Page 40 of The Billionaire’s Nanny

"I'm aware."

"I know you are," Madeline said. "That's what makes it a strange decision."

"It is."

"If it's the idea of emptying out your sister's belongings that's stopping you, I can have two women do it who will be meticulous and throw nothing out. You can stand there and watch them do it. It takes a day."

"It isn't the emptying."

"Then I'll ask once more and stop. Do you want to give me a reason for the file?"

"No," Carrington said. "Take it off tonight."

"Fine. Tonight," Madeline said, and let her go.

Carrington laid the phone face down on the desk and stayed where she was. Outside the window, the light had left the grass and was still on the top of the trellis. She sat there until it left the trellis too.

She left the drawers shut and the mug where it was, and she did not touch the cardigan. When she got up, she pushed the chair back in exactly as far as it had been.

On the way out, she stopped at the bin by the porch steps where Clara had kept the bird seed. The sack inside had gone damp over the winter and clumped hard in the bottom, and she broke it up until it ran loose again. The feeder hung high, and she had to work the cap off one-handed with the other hand full.

She poured two double handfuls in through the top. Some of it missed and ran down the outside of the tube into the grass. She pressed the cap back on until it was secured, brushed her palms clean against each other, and locked the front door behind her.

In the car, she put the key into the ignition but did not turn it. One light was burning in the hall where she had left it, and the porch was dark. She sat there for about two minutes. Then she started the engine and drove home.

She got back to the estate at twenty past nine and let herself in through the courtyard door. Everything in the kitchen was where it was every night, the blue binder squared on the end of the counter and the chef's list for the morning underneath it. The bottle from Sunday was by the sink with the cork pushed back in.

Carrington took a glass down and poured it half full. She stood at the island and looked at it. Then she drank all of it, left the glass in the sink, and took the stairs.

Grace's door stood open a few inches, and the nightlight was on in the socket beside the shut closet. Carrington stopped there long enough to hear her breathing, then walked on to the end of the landing.

Her own lamp was on. Lucy was up against the headboard with both sleeves shoved past her elbows, reading a paperback gone soft at the corner from being carried around. She looked up and hooked a finger into the page. The mark on her shoulder above the neck of her shirt had been there since Monday.

"She finished it," Lucy said.

"The fox book?"

"Yes, tonight. Six pages in one go, no help on any of the words." Lucy closed the book on her finger. "She did the voice at the end. It's still terrible and she knows it, but she does it anyway."

"Good," Carrington said.

"She asked if you'd be back before she went to sleep."

"What did you tell her?"

"That I didn't know."

"Does she want to read the ocean book next?"

"She's been keeping it on top of the fox one for two weeks so it doesn't get forgotten," Lucy said. "We start it tomorrow."

Carrington stayed by the door with the coat still folded over her forearm. She wanted to be in that bed with Lucy's arm over her, which was what she had driven home for. She hung the coat on the back of the door instead and sat down on the end of the mattress with her feet flat on the floor and her hands on either side of her on the bed.

There was seed dust in the cuff of her sleeve, and one husk caught in the weave. She worked the husk out between her thumb and her forefinger. It was gritty and smelled like the seed bin.

"I went to my sister's house tonight," Carrington said.

"How was that?" Lucy asked.