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"Do you believe that the Duke's work has anything to do with why Lady Amy acts up?" Matilda asked, wondering whether it might be as it was in many of her other households, that the children were always worse when their father figure was away.
"Oh, absolutely!" Miss Stuart responded, almost looking excited as if she were glad that Matilda had so easily seen the problem. "I think it is also down to the lack of a mother figure. That girl has never had one, and everyone needs a mother."
Matilda could not have agreed more. She was well aware that children always struggled when one or both of the parents were absent, and she could only imagine how awful it would have been to grow up without her own mother. Though she had not always gotten on with them, both her parents had always been around, always taking her with them whenever they had to go away on business.
"Does the Duke ever take Lady Amy with him while on business?" Matilda asked and for a moment the other woman looked unsure of how to answer. Then she began to shake her head.
"Rarely. He prefers to get his business over with and return home swiftly," the maid explained. Matilda nodded in response, taking in all that she had learned and locking it away in her memory to come back to at a later date.
For now, I shall go about my duties and observe,she determined though as she and Miss Stuart fell easily into silence once more. She could not help but think that they were going to be fast and firm friends.Perhaps befriending Lady Amy’s maid will make all the difference?
Chapter 2
That evening, Watson Berkley the Duke of Worthington, noticed that his daughter was uncharacteristically quiet as she was upon every first night there had been a new governess.
"Amy, little dove, are you well?" the Duke had asked halfway through dinner when he had gotten frustrated with the almost total silence. Having given Miss Percival until the morning to start her duties, he had been practically alone with his daughter, which was nothing out of the ordinary, but he always hated it whenever she was not herself.
She'd looked up at him, smiled that big smile of hers with her huge brown eyes and assured him, "Fine, Papa."
Yet, there had been a clawing in Watson's stomach even as they finished the final course of the night, and Amy came around the table to give him a kiss goodnight.
"Sleep well, little dove," he had told her, giving her a hug and a kiss upon the forehead before sending her off to bed with Miss Stuart who had been hovering in the shadows at the edge of the dining room.
"Your Grace?" Mr Burns asked carefully after a few minutes of Amy leaving, "Is there anything else I might get you?"
Watson sucked in a deep breath, leaned back in his chair with his wine glass in hand and emptied its contents before he shook his head. "No, thank you, Burns. Please tell Mrs Button that the meal was wonderful as usual."
With that, he pushed himself up from his chair and Mr Burns bowed low before he exited, leaving the butler to fetch the other servants to clear away the table. Amy's growing lack of patience, disobedience and anger were beginning to worry Watson more than ever and as he left the dining room, he could not help but think,I pray that Miss Percival is as good as they say.
He had gone little more than a few steps toward his library to finish off some work before bed when she appeared before him as if his thoughts had summoned her.
"Miss Percival!" he exclaimed, quite surprised to see her walking toward him from the library with a book in her hand.
A sharp inhale on her part followed by widening hazel eyes told him just how badly he had startled her.
"Your Grace!" she exclaimed in return, dropping into a low curtsy the moment she laid eyes upon him, carefully averting her gaze as if she thought it rude to look upon him.
"Forgive me, Miss Percival. I was not expecting to find you down here," Watson explained, feeling ashamed that he had startled her so badly. "I thought you would be resting until morning."
"I always struggle to sleep on the first night in a new place," Miss Percival responded, lifting the book she was holding in her hand. Watson did not get a good look at the title, but he was sure he recognised the book itself from the fictional section of the library. "I thought perhaps a little light reading might help."
She glanced up at him with a smile before quickly dropping her gaze again and asking, "It is okay that I took this out of the library, is it not?"
"Did you make note of it in the ledger?" Watson asked and when she nodded, he smiled. "Then, yes, it is perfectly okay."
"Thank you," she said, curtsying once more before she added, "I bid you a good evening, Your Grace."
He had just bowed his head in response, and she was skirting around him to make her way back up the stairs to her room when Watson turned to follow her and called, "Miss Percival?"
He watched the way her back straightened up as if she were surprised to hear her name from his lips. But when she turned back to him, she was smiling and she said, "Your Grace, perhaps you might simply call me Matilda, especially when I am not on duty."
She smiled at him more deeply, some of her shyness appearing to slip away as she fully turned to face him. She stood with both her hands clasped around the book in front of her and Watson could not help but notice, not for the first time, how handsome she was. Several of those who had recommended her, had mentioned her appearance and that she was unlike any other governess in that respect.
She was pretty and sweet mannered and quite unlike many of the sour elderly women who had given their lives to caring for children and who had somewhere along the way lost their soft edge beneath all the naughty children. Her golden blonde hair created a halo around her head, set aglow by the oil lamp that hung just level with her head on the wall.
"Matilda," Watson said, tasting the name upon his tongue and realising that it quite suited her, much more than Percival. "Perhaps you might join me in the library, so we could have a word before you begin your duties tomorrow?"
"Now…now, Your Grace? Is it not getting late?" she asked as somewhere down the hall a grandfather clock began to chime the hour. "Are you not too busy?"
