Winter Is Past. Ruth Morren Axtell

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СКАЧАТЬ say the grace Althea had taught her? Then he turned his attention to her.

      “Good evening, Miss Breton. You disappeared before I could say a proper hello to you.”

      His gentle tone surprised her, so different from his previous manner.

      He looked weary. Althea realized he hadn’t exaggerated when he told his daughter he had come straight home to her. His cravat looked wilted, his dark coat rumpled, and his hair in disarray, though she was beginning to believe that was its usual arrangement.

      “Good evening, Mr. Aguilar,” she replied. “Welcome home.”

      “Thank you. Have you found everything to your satisfaction?”

      Finding she could not answer truthfully, she turned toward Rebecca. “Don’t let your stew get cold.”

      Rebecca had been watching the two adults, obviously finding anything her father engaged in more fascinating than the bowl set before her. “It’s too hot. See the steam.”

      “I see,” replied Althea. “Well, don’t let it sit too long.”

      “Abba, did you know when Miss Althea was little, she used to go down to the kitchen and help the cook with the pastry?”

      “Is that so?”

      “Yes, she’d make little tarts out of dough, then have a tea party with her dolls afterwards. Can you imagine that?”

      “No, I cannot,” he replied, bringing a chair to her bedside as Althea moved away.

      Rebecca sighed. “I’d love to sit with Cook and steal little scraps of pastry to make tarts for my dolls.”

      “Perhaps that can be arranged. What do you say?”

      Althea turned to him, realizing he was addressing her. She smiled at Rebecca. “Yes, I believe we could arrange something,” she said as she tried to imagine the slovenly, barely civil cook taking such a request from her.

      “Look what Miss Althea showed me how to do today.” Rebecca spread open the row of paper dolls.

      “How pretty.”

      “Thank you. This one’s Althea, and this one is Bertha—that’s my blue-eyed doll, you know—and this one’s Emily—that’s the rag doll I sleep with—and this one’s….”

      Althea shelved some of the picture books they had looked at that day, not wanting to interrupt the child but concerned she should eat her food. Althea had made it a point to sit with her and try all kinds of things to get her to clean her plate.

      “What did you do on your trip? Did you get the bad people who tried to kill the prince?”

      Simon chuckled. “No. I didn’t catch them.” He tweaked his daughter’s nose. “Remember, it’s not my job to catch the criminals, but to make laws that perhaps will help all people live more peaceably. Now, I see a young lady who is doing everything but eating.”

      She smiled, arching her neck back against her pillows. “I can’t eat. I always eat with Miss Althea.”

      Simon glanced at Althea’s kneeling figure. “Is that so? Well, I have an idea. Have you dined yet, Miss Breton?”

      She shook her head, taken unawares. “No, sir.”

      “Well, then, that’s it. We shall dine here with Rebecca and I shall tell you all about my trip—if you promise to finish up everything on your tray.”

      Before Althea could voice any objections, he rose and grabbed the bellpull.

      When the maid appeared, Simon asked for a card table set up with two more supper trays. As these preparations were taking place, he excused himself to freshen up from his trip.

      He removed his coat and handed it to his valet, who had been unpacking Simon’s portmanteau.

      “Feels good to be home, doesn’t it?”

      “That it does, sir,” answered the manservant, holding out his arm for Simon’s shirt and cravat.

      “Thank you.” Simon bent over the washstand and soaked a washcloth. He realized he was humming. What he’d told Ivan was true. For the first time in a long time it felt good to be home. His house had known nothing but illness and death for what seemed forever. As he scrubbed his torso and neck he analyzed what was different.

      He pictured his daughter’s cheerful demeanor, her enthusiastic chatter. She certainly was looking good. Simon had felt a welcoming warmth as soon as he’d entered her bedroom.

      Perhaps Sky had been right in recommending his sister as Rebecca’s nurse. Simon remembered how it had come about. He hadn’t seen Sky in several years. They’d lost touch after university. As the second son, Sky hadn’t had many prospects, and he’d been wild in those days. His father, the Marquess of Caulfield, had finally said he’d pay no more of the young man’s gambling debts. Sky would have to make it on his own out in the Indies, managing one of the family’s lesser estates.

      Simon had run into Sky only a few weeks ago and found a wholly different man. Gone was the arrogant wastrel. In his place was a married man who radiated happiness and well-being. When he’d heard about Rebecca, he’d immediately launched into accolades of his younger sister, Althea. Told Simon she’d nursed him through a deadly tropical fever. Simon hadn’t even known Sky possessed a sister, and thought once again they didn’t look anything alike.

      Taking a towel and rubbing his face, he contrasted the two—Skylar with his tall, lithe body, and lean, dark good looks, and Althea Breton, of middlish height and golden-haired. She gave the impression, he considered a moment, of a quiet, composed creature but with an inner fire. He’d lay odds that she’d bitten her tongue more than once during their interview at his deliberately provoking statements.

      He still couldn’t figure out why she should wish to be a lowly nurse when she was a daughter of Caulfield. As long as she made Rebecca happy, it really didn’t matter, he supposed.

      He took the clean shirt Ivan handed him and pulled it over his head, then turned to his man to deal with the complications of a cravat. He himself had no patience with their intricacies. Finally he shrugged into the coat held out for him.

      “Take the evening off when you’ve finished here,” he told the valet as he exited the room. “You deserve it after the journey we’ve had.”

      He returned just as a footman and maid were finishing laying the table. Althea prepared a chair for Rebecca, and Simon carried her over to it.

      When the three sat down, Althea bowed her head. She heard Rebecca say, “Stop, we’re going to say grace.”

      Miss Breton said a short grace, as Simon sat with his spoon lifted in midair in one hand, the other tapping a rhythm on the cloth. She flushed when she noticed his position, and lifted her own spoon.

      “Isn’t it funny how Miss Althea blesses the food before the meal, and Grandpapa blesses it before and after the meal, and we don’t bless it at all?”

      There was a silence as Miss Breton glanced toward him. He shrugged over his daughter’s remark, СКАЧАТЬ