Katy.
She stopped abruptly, however, when she was still a safe distance away and pointed. “Puppy,” she said.
“Stay at my heel, Beauty,” Gil said quietly as he stepped off the path so as not to impede traffic. And he did what he had done at Hinsford with Wren’s and Anna’s children. He released Abigail’s hand, went down on one knee, and held out a hand toward his daughter. “Come. Put your hand in mine. She wants to meet you.”
Katy was not at all sure she wanted to meet Beauty. She might not have been sure she wanted to meet her papa this close either if her attention had not been wholly focused upon the dog, who woofed gently. Katy sidled off the path and reached out one hand until it was enclosed in Gil’s. He drew her to the side away from Beauty and then sat her upon his thigh.
“Puppy,” she said, pointing. “Bigpuppy.”
“Bigger than you,” he said. “Big softie. She is happy to meet you. See her tail waving?”
Abigail turned her head to smile at Mrs. Evans.
“Let me show you how to make friends,” Gil said, taking Katy’s hand palm-down in his. “You let her sniff the back of your hand like this, you see, so that she will get to know you. It tickles?”
“Ye-es,” Katy agreed.
“And then,” he said, “you turn your hand over like this so that she can sniff your palm too.”
Katy shrieked with laughter suddenly and snatched back her hand. “Puppy lick. Nanny, look at me. Puppy has a cold nose. Again, Papa.”
Beauty lowered her head obligingly and Gil patted her head, his daughter’s hand enclosed in his own. But Katy pushed it away after a couple of pats. “Let me, Papa,” she said. “Let me.” And she patted Beauty’s head with growing enthusiasm until the dog lifted her head and licked the child’s wrist.
“Big softie,” Katy said, laughing.
“Her real name is Beauty,” Gil said.
“Beauty,” Katy said, patting the dog’s head again and pointing to herself with her other hand. “My name is Katy. Grandmama calls me Katherine, but I am Katy.”
Beauty woofed.
“Down, Papa,” Katy commanded, and slid off his knee to get closer to the dog, which was indeed larger than she. She patted Beauty’s side, stretched her arms along her, and laid one cheek against her. Beauty panted and stood still.
And Gil, still kneeling beside them, had tears swimming in his eyes. Abigail turned her head to converse with Mrs. Evans as some of them spilled over and trickled down his cheeks. He would be mortified if he knew she had noticed.
•••
They came near to quarreling again during the evening while they were seated side by side on a sofa in their sittingroom. It had started out well enough. They had been reminiscing about the pleasures of the day—the visit to the Pascoes they had so dreaded turning suddenly and unexpectedly into that first meeting with Katy; the walk in Hyde Park during the afternoon. Katy had eventually insisted for a few minutes upon holding Beauty’s leash in her own hand, and they had allowed it while Gil gave quiet instructions to the dog.
Abigail used the moment to have an earnest conversation with Mrs. Evans, who had told her that the general and his lady had always given their granddaughter the best of care but very little of their time.
“Make that virtually nothing in the general’s case,” she had added. “Lady Pascoe is affectionate when shedoesvisit the nursery, and Katy likes her grandmama. But the tie is not a deep one, Mrs. Bennington. I would not say this to anyone but you or the lieutenant colonel, but you are her parents and I know you will worry about what taking Katy away from the general and his wife may do to her—and them. Provided you take me with you, ma’am—and I earnestly hope you will—Katy will have the continuity to smooth her way from one home to another.”
The best moment of all during the afternoon had come half an hour or so after they had begun strolling along by the water. By that time Katy’s energy was flagging. She had spent it not only holding Beauty’s leash, but then tripping along between Abby and Mrs. Evans, a hand in each of theirs while she chattered away. She told Abby about her doll waking up after Mama and Papa left this morning and about the kitten she was going to have when she went to Papa’s house—black with one big white patch over its eye—and about one of her new shoes that hurt after Mama left and Nanny took them both off and put some ointmenton her heel to stop a blister and let her go without shoes until they came out. But at last she had been walking with lagging footsteps, and yawning.
“No,” Katy had protested when Mrs. Evans had suggested it was time to go home for a nap. “Not tired.”
A few moments later she had slipped her hands free and darted forward to where Gil was walking with Beauty. She had stopped in front of him and raised her arms.
“Up,” she had said.
And that most wonderful of moments had happened. He had picked up his child—she weighed nothing at all—and she had wrapped her arms about his neck and burrowed her head between his shoulder and neck and promptly fallen asleep.
They had reminisced, he and Abby. But now they had almost quarreled, for with nothing left to say about this morning or this afternoon she had introduced another topic entirely.
“No,” he said. He had been saying nothing but no for the last few minutes, and finally she had fallen silent. It was not the silence of easy companionship of which they had spoken earlier in the park, however. And so he had been left with the last word, but it did not feel final. The echo of it accused him and made him want to rip up at her and stalk into his bedchamber and shut the door behind him like a petulant schoolboy.
She tipped her head sideways and rested her cheek against his shoulder. She did not play fair. How could one rip up at someone who had just made such a trusting, affectionate gesture?
