Chapter Four
Dr. Harmon could have done a better job trying to understand just why his daughter, Jillian, was so unhappy, Cat thought, walking the girls back to the cottage.
Cat didn’t speak because she was still trying to sort through her anger and anxiety, and she didn’t know why the girls were silent unless they were expecting her to tell their father and that would mean consequences, whatever those might be.
Reaching the cottage, she had them strip off their sweaters and damp outer wear and leave by the fire to dry.
And then she told them they had twenty minutes to take a bath and dress and be back downstairs for lunch.
If they weren’t down at precisely one, there would be no lunch.
Jillian looked at her as if wanting to argue, but Cat’s fierce expression must have been enough to discourage Jillian as she turned and walked out, with Olivia following.
Upstairs in her room, Cat changed into warm, dry clothes and her warmest indoor slippers before heading to the kitchen to make some ham and cheese sandwiches. She cut up an apple and added apple slices to each plate before placing the two plates on the table.
The girls arrived together at precisely one. Cat gestured to the table and the girls pulled back their chairs, the legs scraping the old wood floor, before they sat, chairs scraping on the way back in.
“Eat,” Cat said. “We will talk after.”
Olivia tentatively picked up half of her sandwich, but Jillian ignored her plate and stared at Cat.
“I don’t want to talk later,” Jillian said tersely. “Say whatever you are going to say now.”
Cat arched her brow. “I’m sorry. I don’t take orders from little girls who deliberately inconvenience adults.”
“I’m not a little girl,” Jillian gritted.
“But you are when you act the way you did today. That was incredibly immature. And to take Olivia with you? Dangerous and selfish.”
Jillian’s cheeks flushed. “That’s not very nice.”
“It’s nicer than what I want to say but I’m really trying hard not to hurt your feelings and make you cry.”
Olivia’s eyes widened and she glanced at her sister.
Jillian’s chin notched up and her lips pressed flat. “You’re a terrible nanny.”
“So I’ve been told.” Cat nearly smiled.
This whole battle of wills was almost funny—now that the girls were safe.
It hadn’t been funny, earlier though, and Cat still hadn’t decided what to say to Rhys.
She would tell him, that much she knew. He needed to know.
He needed to make sure the girls understood that Cat wasn’t going anywhere, and that she was the boss when he wasn’t around.
At the same time, Cat sympathized with the girls for struggling with Christmas without their mom. It was not just the first time that they hadn’t been with her for Christmas, but it was the first time they weren’t at home.
Christmas without both of your parents didn’t feel much like Christmas at all.
Never mind the fact that Rhys made the decision to take the girls to Derbyshire for their winter break.
What were they supposed to do here, in the middle of nowhere, for weeks while he worked for a good portion of each day?
Worse, their beloved nanny Charlotte, the girl who had cared for them for years, before and after the divorce, was gone for their winter break, leaving them with a stranger for weeks.
An American stranger.
No wonder the girls weren’t happy.
Now that Cat could see the whole picture, she didn’t blame Jillian for acting out, but at the same time, she wished Jillian could find a less exhausting way to express her frustration.
Exhausting or not, Cat had a job to do, and she would do it. She wouldn’t hold a grudge, either. They were going to move forward after lunch and try, if possible, to start over.
Jillian reluctantly ate her sandwich and apple slices. Olivia carried her empty plate to the sink and rinsed it off. Cat nodded and smiled at her.
“Did you brush your teeth today?” Cat whispered to her.
Olivia shook her head.
“Go brush your teeth and then come down with a book. We’re going to read for a little bit by the fire.”
Olivia darted a look in her sister’s direction before confessing. “I didn’t bring any books.”
“What did you bring?”
“My phone and tablet.”
“Okay, then brush your teeth and come downstairs without your phone and tablet. I’ll see if we can find a deck of cards and play a game.”
With Olivia gone, Cat went to the table and sat down across from Jillian who was still slowly eating, doing her best to chew each bite for as long as humanly possible while staring at the wall.
Again, Cat’s lips quivered and she desperately wanted to smile.
Jillian’s acts of defiance were rather clever and hilarious, and if Cat were twelve going on thirteen, she’d want to be Jillian’s friend, or at the very least, in Jillian’s circle of friends.
“Olivia and I are going to play some cards when she comes back downstairs,” Cat said evenly. “Would you like to play with us, or read?”
Jillian didn’t even glance at her. “No, thank you.”
“It’s one or the other, Jillian.”
“I don’t want to do either, so no, thank you. I’ll just stay in my room.”
“That’s not an option. You’ve lost the privilege of being unsupervised in your room, which means you get to spend quality time with me over the next few days. By the end of the week, we’ll become besties.”
Jillian rolled her eyes. “That will never happen.”
“So, grab a book if you have one from upstairs, or find one from the bookshelf in the sitting room—”
“I’m not reading.”
“Then cards it is.”
“No.”
“You can play solitaire.”
Jillian turned her body to fully face Cat. “This is not how you get me to like you.”
Cat smiled her most patient smile. “What should I do instead? Let you walk all over me? Allow you to put your little sister in dangerous situations?”
“Livy wasn’t in danger—”
“That is more than enough Jillian Harmon,” Rhys’s deep voice interrupted his daughter’s protest, effectively silencing her. “To your room. Now.”
It wasn’t a tone of voice Jillian must have heard often as she shot out of her chair and up the stairs without making a sound.
Cat stood nearly as quickly, surprised by Rhys’s appearance. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Mr. Trimble told me you were out looking for them earlier. I see you found them.”
“They were playing behind the old dairy.”
“He said they were hiding from you.”
She swallowed, nodded. “I didn’t know they’d left the house.”
“How did you not hear them leave?”
“They went out the fire escape ladder in your room.”
“What?”
It wasn’t a roar, but it wasn’t his usual controlled tone, either and she hurriedly added, “I thought they were in their room, and it wasn’t until I asked them to come down so we could walk into Bakewell that I discovered they weren’t even here.
” Her voice cracked. “I feel terrible and I’m really sorry. I know I’m responsible for them—”
“They snuck out.”
She could barely nod. “Thank goodness they weren’t hurt, or lost—”
“But you didn’t know that, did you?”
“No. I was … scared.”
His jaw tightened, his features equally hard. “Unbelievable.”
“I understand if you want to let me go.”
“No. What? Why?” He gave her a look of pure astonishment. “You didn’t sneak out. You didn’t break the rules. You are not at fault.”
“But I should have been paying closer attention.”
“I guess we could put a surveillance camera in their room.”
“No!” Her voice rose, aghast. “They’re kids. Kids do dumb things. And sometimes the smartest kids do the most ridiculous things.”
“But it’s Jillian leading Olivia astray, isn’t it?” he asked.
Cat reluctantly nodded. “She is definitely the ringleader.”
“But why? She has everything in the world—”
“But her mom,” Cat interrupted as kindly as she could. “She wants her mom here. She wants to have Christmas with her family, like you usually do.”
“Her mom and I have been divorced for years.”
“Yet you’ve still celebrated Christmas together every year, and being a child, she probably thought you always would.”
He said nothing, just looked away, toward the window, brow furrowed.
Cat felt his displeasure all the way through her but had to ask what she’d been wondering ever since she arrived. “Did anyone prepare the girls for how different this Christmas would be? Did they have time to process that their mother wouldn’t be here?”
“Probably not,” he admitted. “Lyndsey only sprang it on me a few days before their winter break, and I panicked. I decided we needed to do Christmas somewhere else and thought of the cottages here. One was open and I booked it, and now here we are.”
“So, the girls weren’t excited about Christmas at Langley Park?”
“I wasn’t excited about Christmas at Langley Park, but trust me, it would have been ten times worse if we’d stayed in London.
Lyndsey was always the Christmas one, full of holiday cheer.
Everything we did in December was because of her, and maybe it makes me a terrible father, but I’m having a hard time keeping my girls safe, never mind giving them a Christmas to remember. ”
“Did your wife—”
“Ex-wife.”
“Ex-wife give you a reason for changing the plans at the last minute?” She saw his expression darken and hurriedly added, “I know it’s none of my business but I’m trying to figure out if Jillian knows what’s going on and if that’s maybe part of what’s upsetting her so much.”
“Lyndsey has been seeing someone this year, and it’s apparently now serious. Roger invited her to St. Barts to meet his children next week.”
“At Christmas.”
He gave her a look that made her quail a bit, but she wasn’t going to back away now, not when Cat was trying so hard to understand. “Does Jillian know that her mom is spending the holidays with someone else’s kids?”
“They’re not kids. Roger’s children are adults. They’re in their late twenties and thirties.”