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The little girl then took up her slate and corrected the ‘error’ Robert had made. When she was done, Robert applauded her.
“Well done, Miss Margaret. You caught my error far more quickly than I, and you fixed it perfectly! How about I stay here for another moment, and you can walk me through how to do the next one,” Robert suggested.
Margaret rolled her eyes and said, “Do I have to do everything for you?”
Robert wanted to burst out laughing at his niece’s comment, but he knew that he couldn’t, so he just smiled and let her go on to the next problem. She had everything under control, so Robert looked over to see how Andre and Amelie were getting on, but he saw that Anne was watching him when he looked up.
The look on her face made Robert’s heart stop. She looked so earnest as she admired him when she thought he wasn’t looking, and then the moment their eyes met, she quickly looked away and returned to helping Amelie. Robert’s heart had thankfully continued working, and it was now pounding in his chest. He had never had anyone look at him in that way before, and he could not believe he was lucky enough that it was Anne who was admiring him like that.
Robert hoped she hadn’t heard his foolish answers to Margaret’s questions, but if she had, he hoped that they sounded more endearing than silly. He desperately wanted to seem intelligent in front of a woman as remarkably gifted as Anne, but he supposed that it was all right if there was one area of study that he wasn’t quite as skilled in.
Perhaps she could tutor me on that ... he thought. A private tutoring lesson where I could try and distract her from our task at hand, and we would end up kissing in the study and ...
“Freddie, why are you looking at Miss Annie like that?” Margaret’s voice from beside him brought him back to reality.
“Looking at what like which?” Robert said, flustered as he turned to face the little girl.
Margaret had a very amused look on her face. “You have been looking at Miss Annie for at least two and a half minutes without stopping. I may be little, but I’m old enough to know that there is only one reason why a boy would look at a girl like that.”
Robert couldn’t believe it, but he felt his face getting red. Margaret had caught him out. A little girl had been able to figure out that he had feelings for her governess before anyone else in the household.
He decided he had two options: he could try and lie very poorly, which would only make it more obvious that he felt something for Anne, or he could tell the truth and hope that Margaret would admire his forthrightness and not tell anyone.
“Miss Margaret,” Robert said quietly, “I knew that you were intelligent, but I had not expected you to pick up on that quite that quickly.”
Margaret giggled. “I am glad that I was right. Don’t worry; I won’t tell anyone, especially not Miss Annie ... so long as you promise never to try and impress me with your ‘knowledge’ of the natural world ever again.”
Robert laughed out loud, relieved. “Gladly. Thank you for being my trusted confidante, Miss Margaret.”
At that moment, Robert so wished that he didn’t have to be playing the part of ‘Freddie Austen’, and he could instead just embrace his niece and kiss her on the top of her head. It was slowly beginning to break his heart that his nieces and nephew were getting to know ‘Freddie’ better than they were him. Now that he was here in the house, all he wanted to do was be their uncle.
But he knew that for the sake of his future, he had to keep the charade up for just a little bit longer.
And then you’ll have to spend the rest of your life trying to explain to these dear children why you lied to them for a year of their life. What a travesty.
