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“You’re welcome. Now eat up. I think Nanny has a whole day of activities planned for you. I’m sure she wants to get started.”
George’s mouth twisted. “I don’t want to do activities.”
“I beg your pardon? Why?”
He sat back and folded his arms sulkily. “Because they bore me.”
Letty laughed. “Well, how about this? What if I did the activities with you?”
George immediately brightened. “Would you?”
“Of course.”
George’s smile could have lit up the whole house. Then his face became thoughtful. “May we ask Papa, too? If he would do the activities with me?”
Letty hesitated, looking around for guidance but there was no one close by who was listening to them. “Well…I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to ask.”
“Hooray! I cannot wait. Doing the activities with you and Papa will be fun. I shall learn a lot.”
“Well, that settles it then, doesn’t it?”
Letty smiled although she was quailing inside. No doubt the Duke would think she’d put his son up to this. Still and all, it was an opportunity to inveigle some information out of him, so she had to take the chance that had been presented to her so innocently.
Once breakfast was done, they crossed over to the manor in search of the Duke. They found him walking to his study, the day’s newspaper in hand. Letty curtsied as prettily as she knew how. “Your Grace.”
“Papa! Will you come and do activities with us? Mrs. Haversham has organized them for me.”
The Duke gaped at them both as if they were speaking French or Russian. “I beg your pardon?”
George giggled, reaching out to clasp his tiny hand across his father’s wrist. “Come with us. Put the newspaper down.” He snatched it from his father’s hands and flung it onto a convenient table within one of the manor’s many alcoves. Then he grabbed his father’s shirt and began to pull him to the nursery where Mrs. Haversham was waiting. Letty followed slowly behind, biting back amusement.
The big bad Duke is no match for his tiny son.
It wasn’t just eye color that they shared. They were both clearly determined sorts and at the moment, George’s stubbornness was winning out as he explained to Mrs. Haversham that his father and Letty would be joining them.
“Oh…” the nanny looked quite as helpless as they all clearly felt. “Well…I had thought we might take a walk in the gardens and draw some butterflies and then have a picnic by the lake later on but…uh…” She looked uncertainly at the Duke, “If Your Grace has another idea…?”
“No, no, that sounds…lovely. It has been a while since I went looking for butterflies in the bottom of the garden.”
Letty quirked an eyebrow. It was strange to her that the Duke hadeverbeen that carefree. She herself had grown up following the drum and so there were certainly no gardens with butterflies to chase. Shehadchased several boys who attempted to get fresh with her. And once her mother had left them, she was in charge of keeping them fed, so she’d also chased a few rabbits and chickens in her time.
Never butterflies though. And never just for the fun of it.
A wave of melancholy for a lost childhood overtook her but she shook it away and refocused on the conversation going on in front of her. Mrs. Haversham was distributing pencils and paper with which they would draw the butterflies. Letty took hold of hers with a slight smile although she had no idea about drawing—unless it was a map or a floor plan.
She followed meekly as Mrs. Haversham led the way to the gardens, exhorting them to sing along to a ditty that she and George seemed quite familiar with. To her surprise, the Duke joined in, his voice low and melodic like honey poured over gravel.
She hummed along uncertainly, not familiar with either the tune or the words. Suddenly the Duke was walking beside her. “Do you not know this song?”
She squinted up at him, appreciating how tall he truly was. “Should I?”
“Every English child knows this song.”
“And by every English child do you mean the upper crust? TheBeau Monde? TheBon Ton?” she mocked, none too gently.
“No. I meaneveryEnglish child,” he growled, his eyes going from cornflower to midnight blue. She blinked in fascination. “So tell me, MissStrange, are you English?”
She smiled at him, waggling her eyebrows. “I guess you’ll never know.”
