Page 71 of The Billionaire’s Nanny

"I can do that," Bettina said from the oven. "I did my sister's girls’ hair for years."

"No," Carrington said. “I can do it.”

Bettina went back to work. Carrington took it apart and did it again, and it came out the same. The second attempt, she snapped the elastic hair tie on anyway, and it sat crooked, thick at the top and coming undone at the bottom. Grace put her hand up and touched it before getting her coat off the hook herself. Bettina wiped her hands on a towel and took the keys from the peg by the door.

Carrington walked out with them as far as the fountain and stood on the stones. "I'll be here at three when you get back."

Grace pushed her hands under her legs and sat on them.

Carrington walked up to the car and poked her head inside. "Is it something at school?"

Silence.

"Grace. Tell me what it is and I'll deal with it."

Grace reached out and pulled the car door shut. Bettina drove around the fountain and onto the main road. Carrington stayed out there until she couldn’t hear the car anymore. In January, when all this began, the quiet had been perfectly all right then.

The agency had sent a woman out on Thursday. Denise Farrow, forty-something with nine years on Ashworth's books and two references that Nadia had called herself. Farrow arrived at nine and left her bag by the door. Carrington observed Denise for the first hour. She was good, very good. Denise got down on the rug at Grace’s level, didn’t fill the silence, and didn’t once call Grace sweetheart.

A few hours later, Denise knocked on the door to the study and asked what Grace was particular about. It was a good question. But Carrington found herself reciting Lucy’s note to this stranger. Her voice trailed off partway through.

"This isn't going to work out," Carrington said. "You'll be paid through the month."

Denise Farrow looked at her for a second and said that was fine. Then she asked whether she should say goodbye to Grace or leave quietly. Carrington told her to go quietly, and within the hour, she was off the property.

At three, the phone rang.

"Ms. Cole. This is Renata Ford, Grace's teacher."

"Hi," Carrington said.

"Grace hasn't spoken a word since a week ago. Not to me and not even to Kayla. Her written work has been fully completed and is correct." A chair scraped somewhere behind her. "I put this morning's question in front of her on paper. She wrote the answer and handed it back, and then she put her head down on her arms."

"What was the question?"

"Whether she wanted to sit with her own group or up front with me. She wrote my group." Renata waited a second. "She'll answer any question I ask, but only in writing.”

Carrington took the phone off the desk and stood at the north window. The sun was all the way across the courtyard and up the wall of the kitchen wing.

"I have to log it," Renata said.

"I understand that."

"I'd like to ask you to hold off until the middle of next week," Carrington said. "I scheduled Grace for a therapy appointment on Wells Street on Tuesday."

"Ms. Cole, has something changed at home?"

"Ms. Harper left on Friday," Carrington said, after a lengthy pause.

"Okay. That's what I needed to know."

"What can I do to help Grace?"

"I don’t know anything that isn't obvious." Renata stopped. "She started talking again in March because Ms. Harper turned up every day and never once asked her to talk. That's all it was. I've been doing this for nineteen years and I've got nothing better than that. She just needs time and patience."

Carrington didn’t say anything. She remembered all the times when Lucy would get down on the floor with Grace, the way she would give Grace space and have it look completely natural for her.

"Ms. Cole?"