“It is, in fact, the scientific designation for the common toad,” Miss Grace murmured, but she had stepped aside to let Thistle tow Rhys down the corridor.
He went willingly, surrounded by his daughters, carried along on the current of their enthusiasm. But as he passed Miss Grace, he caught her eye for just a moment.
I see you, her gaze seemed to say.I see more than you meant to show me.
He thought of her careful question about the pattern of his visits. He thought of her mention of the calendar where his daughters marked the days. He thought of the way she had paused, almost imperceptibly, when he had stumbled over the wordmother.
Miss Grace was watching. Miss Grace was thinking. Miss Grace was fitting pieces together into a picture she had not yet completed but would, eventually, understand.
And Rhys, who had spent fifteen years hiding the most important part of his life from everyone except Benedict, found that he was not as alarmed by this prospect as he should have been.
Where did Grieves find this woman?
The question echoed again in his mind as Thistle dragged him into the schoolroom to admire her properly labelled collection of feathers and stones.
And for the first time in longer than he could remember, he found himself wanting someone to find him out.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Watch me, Papa! Watch!”
Thistle’s voice rang across the garden as she scaled the old oak tree with the determination of a mountaineer conquering an uncharted peak. Mel observed from her position on the bench near the rose bushes, her hands folded in her lap and her attention ostensibly on the book she had brought outside for the afternoon’s lesson.
The book remained unopened as there were more interesting things to observe.
Mr. Langford stood beneath the oak tree with his head tilted back, watching Thistle’s ascent with an expression that mingled pride and barely concealed terror. He had removed his coat at some point during the morning’s activities and rolled his shirtsleeves to the elbow, and he looked nothing like the composed gentleman who had appeared in the study two days ago to inspect his beneficiaries’ progress.
He looked, Mel thought, like a father.
“That’s high enough,” he called up.
“Any higher and you’ll give Mrs. Kemp a fit.”
“Mrs. Kemp isn’t watching!”
“I’m watching, and I’m more important than Mrs. Kemp.”
Thistle paused on her branch and considered this claim with visible scepticism.
“Are you?”
“I fund the household. That makes me the final authority on tree-climbing heights.”
“Miss Grace funds the lessons. Does that make her the final authority on lessons?”
“I fund Miss Grace as well, so technically I’m still the final authority.”
“That’s circular reasoning,” Thistle said, with the confidence of a child who had recently learned the term and was eager to deploy it.
“Miss Grace taught me about circular reasoning. It means your argument goes in a circle and doesn’t prove anything.”
Mel kept her expression neutral, though something warm flickered in her chest at hearing her lessons reflected back with such precision. Mr. Langford, meanwhile, was staring up at his daughter with an expression of mingled admiration and exasperation.
“When did you learn about circular reasoning?”
“Yesterday, during logic hour. Miss Grace says logic is the foundation of all proper thinking.”
“Miss Grace is entirely correct.” He glanced over his shoulder toward the bench where Mel sat, and their eyes met briefly. Something passed between them in that moment, something Mel could not quite name but felt nonetheless, acknowledgment, perhaps, or the beginning of an understanding that neither of them had yet put into words.
