Chapter 3
“Annie! Frederick!”
Jack’s twins bounded out from the le Duc’s rear garden with wind-flushed cheeks and matching grins.
“Frederick’s afraid of pigs,” Annie said as she fell into step beside her father.
“Am not,” Frederick said hotly as he raced to Jack’s other side. “You patted him like he was a dog!”
“Chef likes me.” Annie sent him a smug smile. “We’re friends.”
Frederick lifted his chin. “I’ll invite him over to eat your geese.”
“You won’t,” Annie teased. “You didn’t even go near him.”
“He’s filthy,” Frederick protested. “Sébastien le Duc would never touch a pig. He’s a fashionable gentleman.”
“I’m glad I’m not a gentleman,” Annie said with feeling. “They miss out on all the fun.”
Jack declined to comment, instead choosing to enjoy the half-mile stroll home sandwiched between a ten-year-old would-be dandy and his joyfully unladylike sister.
As they tramped up the hill over a dusting of autumn leaves, the twins kept up a constant stream of chatter, intermingled with shouts of good tidings and energetically waved hands whenever they passed a familiar face.
Which, in Cressmouth, was everyone. The twins knew every child old enough to toddle, and could greet every neighbor and shopkeeper by name. The Harpers, from whom they rented horses. Miss Church, whose family owned a dairy. Mrs. Pringle, who prepared the biscuit menu for the castle’s welcome buffet. Miss Shelling, who wrote for the Cressmouth Gazette.
Was it any wonder neither Jack nor his offspring were inclined to ever leave this village? It was clean and safe, familiar and picturesque, with a soaring castle atop a frequently snow-topped mountain, surrounded by sloping hills of gorgeous evergreens. His children’s home wasn’t their cozy cottage in its acre of land abutting the central park, but the entire village.
Of course, playtime was about to become significantly curtailed two days hence, when Désirée started coming over to instruct the twins in daily lessons. Er, that was to say, Mademoiselle le Duc. Jack would have to take care to speak in formal terms in front of the children, to underscore Désirée’s position of respect.
Actually, he would have to take care, full stop. The last thing Jack wanted was a complicated liaison with a temporary governess. He didn’tthinkher brothers would truly feed him to their pig over the slightest hint of untoward behavior, but all the same, the new arrangement would work best if all parties involved maintained impeccable comportment and respectability.
Annie stumbled against Jack’s side with tears of laughter in her eyes. “Did you hear that, papa? Frederick can belch my name.”
Very well, theadultswould maintain proper decorum and the children would do… whatever the children would do. Oh, God, what were his children going to do?
Should he tell them now? No, not yet. They were having too much fun kicking clouds of yellow-orange leaves and chasing each other in circles around him, fingers outstretched in tickle position.
He would tell them after they arrived home, once they were settled in for the nightly bedtime story. As they were too old for fairy tales—or so they’d informed him on their eighth birthday—he and the twins had just finished Robinson Crusoe and were now making their way through Gulliver’s Travels.
Part of him couldn’t help but feel like the family was about to embark on an adventure of their own.
“Can we cross through the park?” Frederick asked.
“Wehaveto cross through the park.” Annie stared at her brother as if he’d gone mad. “It’s the only way to see my geese.”
“Hurryup,papa.” Frederick tugged Jack’s elbow. “Sunset is the best time to see them. We’re going to miss them.”
Frederick was right. The horizon now matched the red-orange-yellow of the trees at the edge of the park.
Jack hurried up.
Once the geese were accounted for, and the children fed and readied for bed, he crawled in beside them, but did not immediately open the novel in his lap to tonight’s chapter.
“What’s wrong?” Annie asked.
“He’s making the face,” Frederick whispered. “The ‘I have something to say and you’re not going to like it’ face.”
Jack inclined his head in assent. “I need to have a discussion with you two.”
