscar crossed the room in three strides. “I have something better than biscuits.”
Nancy’s head tipped a fraction, enough to signal interest. “The entire kingdom trembles with anticipation, I’m sure.”
He laid the bundle on the table. She regarded it like an artifact, then, slowly, undid the ribbon.
Oscar waited, arms crossed, unable to breathe.
Nancy scanned the first page. She read fast, lips moving, her gaze darting as she chased meaning. At the second letter, her composure faltered. A sharp intake of breath—then another. By the third, her eyes filled with tears. She did not wipe them away.
“You wrote these,” she said, not a question. “All of them?”
He nodded. “Over the last year. They were meant for Peter. Or for no one.”
Nancy put down the letter. “They are beautiful.”
“They are unfinished,” Oscar said. He tried to sound dismissive, but the words came out thin.
She looked at him, really looked, and he felt it like the first beam of sun after a month of fog. “You loved your brother.”
Oscar flinched. “Not enough.”
“Too much, I think,” she replied, voice raw. “You loved him so much you let it ruin you.”
He tried to reply, but the words—always his tool, always his shield—evaporated.
Nancy dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief, then laughed. “Congratulations. You have reduced me to a puddle. Is this revenge for my many torments?”
He managed a crooked smile. “You are impossible to torment.”
“Not today,” she whispered.
