From way in the back of the house, another door slammed shut. The windows rattled in this room.
“It’s Father!” Kirsty jumped up and down, then raced Graham out the door and down the hall.
“Ah. The prodigal father returns,” Georgina mumbled.
A few moments later Eachann strode into the room, a child on each side of him. He looked around the room. “Have you seen my riding crop?”
“No.”
“It’s got to be around here somewhere.”
“There were five in your closet.”
“They won’t work. I need this one. It has a special new leather grip.”
She rolled her eyes. A riding crop was a riding crop.
“Aren’t you going to help me look for it?”
“I’m not being paid to look for your riding crop.”
He straightened and gave her a pointed look.
“I’m a nursemaid, not a slave.”
Kirsty gave her a belligerent glare that mirrored her father’s. “If you’re a maid, why don’t you clean up the house?”
“A nursemaid doesn’t clean. She watches children.”
Kirsty planted her hands on her hips again. “Then why do they call her a maid?”
Before Georgina could answer she heard a loudclop clop clopdown the hallway.
What was that?
A white horse came lumbering into the room.
Georgina screamed and stepped backward. She fell over a two-foot stack of horse journals.
“What’s wrong?” Eachann looked at her like she was crazy.
She waved a finger at the horse. “There’s a horse in the house!”
He glanced up. “Oh. That’s Jack.”
“Jack is Father’s favorite horse,” Kirsty informed her while Graham was busy tying something to the horse’s mane.
“But it’s in the house!”
“Don’t worry. He’s housebroken.”
Housebroken?“But it’s a horse.”
“Aye.” He scoured through more of the junk on the floor.
“Horses belong in the stable.”
“He doesn’t like the stable.” Eachann paused and glanced at her. His expression changed suddenly as if he just remembered himself. He walked toward her.
