“Miss Lucy!” The little boy looked up at her, his blue eyes bright. “Come see my tops!”
“Shh!” Wilhemina said, her gaze going to the baby.
“Why don’t you bring them into the school room and show me your tops there?” Lucy suggested. Wilhemina gave her a grateful smile. Lucy helped the boy gather his tops and a handful of toy soldiers—apparently, every boy had a set of those. They stepped into an adjoining room, and Lucy closed the door. It was a small, cozy room with a window set high on the wall to allow light in. A shelf of books stood in one corner and a table with four chairs sat near another. The hearth had been lit, and there was a comfortable rug before it. She led Johnny to the edge of the rug and asked him to show her how he could spin his tops for what seemed eleven hours.
Presently, she realized she should probably try and teach him something, and with a bit of coaxing, she persuaded him to sit at the table. She perused the shelves until she found a copy ofTom Thumb’s Pretty Song Book. It was the same book she had learned to read from, and she set it before him.
“I’ve already read this book,” he told her.
“Really?” Lucy sat beside him. “With your former nanny?”
“Exactly. We read the whole thing. Can we go outside and play now?”
Lucy had a small watch pinned to her skirts and she glanced at it now. How was it she had only passed thirteen minutes in the child’s company thus far? It was certainly much too early to go outside.
“If you’ve read this one, we can begin with the next in the series. But first, I haven’t had the pleasure of hearing you read.” She opened the book to the page with “Bah, Bah, a Black Sheep” and looked at the boy.
He looked back at her and sighed. He lifted a small finger smudged with some sort of jam and pointed to the first letter of the first word. “B-A-H-B-A-H-A-B—what’s this one again?”
Lucy stared at him. “That’s an L.”
“Oh, yes. “B-L-A-C-K—”
“Just a moment, sir,” Lucy said. “I thought you wouldreadthe book to me.”
He gave her a look as though she were daft. “Iamreading it to you.”
“No, you are calling out letters. You must put them together into words.”
He squinted at her. “Miss Jane said my tutor would show me how to do that.”
“Miss Jane was your former nanny?”
He nodded.
Lord John hadn’t said anything about a tutor, though a boy of Johnny’s age, only two years away from Eton, probably needed one. Lucy would ask the prime minister about it and confer with Duncan. She thought it unwise to add any new staff at the moment. Which meant, she would have to teach the boy to read. How did one teach a child to read? No one had covered this topic in her training.
The boy in question sniffed, rubbed his nose on his sleeve, then sniffed again. She handed him a handkerchief. “Are you feeling unwell?” she asked.
He shook his head, and his lower lip began to tremble. Lucy became somewhat alarmed. “What is wrong?”
A tear ran down his cheek, and Lucy felt her heart speed up and her lungs constrict. The boy wascrying? “What is wrong?” she asked. “Why are you crying?”
“I’m not crying,” he said as more tears ran down his cheeks. “Boys don’t cry.”
“Of course, they do. I’ve seen many boys cry.” She’d even been the cause of those tears on occasion. “But why areyoucrying?”
“You made me sad,” he said, starting to cry in earnest now. Lucy blew out a breath. She had the feeling if she checked her watch, she would find she’d been in this child’s company less than twenty minutes, and already she’d made him cry. Uncle Winn would never give her another mission.
“How did I make you sad? Here, give me that.” She took the handkerchief from his hand and dabbed at his eyes.
“You made me remember Miss Jane.” And at that he began to bawl, loud wails that would surely bring the whole household. They’d all stare at her and whisper among themselves that she was no nanny. She made children cry. Nannies were supposed to do just the opposite.
“I’m so sorry,” Lucy said. “I did not know you missed her so much. That is why you’re crying? You miss her?”
He nodded and continued bawling.
Lucy didn’t know what to do, so she did the only thing she could think of. She patted him on the back. At her touch, he leaned into her, and she patted him again. The next thing she knew, he’d climbed into her lap and was crying into her bodice, making the fabric all wet. On the positive side, he’d stopped wailing and the household hadn’t come running to see what she’d done. Perhaps they were used to hearing him cry? Oh, if only the assassin would attack right now so she could capture him and be free of this charade.
