“She’s a… mostly… real governess,” Jack said, his voice as firm as possible, given he was inventing his argument from whole cloth. “She’s not running away from either of you. She’s staying here until… until we find ourreal,real governess and don’t need her anymore.”
He hoped. He’d no doubt have to triple her salary to make it worth her time.
“She’s staying all day and all night?” Frederick’s eyes were huge. “Like a real governess would?”
“Yes, absolutely.” Jack nodded. He’d quadruple her salary. Sextuple her salary. Whatever it took. “Like a real governess. She can’t wait.”
Annie narrowed her eyes. “Is she bringing her pig?”
“She is not bringing her pig.” He tweaked his daughter’s nose. “No pigs.”
“It would eat the geese anyway,” Frederick whispered.
Annie crossed her arms. “Not if the pig stayed in the house.”
“No pigs in the house.” Jack opened the book. “Ready for Gulliver’s Travels?”
They snuggled against him.
“I can’t wait to find out how he escapes the giant wasps,” Annie said with an extra wiggle.
“Has it occurred to you,” Jack suggested slowly, “that you couldreadthe book to find out?”
Frederick shook his head. “If we read it ourselves, then you wouldn’t need to come and do bedtime stories anymore.”
Jack’s heart twisted at the catch in his son’s voice. It wasn’t that his stubborn children didn’t want to read. They were afraid to lose more time with the one parent they had left.
“A governess is a good thing,” he told them. “Having lessons with her all day, means I can spend all evening with you. Whether you cheat and read ahead or not.”
His children gazed at him for a long moment in silence, then exchanged a telling glance.
“We might have cheated,” Annie admitted.
Frederick had the grace to blush. “We might already be in Part III, where his boat gets attacked by pirates.”
Annie flipped ahead. “Turn to page one hundred and eighty-three.”
“What are you scamps doing?” Jack protested. “Ididn’t cheat. What boat? What pirates? What happened to the giant wasps?”
He hid his grin as his rambunctious twins talked over each other to passionately explain Gulliver’s adventures with a monkey and an eagle and an audience with King Brobdingnag.
He hoped Désirée was more than a match for his family’s madness.
