Rules for a Proper Governess

He took up his bag and walked out of the room, nodding once to Aoife, who held the door open for him. Macaulay looked after the doctor with some distaste, no doubt having heard him proclaim that “Scots had odd notions.”

Mrs. Hill came bustling in with a decanter in her hand. She fetched a glass from Sinclair’s study and brought it back into the bedroom. “Brandy, sir,” she said to Sinclair. “Best thing for you. And then you go lie down in the spare bedroom. We’ll watch over Master Andrew.”

Sinclair didn’t respond. He kept Andrew’s hand in his, stroking the boy’s fingers.

“Let me,” Bertie said, reaching for the brandy.

Mrs. Hill shook her head. “You need to look after Miss Caitriona. She’s with Peter, but the lad doesn’t know what to do. Go on, now.”

Caitriona. Bertie’s heart gave a guilty thud. In the panic, Bertie hadn’t kept account of where the girl was. She’d assumed Cat had followed them all upstairs, but she was nowhere to be seen.

“Right,” Bertie said, and hurried out of the room.

Chapter 15

Bertie’s heart was like lead as she took Cat by the hand and walked her from the ground floor, where she’d been sitting with Peter, to the nursery. Cat said nothing, quiet as usual, but her hand was ice cold.

Bertie turned up all the lights in the nursery and stirred the fire high. Fear needed to be treated with light and heat, not darkness. When she finished, she found Cat sitting at the table, doll in her lap, her gaze fixed on the fire.

Cat was strikingly different from Andrew in looks—her hair was dark and glossy, her blue eyes framed with black lashes. She took after her mother, Mrs. Hill had told Bertie, and Mrs. McBride’s photo confirmed, while Andrew was a miniature of Sinclair.

Bertie ought to give Cat tea or something, but she couldn’t find the wherewithal to go back downstairs or even ring for one of the maids. They were upset too. Andrew, for all his tearing ways, was easy to love.

Cat was more of a challenge, the poor lamb. Bertie drew a chair next to Cat’s and put her arm around the girl’s shoulder. Cat didn’t shrug it away, which told Bertie she wanted the comfort.

“Is Andrew going to die?” she asked Bertie in a quiet voice.

Bertie’s first impulse was to lie, to soothe her fears and say, Of course he isn’t! But Bertie had lived with ugly truth all her life, and she’d learned to prefer it. Better to face something straight on than to hide and try to pretend it away. Hurt more when you had to stop pretending, in the end.

“I don’t know, sweetie,” she said, stroking Cat’s long braid. “But your dad will take care of him, and the doctor.”

“They took care of Mama too. But she died.” Cat’s voice was faint. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Well, not much we can do is there? Except hope. And pray.”

“I don’t believe in God.”

Bertie started. Personally, she and God had an off-again, on-again relationship, but to hear it put so baldly, from a child, surprised her. But then, Cat had seen her mother taken away from her and her father become an absolute blank, and no one, divine or human, had been able to stop either occurrence.

“Well, I believe it,” Bertie said. “I think if one of us does, that should be good enough.”

Cat gave her a skeptical look. “When Mama died, a lady from Sunday school told me I should be happy, because it meant Mama had been very good and was let into heaven early. She said the angels hadn’t wanted to wait to reward her.”

“Oh.” Stupid woman. What a horrible thing to tell a child! Bertie recalled a story she’d heard at the tender age of six, in which angels watched for children who were exceptionally good, and took years away from their lives so they’d die and go to heaven quicker. Bertie remembered being terrified and trying to be as bad as she could possibly be.

“Don’t you worry about that,” Bertie said, patting Cat’s hand. “That’s nonsense, that is. It isn’t even in the Bible. What I remember of it anyway.” Not that she’d read any of it herself, but some of the stories from the church her mother had taken her to had stuck with her. “That’s ladies who don’t know anything, and thinking they’re comforting you. I wouldn’t take no notice.”

“Andrew isn’t good,” Cat said.

“There you are then.” Bertie grinned at her. “He’ll be fine.”

“But everyone loves him.”

“So do you,” Bertie said.

Cat’s eyes filled with tears, and she nodded.

Bertie drew her close, doll and all. “It’s all right, love. You worry about him all you want, and I’ll pray. We’ll help your dad, and we’ll get Andrew better.” Then Bertie would hunt Jeffrey down and make him pay. If Andrew died . . .

“Do you love my papa?” Cat asked.

Bertie jumped, but again, she couldn’t lie. She gathered Cat closer and rested her cheek on the girl’s hair. “Yeah,” she said softly. “I think I do.”

Sinclair held Andrew’s hand far into the night and the wee hours of the morning. When he felt sleep coming upon him, he stretched out beside Andrew, laying his hand on Andrew’s chest. If Andrew so much as twitched, Sinclair would wake.

Sleep came in waves. It would surround Sinclair in blackness for a few minutes, then ease up, then sweep over him again. Through it all Andrew never moved.