Chapter 23
Clara burst into the drawing room, brandishing a scrap of paper and a stub of blue crayon, hair already unraveling from its morning ribbon. “Look!” she yelled, vaulting over the settee. “I drew her again.”
Nancy, who had just managed to arrange the household ledger into some approximation of order, set her pen down and braced herself. “Who have you made this time, little madam?”
Clara thrust the drawing forward. It was the usual: a heroic, three-headed woman with a shock of orange hair and arms radiating like spokes from a wheel. The name “Mama” was scrawled across the bottom, letters tipping forward in a race to be first.
Henry hovered behind, peering with both pride and reservation. “It’s got too many arms,” he whispered, as if confessing to a minor heresy.
“It’s for hugging more people,” Clara countered, eyes narrowed in challenge.
Nancy crouched beside her, the ledger abandoned. She studied the picture with grave attention, then looked up at the girl. “I believe you’ve outdone yourself. No ordinary mother could handle two of you at once. Only an extraordinary one would suffice.”
Clara glowed, her scowl replaced by the ineffable self-assurance only children and mad generals possess. “Will you put it in your room?”
“I will frame it and hang it by the window,” Nancy said, “so everyone who passes the house will know we are supervised by the world’s most vigilant mother.”
Henry sidled in, tugging Nancy’s sleeve. “Do you think she’s up there?” he asked, voice so small it might have vanished if not for the echo in the high plaster ceiling. “In heaven?”
Nancy saw the look in his eyes—an old, battered hope, recycled too often for a five-year-old. “I am sure of it,” she said, quietly. “And if she’s paying any attention at all, she’s shaking her fist and telling me to stop letting you eat sugar before breakfast.”
Henry smiled, a quick, rare thing, then nodded with the gravity of a man who had just closed a treaty.
Nancy reached for both their hands, held them fast. “Now. Let’s get this masterpiece somewhere safe before the Duke sees it and faints at the thought of a woman with so much power.”
Clara laughed, Henry giggled, and the two of them trundled off in search of fresh mischief. Nancy, left behind, rolled the drawing and slid it into her pocket, where it would no doubt leave blue residue on every other possession for weeks.
The next morning began with the kind of orderly quiet that always precedes catastrophe. Nancy found herself in the same drawing room, once more grappling with the house accounts. This time, she made it all the way to the second page before the disruption arrived.
Mrs. Tullock appeared in the doorway with the brisk, no-nonsense step of a woman who had already organized three disasters before noon. “Your Grace,” she announced, “the new governess is here.”
“Already?” Nancy checked the clock—barely past the hour. “You may show her to the second drawing room. I’ll be along in a moment.”
Mrs. Tullock nodded and retreated, her passage leaving a wake of uprighted vases and cowed maids.
Clara and Henry exchanged a long glance across the breakfast table. Clara spoke first, as always. “Is she for us?”
“She is for all of us,” Nancy replied, with what she hoped was reassuring finality. “But we will decide together if she suits.”
Henry’s face was unreadable. Clara merely stabbed her bread with a butter knife, the blade squeaking against the plate.
They followed Nancy up the hallway, Henry lagging behind as if each step weighed more than the last. Nancy led them to the second drawing room—a misnomer, really, as it was smaller and plainer than the first, with fewer paintings and less light.
Miss Edith Mercer was already waiting, standing in the precise center of the rug as if measuring its borders.
She was, Nancy conceded, exactly what one expected of a governess: tall, dignified, hair arranged in an immaculate coil.
Her gloves were a crisp gray, her collar even crisper, and her eyes a shade of brown that made Nancy think of walnut shells—sturdy, unbreakable, possibly edible.
Nancy introduced herself, then the twins.
“Miss Mercer,” said Clara, scrutinizing the woman with her customary frankness. “Have you ever tamed wolves?”
Edith’s composure did not falter. “Not actual wolves, but I did once instruct a set of Irish triplets. It amounts to much the same.”
Nancy felt the urge to applaud.
Henry, emboldened, asked: “Can you climb trees?”
“If it is necessary,” said Edith, not missing a beat.
Nancy felt her own equilibrium shift. There was something about this woman—an uncanny smoothness, as if she’d been sanded down to the precise shape required by the situation. It made Nancy’s skin prickle. Where was the flaw? The misplaced button, the ink-smudged knuckle? She found none.
“You come highly recommended, Miss Mercer,” Nancy said. “But as you can see, the situation is unconventional.”
“I would not have expected anything less, Your Grace.” The governess’s smile was polite, but not soft. “The Duke has already informed me of your…family’s uniqueness.”
Nancy’s composure cracked, if only for a moment. “Has he indeed? Well, then you are well briefed.”
“I also took the liberty,” Edith continued, “of preparing a preliminary schedule for the children’s studies. I have left ample time for natural history, as the Duke suggested, both have an interest in biology.”
Clara snorted. “We like bugs.”
“Bugs are excellent,” said Edith. “Tomorrow, we will catalogue every beetle in the garden.”
Henry’s eyes widened. “All of them?”
“Every last one,” Edith promised. “But for today, I thought we’d begin with an hour of reading, then some drawing, then perhaps a walk outside.”
Nancy tried to object, but the twins had already begun to thaw.
“We don’t usually walk,” Clara challenged.
“Today, we’ll make an exception,” Edith replied.
Clara and Henry looked to Nancy, as if awaiting an official ruling.
Nancy shrugged. “I see no reason why not.”
Edith gave a shallow bow and ushered the children out with efficiency bordering on military discipline. The drawing room door closed with a soft, absolute click.
Nancy lingered, feeling unaccountably displaced.
She had thought, for some reason, that a governess would be a stopgap—a sort of warm body to fill the hours when the children’s energy threatened to overflow.
She had not expected an actual professional, nor that the children would so quickly, so quietly, adapt.
She made her way back to the office, but could not focus. Instead, she took to the window and watched as Edith led Clara and Henry through the garden.
The twins walked side by side, not holding hands, but close enough that their shoulders brushed. Edith followed, clipboard in hand, pointing out plants and stopping occasionally for Clara to prod a leaf or for Henry to kneel and inspect a worm.
They looked, for the first time since arriving, not wild but simply…young.
This is what Oscar wanted, Nancy told herself. Structure and authority. But the sight of the twins, subdued, made her jaw clench.
A knock on the door. Mrs. Tullock entered with the day’s accounts.
“Everything in order, Your Grace?” the housekeeper asked, eyes darting to the garden.
“Perfectly,” Nancy replied, not quite believing it. “The children are…content?”
Mrs. Tullock allowed herself a rare smile. “They seem so. Miss Mercer is already a legend among the kitchen staff. She caught Clara in the larder and had her reading The Pilgrim’s Progress inside of five minutes.”
“Impressive, I suppose,” said Nancy. “I can’t get Clara to sit still long enough to tie a ribbon in her hair.”
Mrs. Tullock laid out the ledger, then studied Nancy with the keen interest of a physicist observing a chemical reaction. “It’s all right to be uncertain, Your Grace. Change always seems alarming. But the twins will be safe with Miss Mercer. She is…formidable.”
Nancy thought of the woman’s steady eyes, her perfect collar, the way she had outmaneuvered both twins within minutes. “She is that.”
Mrs. Tullock lingered at the door. “You’re doing well, Your Grace.”
Nancy managed a smile. “Thank you.”
She turned back to the window as the housekeeper left, and watched Edith shepherd the children through their first lesson, a tidy, relentless march around the hedges.
The nursery was dark except for the single candle Nancy carried.
It painted long shadows across the walls, the furniture looming like silent sentries.
Clara and Henry lay in their narrow beds, heads just visible above identical patchwork quilts.
For a wonder, they were not launching paper projectiles or plotting an escape.
They simply stared at the ceiling, as if waiting for a verdict.
Nancy sat on the low stool between them, her dress making a soft shush against the rug. “Teeth brushed, faces washed, toes accounted for. I declare you ready for dreams.”
Clara turned, blue eyes fixed on her. “Is Miss Mercer going to stay forever?”
The question landed with more force than Nancy expected. “She’ll be here as long as you need her,” she said, carefully. “Why do you ask?”
Clara stared at the ceiling again, voice small. “I hope she doesn’t.”
Nancy blinked. “You don’t like her?”
Clara shook her head, curls bobbing. “She’s too perfect. It makes me feel like a bug.”
Henry pulled the quilt up to his nose, eyes round. “I hope she doesn’t stay either,” he echoed, voice muffled. “She smells like soap, and she never blinks.”
Nancy tried to laugh, but it came out thin. “She is new, and sometimes new things are strange. But I promise, she’s only here to help.”
Neither child looked convinced.
Nancy reached for their hands, squeezing gently. “You will always have me, too. I am not going anywhere.”
Henry’s hand was cold, and he held on longer than usual. Clara pressed her lips together, as if sealing in words she dared not say.
Nancy tucked the quilts tighter, then leaned in to kiss each forehead. “No stories tonight. Miss Mercer said she has a surprise planned for the morning, and you need all your sleep to face it.”
Clara’s mouth quivered. “But we like your stories best.”
Nancy softened, brushing Clara’s hair back. “I like them best, too. We’ll have two tomorrow, if you’re brave in the morning.”
Henry made a small, hopeful sound. “Can we have jam biscuits for breakfast?”
“You can have three,” Nancy promised, “if you are very good.”
She rose and crossed to the door, pausing to look back. The twins lay side by side, faces turned in mirror image, eyes still open and trained on her.
Nancy tried to summon confidence, but the children’s doubt seeped through her defenses. She forced a smile, then slipped from the room, closing the door with a soft snick.
Down the hall, the candle guttered in her hand, the flame fighting for air.
It will be fine, Nancy reassured herself. But as she walked, she was not sure if she was lying to the children or to herself.