CHAPTER TEN
“It’s bedtime,” Helena explained as she led a reluctant Gabe up the stairs to the nursery.
She had interrupted his pre-dinner glass of cognac in his study, and from all outward appearances, he wasn’t at all happy to be completing another task on her list of engagement demands, especially since he’d spent a long day working with the men at the bridge.
“That means Alice needs to have a story read to her, and there’s no one better for that task than her father. ”
“Don’t let Nanny Potts hear you say that,” Gabe grumbled from behind her.
Helena stopped on the landing and put her hands on her hips. “It’s time Nanny realizes that things are going to change at Grangely, including how the nursery is run.”
“Definitely don’t let her hear you say that.”
“Gabriel Cavanaugh,” she scolded. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were afraid of the nanny.”
“Of course I am.”
With a shake of her head, she blew out an exasperated sigh and took his hand to lead him forward into the nursery.
The room was all readied for the evening, with the window shutters closed against the cool night and the light of a single candle glowing on the bedside table.
The toys that were normally scattered across the floor had all been put back into their proper places on the shelves, with the dolls sitting properly on their little chairs and the rocking horse stabled in the corner.
It was most likely all Nanny Potts’s doing, Helena knew.
Knowing how Alice liked to drag her feet when it came to bedtime, Helena suspected that the only reason the little girl was in her night rail and waiting patiently in bed was because she had been bribed with an extra chocolate biscuit if she behaved tonight.
When Gabe lingered near the door, Helena nudged him forward.
“Good evening, Alice,” he called out to her as he approached her little bed with its white velvet counterpane and lacy pink canopy.
Helena had to give Nanny Potts credit for making the nursery so wonderful for Alice over the years. She had made certain the little girl wanted for nothing…even if her father had barely acknowledged that she existed.
But all that was changing. Tonight’s story was simply another cog in the wheel.
“All ready for bed, I see.” He gestured at the warm covers pulled up to her chest as she leaned back on a pile of pillows stacked against the headboard.
Alice nodded and clutched tightly the doll that Helena had given her. From the wary frown of her brows, she seemed as uncertain about this whole activity as Gabe did.
Until Helena arrived at Grangely, Gabe rarely visited the nursery, and as far as Helena could tell, he’d never once read a bedtime story to Alice.
Not that ignoring children was uncommon among the aristocracy, she understood.
Most members of the ton thought the best way to raise a child was to put them under the watch of someone else until they were old enough to be sent away to school, then welcome them home when they turned eighteen…
just in time to marry off the daughters and send the sons away to university or into the army.
But Helena’s own childhood had been one of love and attention, and she wanted the same for all her children, including Alice.
“Lady Alice has been washed and dressed for bed as always, Your Grace,” Nanny Potts interjected a bit defensively.
“Of course she has.” Helena smiled at the woman. “You’ve done a marvelous job of caring for her.”
But the woman only continued to wring her hands at tonight’s change in their usual routine, standing awkwardly in the middle of the room.
Like most nannies, she slept in the nursery with her charge, her own bed located on the other side of the room, so she had no place to retire to while Gabe and Helena finished the bedtime routine for her.
“Why don’t you go down to the kitchens?” Helena suggested, grasping at an excuse for her to leave. “Cook was heating a pot of chocolate for the staff, and I’m sure she’s already made sticky buns for breakfast. Help yourself to all you’d like.”
Nanny Potts didn’t seem pleased about that offer when every other servant in the house would have jumped at the opportunity for such a treat. Instead, she looked expectantly at Alice, as if hoping the little girl would demand that Nanny stay with her to put her to sleep, as usual.
But Alice didn’t. She was too curious about her father and why he would be in the nursery to pay any attention to her nurse.
“Thank you, Miss.” Nanny Potts gave a stiff curtsy to Helena. “Your Grace.” Her curtsy to Gabe was only slightly deeper. Then she pulled back her shoulders beneath her gray uniform, held up her capped head as high as she could, and marched out of the nursery.
Alice sat up eagerly. “Can I have chocolate and sweets?”
Gabe slid Helena an I-told-you-so look.
Helena wisely ignored that and said with exaggerated excitement, “We have something much better for you.” She cast a smile at Gabe. “Your papa’s going to read you a story!”
“Oh.” Alice sank back against her pillow. Disappointment darkened her face.
“Good to know I come in second behind chocolate,” Gabe muttered to Helena beneath his breath.
“Of course you do. She’s four,” she returned in the same low voice. “But that’s not the point of this.”
“Then what is?”
“Spending time with your daughter.”
“And we can’t do that over chocolate and sticky buns?”
Her eyes narrowed. “No.” Then she smiled at Alice and clasped her hands in front of her skirt. “How would you and Beatrice like to hear a fairytale before you go to sleep?”
“I’d rather have chocolate and sweets,” Gabe mumbled.
She elbowed him in the ribs as she slipped past him to walk to the head of the bed where a big book of fairytales sat on the bedside table. “Which is your favorite story, Alice?”
The little girl shrugged. Apparently, her interest had vanished along with the possibility of having sweets.
“How about if your papa reads…” Helena flipped through the pages, then smiled when she came to one she liked. “Hansel and Gretel?”
Gabe came up behind her and looked over her shoulder at the book. “A story about cannibalism and child abandonment?”
“It is not about…” She pursed her lips. She knew better than to start down that road and instead searched again through the pages. “All right. Then Cinderella.”
“Hmm.”
She turned her head to shoot him a hard look. “And what’s wrong with that one?”
“Forced child labor to start with. And don’t the wicked stepsisters cut off part of their feet to fit them into the glass slipper? I thought we were trying to put her to sleep, not give her nightmares.”
“Now you’re just being silly. There’s nothing wrong with—” When his lips twitched from restraining a grin, she inhaled a deep breath to gather her patience.
Troublesome man. “Fine. Then read her Rumpelstiltskin.” She arched a brow, daring him to challenge her.
“That is, unless you have a problem with determined women working hard to financially save their families?”
He dropped his gaze over her from head to toe and murmured, “Not at all.”
She hid her flush with an acerbic taunt. “Then that must make you the magical troll.”
He shrugged. “I’ve been called worse.”
“Just read her the story, will you?” Biting back the tongue-lashing he deserved, she shoved the book into his chest.
He took it and pulled up a wooden chair beside the bed, then paused to roll up his shirt sleeves. Helena gave a long-suffering sigh. Good heavens, the man was carrying on as if he were about to be tortured. But he settled onto the chair, kicked out his long legs, and began to read.
“’Once there was a miller who was poor.’” He paused reading and grumbled to himself beneath his breath, “I don’t know any poor millers. If he’s poor, then he must be a terribly bad one given the price of corn these days.”
Helena pointedly cleared her throat.
He read on, “’But the miller had a beautiful daughter.’” He turned the page and muttered, “I certainly don’t know any beautiful miller’s daughters either.”
“Papa,” Helena scolded gently.
In the bed, Alice moved her confused stare between them as if they’d both gone mad.
“Very well.” Duly chastised, he took a deep breath and continued. “‘Now it happened that he had to go and speak to the king—'” He looked up at Helena in confusion. “What business would a miller possibly have with the king?”
“I don’t know,” she said with a tight smile for Alice, “but I’m certain it was important milling business.”
He scoffed. “Unless Farmer George has suddenly decided to open a royal charter for mills, then—”
“The story,” Helena insisted, dropping her hands to her sides in frustration. “Please.”
He rolled his eyes and looked back down at the book. “‘In order to make himself appear important’—that I believe. A miller would have to dress up like the pope in order to get a king to notice him.”
Helena bit her tongue.
“‘He said to the king, “I have a daughter who can spin straw into gold.”’ Well,” Gabe said to himself, “that’s a plot twist I didn’t see coming.”
Alice glanced warily at Helena, who leaned over his shoulder and taped the page of the book with her finger to bring his attention back to the story. Heavens! At this rate, Nanny Potts would have to consume an entire tray of sticky buns in order to stay away until they had finished.
“‘The king said to the miller, “That is an art which pleases me well.”’ Of course it does,” Gabe muttered. “Show me a king who doesn’t want even more gold, and I’ll show you a—”
“A fairytale?” Helena interjected, her patience wearing thin. “Yes, I would very much like to hear one, if you don’t mind.”
Alice said softly to her doll, “I don’t remember the story going like this before…”
Standing beside his chair, Helena prodded him in the shoulder.