“Dee—. Why are you wandering around in your nightdress and bare feet?” Col had been reading a book of fairytales, looking for ideas for their next story time when she’d skipped into view. He’d built a small fire in the grate that night to take the dampness out of their rooms.
George sat across from him on a threadbare settee working his way through a pile of mending and whistling a hornpipe tune from his naval days.
When he half-rose to shoo Dee back to her room, Col shook his head. “Maybe one short story, Poppet, before you have to climb back into bed.”
She gave him a tooth-gapped grin and scrambled up onto his lap. She grabbed at the book he’d been reading, but he settled it on the side table, out of her grasp. Neither he nor George were ready for Dee to read on her own. Not yet, saints willing.
“Once long ago,” he began, “in a lost country far, far away where there were mangoes on the trees, and monkeys would snatch food off of bad little girls’ plates…”
There was a light tap at the door, and they turned to watch George leave the room to see who was there, probably Madame Louvelle. They lost interest after a long pause, and Col continued the story while Dee curled into a comfortable ball beneath the blanket he’d thrown over them.
“But they wouldn’t steal my food, because I’m a good girl…right, Papa?”
He simply smiled, ignoring her question, because one would lead to another five or six, and the bedtime story would stretch out for the whole of the night. “One sunny day, the princess of the kingdom, who was a very good little girl, went to her father to see if anything could be done about the monkeys…”
At a sound from the doorway, Col looked upat the intruding visitor. Charlotte stood in the doorway watching them, a mixture of hurt and wonder in her eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Would your knowing my secret have made a difference?”
“Is she the one you’re trying to protect?” Charlotte kept her voice to barely a whisper.
At that moment, Dee squirmed in Col’s lap and demanded, “Who’s this?” She then turned toward Charlotte and said, “You know, I can hear you. Are you going to be my mother?”
Col sighed, resigned to answering Dee’s torrent of questions. “Miss Smythe, this is Miss Deidre Louise Colwyn, expert listener of stories.” He looked back down at his daughter and continued, “Miss Colwyn, this is Miss Charlotte Smythe, chess mistress extraordinaire.”
“What’s a chest mistress?”
Without so much as a blink, Charlotte replied, “I’m the keeper of all the King’s chests.”
“No, you’re not. You’re making that up. My Papa makes things up, too.”
* * *
Colcarefully and deliberately finished Dee’s story while Charlotte curled up on the settee George had abandoned for his bed. Col suspected he wanted to give them some privacy if Dee ever went to sleep entirely for the night.
Dee’s eyes began closing involuntarily as he neared the end of his fantastical story of omnivorous monkeys. Every time he chanced a look at Charlotte on the couch, her face was twisted into a grimace at the bloodthirsty tale he was spinning for his daughter. Once the small girl finally drifted off into a deep sleep, Col carried the child to her tiny bed in the room farthest from the windows fronting on Great Queen Street where carriages bound to and from the Covent Garden area clattered loudly across cobblestones during most of the night.
When he returned to Charlotte, her eyes looked as sleepy as Dee’s had earlier. She looked up at him with a happy smile. “Is it all right if I share your bed tonight? Turnabout is only fair.”
“My bed, Miss Smythe, you keeper of all the King’s chests, is much smaller than yours. Are you sure you want to share such a stingy space?”
She stretched her arms out toward him. “I’m sure,” she said just before he picked her up, like Dee, and carried her to bed with her head against his shoulder.
* * *
The next morningCharlotte was taken aback by her complete immersion, and comfort, in Col’s havey-cavey household. His valet and man of all talents, George, prepared breakfast for all of them as if the appearance of a strange woman at their breakfast table were a common occurrence. Dee was so in awe that Charlotte was still there in the morning, she seemed temporarily to have run out of questions.
Charlotte had lain in bed earlier and watched Col shave. The simple act filled her with such a feeling of contentment, she could have remained there all day, happy to belong with him. When Dee had insisted on sitting next to Charlotte at the table, Charlotte’s heart did a happy little flip. She’d never had a real family. Could it possibly be that easy to walk through a magic portal into a place ready made for her where she belonged? She wanted to believe but doubt gnawed at the back of her mind like an annoying rodent.
* * *
Col buttereda piece of toast for Dee, and she insisted he butter one for Charlotte as well. Two weeks earlier, he never would have believed he’d be having a noisy breakfast with Dee and George in their shabby, but comfortable kitchen whilst a silver-blonde-headed angel sat with them, the early morning sun casting a bright halo around her head.
He stood suddenly, looked at his pocket watch and apologized. “I have to leave. I have a meeting with Magistrate Miller this morning.”
He pointed to Dee first. “You behave yourself and stay close to George and Madame Nouvelle in the park.”
