Chapter 6 #2
“Who is your mama?” he asked, almost afraid to hear the answer. He had always used a sheath without fail.
“She’s not our real mother. She be our stepmother, but she said we could call her mum.”
“She sounds like a wonderful lady.” Who would need to assist them with learning proper English.
“The finest. She bought us these.” The girls twirled around the room holding out their skirts and giggled.
“Two beautiful dresses for two beautiful girls. What is your mother’s name?” He asked once more as the girls beamed at him, both missing their two front teeth.
“Lady Griffith,” they responded as a duet.
His heart sank as deep as Davy Jones’s locker. Caillen was here?
As if on cue, Caillen walked into his room humming Für Elise like she had never left and he was nearly struck dumb.
Wearing a cream-colored day gown with embroidered flowers the color of champagne decorating the bodice.
She wore a matching champagne-colored fichu covering every inch of her skin, from the bodice of her gown halfway up her neck, in the fashion of a servant.
A rather wealthy servant, but a servant just the same.
Her hair was pulled up in a simple chignon with a few stray curls hanging loosely around her face, and he could do nothing but drink up the sight of her beauty.
“Good morning, Lord Astley. May I introduce my daughters, Lillie and Millie who are about to assist the maids with the of cleaning chamber pots for not listening to their mother.”
“I warned you!” His son’s joyous voice called out. The pronouncement was made all the more charming by his French accent as it echoed through the hallway.
“Nuh-uh!” The girls yelled back. If Simon had to guess, the girls were a couple years younger than Sébastien, but just as mature.
“Did so!”
“Did not!”
He watched Caillen’s lip quirk and couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Genuine humor was lighting up her face. He’d seen it a couple of times before she left him, but this time, her smile had come easily. There was no force or stress to maintain it. It just was.
“I will let you go with a warning this time,” she told the girls.
They beamed up at her.
“Awwww, that’s not fair,” Sébastien pouted.
“Is so!” The girl’s responded.
“I suggest you run along and prepare for your lessons, girls.” Their expressions showed displeasure in the idea of schooling.
“Ha!” Sébastien snorted.
“You too, Sébastien. You will be working with the girls today.”
Lillie and Millie giggled.
Sébastien appeared in the doorway. “That’s not fair. They’re babies!”
The girls’ hands went to their hips as if they had seen Caillen use that very same gesture.
He definitely had, and he nearly laughed aloud.
Caillen turned toward his wash basin as if she were busy and not biting down on her lip to keep her own laughter under control.
The way her white teeth sank down into her plump bottom lip almost made him forget himself.
That luscious lip he’d dreamed of kissing and teasing until she opened to him in a surrender would be his undoing.
She cleared her throat and brought him back to the present.
“Sébastien,” he said, his voice full of displeasure he didn’t feel. He could also play the role of a stern parent who would not tolerate misbehavior. It was either that or lose his sanity in thoughts of what he wanted to do to her.
“They are—” Sébastien started.
“Young ladies who you will treat with the utmost respect.” He warned.
Millie’s and Lillie’s expressions turned to one of pure satisfaction at his son’s discomfort.
Millie stuck out the tip of her tongue in his son’s direction.
Sébastien’s eyes widened in shock, until he looked toward Lillie, who mimicked her sister, and he turned toward Simon to tattle.
Simon shook his head in response and Sébastien rolled his eyes.
“You have a very important visitor coming in a few minutes, my lord,” Caillen informed him, as if she had been the one to schedule his doctor’s visit.
“Are you going to kill him, too, and send him to Davey Jone’s locker, Guv?” Millie asked, or perhaps it was Lillie.
“Address the earl as, my lord,” Caillen corrected.
“Are ye going to kill ‘im too, my lord?” The other twin asked.
He studied the two girls, looking for something to be able to tell them apart. He really couldn’t see any major differences in their features. “If he delivers bad news, I just might.”
“Cor!” They said in unison. They turned toward Caillen. “Can we stay?”
Caillen was fighting to keep her mask of propriety. “I’m afraid not, girls. It wouldn’t be ladylike, and please refrain from using that word.”
“Awwww.” Their bottom lips stuck out.
“I’ll refrain from killing anyone until you are present,” he promised.
“Cor! Did you ‘ear that Sébastien? ‘E’s going to wait ’til we come back, so we won’t miss the killin’!”
Caillen shook her head. “Don’t encourage them, Simon.”
Simon. She’d used his Christian name. Something in his chest swelled, but he refused to give it a name.
Sébastien shook his head at such a tale. “He’s not going to kill anyone. He’s not that manner of man.”
Caillen didn’t give the girls the opportunity to argue. “Run along children. Your tutor will be waiting for you.”
The girls ran past Sébastien, one hitting one arm and the other hitting his opposite arm.
Sébastien looked at him in disbelief and Simon gave him a commiserating nod the boy would soon be sharing with other boys his age.
Sébastien rolled his eyes once more and turned around, his head and shoulders swinging with exasperation at his lot in life.
A snort came from the direction of his washstand and he turned to see Caillen holding her hand over her mouth.
Her cheeks were the rosiest pink he’d seen since the night he’d met her and mistakenly believed she was at Ross’s house as their entertainment for the evening.
How foolish he’d been to think that he would ever share this woman with anyone.
Her eyes met his and her laughter ceased.
“Don’t stop on my account.”
“It was an inappropriate response to their lack of discipline.”
“You’ve seen my mother discipline my siblings and not be able to hold her laughter through the first sentence of her lecture.”
She smirked as she apparently did recall the chaos of his family home, and hope sprung to life.
He couldn’t remember how many times he’d said a prayer for her smile to return while she recovered at his family home.
The brutality of Caillen’s attack had been his first real exposure to the evils of men.
He’d assisted another woman who had suffered at the hands of a lord, but despite the scar to her face, it had been nearly healed when he learned of her plight.
But the brutality Caillen had suffered…
It had left her merely staring into nothingness for months, her essence stripped away from her body.
Even while his siblings created a cacophony of noise all around her, she had been stoic and he’d prayed that one day she would actually enjoy the moments of gaiety in his household.
Watching Caillen at his family home, however, had made his family’s joyous routine at the breakfast table heartbreakingly painful.
Day after day, he’d observed her nibble a piece of toast like an expressionless little mouse.
The only hint of her awareness of anyone else in the room was when she would flinch if someone got too close.
The one time his brother had bumped up against her, when he’d jumped from the table to chase their younger brother, Caillen had fallen apart.
That was the day that determined his path to France. Now a renewed sense of hope swelled inside him.
“What made you come back?” He asked.
She brought the basin over to the nightstand with a bar of soap and clean linen. That act alone sent his pulse at a gallop, and he nearly missed her response. “I never left.”
“What?” That couldn’t be.