But Miss Grace spoke of her shyness as a temperament rather than a wound, and there was something reassuring in that.
“And Thistle?” he asked.
Miss Grace paused.
It was a brief pause, barely a heartbeat, but Rhys noticed it. Something flickered across her composed features, something that might have been amusement or might have been the memory of recent chaos.
“Thistle is a force of nature,” she said finally.
“She has no fear, which is admirable and terrifying in equal measure. She requires boundaries delivered with firmness and humour. She will not respect an authority she can outwit, and she is alarmingly clever.”
“That sounds like her mo…” Rhys stopped. The word had almost escaped before he could catch it, rising from some unguarded place in his chest where Celeste still lived.
That sounds like her mother.
He cleared his throat.
“That sounds about right.”
Miss Grace’s eyes moved to his face with a sharpness that made him certain she had heard the stumble. For a longmoment, she simply looked at him, her expression unchanged but her attention suddenly, intensely focused.
She did not ask and she did not press. She simply filed the information away, as a clerk might file a document that would prove important later, and continued as though nothing had occurred.
“The three of them together present particular challenges,” she said. “They have developed their own hierarchy, their own communication patterns, their own methods of managing adults. The previous governesses, I understand, were unable to adapt to these dynamics. I have found it more effective to work within their existing structure than to attempt to dismantle it.”
“Hence the attendance register.”
“Mrs. Kemp told you about that.”
“She mentioned it. With considerable relief.”
The ghost of something that might have been satisfaction passed across Miss Grace’s face. “Annabelle needed responsibility, not rules. Once she had a legitimate role to play, she stopped fighting for illegitimate power. It is a principle that applies to most children, in my experience. They want to matter. Give them a way to matter that serves everyone’s interests, and the battles become unnecessary.”
Rhys absorbed this, thinking of the way Anna had been when she was younger, before the governesses had started cycling through. She had been bossy even then, ordering her sisters about with the confidence of a small empress, but therehad been joy in it rather than desperation. Somewhere along the way, the joy had curdled into control, the play-acting had become genuine grasping.
Miss Grace had identified the problem and solved it in a fortnight. The previous governesses had not managed it in months.
“Would you like to see the schoolroom?” she asked. “I have made some changes to the organisation that might interest you.”
“Please.”
She led him through the corridor and up the stairs, her footsteps nearly silent on the carpet. Rhys followed, observing the straightness of her spine, the efficiency of her movement and the way she navigated the familiar house with the confidence of someone who had already memorised its layout.
The schoolroom was transformed.
When he had last visited, it had been a pleasant but disordered space, books piled haphazardly on shelves, papers scattered across the main table, the detritus of three active children accumulating in corners. The previous governesses had made attempts at organisation, but their systems had not survived contact with Thistle.
Miss Grace’s system, apparently, had.
The books were arranged on shelves by reading level, each shelf labelled in neat handwriting. The main table was clear except for the materials currently in use, and those materialswere organised into distinct stations: arithmetic in one corner, writing in another, reading in a third.
Against one wall, a small cabinet held what appeared to be a natural history collection. Rhys moved closer and found himself looking at a display of specimens that Thistle had clearly gathered: feathers, interesting stones, dried flowers, the shed skin of a snake. Each item was labelled in the same neat handwriting, accompanied by its Latin classification where applicable.
Turdus merula, read the card beneath a glossy black feather.Quartz, rose variety, announced another beside a pink stone.
“She brings me treasures,” Miss Grace said, from her position near the door.
“I thought it wise to give them context. Science channels curiosity more effectively than prohibition.”
