The Governess and Mr. Granville. Abby Gaines
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game of dominoes came to an end, with William the winner.
“What shall we play now?” Charlotte asked, as the older children packed away the dominoes.
“Time for spillikins, I think,” Serena said. “Louisa, perhaps you could ask your father to join us?”
Louisa was hard to resist on any day. Today, when she was still pale from her sleepless night, even the hardest-hearted brute would succumb. Dominic was certainly not that.
“Ask Papa to play a game?” Thomas said, astounded. “In the middle of the day?” It wasn’t clear which idea he found more outrageous: that Dominic might play or that they might see their father outside the prescribed times.
“Why not?” Serena said. “He’s probably as bored as we are.”
Thomas’s expression said she had lost her mind, but of course, he didn’t contradict her. The Granville children were all, with the occasional exception of Charlotte, well-behaved, as they should be.
Serena escorted Louisa downstairs to the library, where Dominic usually spent the morning on his correspondence and accounts. She knocked on the paneled oak door.
“Come in,” said a mildly irritated voice.
He’d been deprived of sleep, Serena reminded herself. She opened the door and gave Louisa a little push.
“Hello there.” Dominic’s voice softened immediately. Serena could hear him smiling. “How are your ears this morning?”
Still holding the door handle, Serena pressed her own ear to the opening in an attempt to hear the conversation—only to stumble a moment later when the door was wrenched open.
She gave a little squawk of dismay, and straightened up.
“Eavesdropping, Miss Somerton?” Dominic asked.
So, in the cold light of day they were back to “Miss Somerton.” If not for the flicker in his hazel eyes of a recognition that went more than skin-deep, she’d have said their midnight conversation had never happened. And perhaps his eyes were just a little too fixed on her own, as if he wouldn’t allow them to stray. Last night, she was almost certain he’d been looking at her mouth.
“I apologize,” she said, slightly breathless. “I wanted to hear how well Louisa framed her request.”
“You could have come in with her.”
“True,” she agreed. “But then I couldn’t have observed you without your knowing.”
He gave a startled laugh. “That honesty of yours.”
“There’s no point pretending otherwise, when you caught me red-handed,” Serena said.
“A fair point,” he conceded. “And at least this time your ruthless honesty isn’t directed at my private life.” He propped one shoulder against the doorjamb. The casual power of the pose suggested he had the world at his feet, his to command or ignore. When he looked like this, the task of reforming a man so distant into a loving, playful father seemed an impossible fantasy. Then he surprised her by saying in a tone that wasn’t distant, “So...spillikins, hmm?”
Serena nodded. She tried not to sound too eager. “Marianne is resting in her room, so I thought I’d spend some time with the children. With such beastly weather outdoors, we’re looking for entertainments.”
“Please play with us, Papa,” Louisa asked, with plaintive sweetness.
Dominic swung her into his arms, a tenderness in his eyes that made Serena’s heart jump. This was more like it.
“If you insist.” His agreement told Serena just how worried he’d been last night. “But I warn you—” he set Louisa back on the floor and ruffled her hair “—I shall win.”
“Not with those big hands you won’t,” Serena said. Gracious! What was she thinking of, commenting on his hands? Besides, strong though they looked, the tapering of his fingers suggested he might not be entirely graceless.
Not at all.
“Miss Somerton, are you too warm?” he quizzed her.
Serena pressed her palms to her cheeks. Heat. Pull yourself together, my girl. “I’m quite comfortable,” she said.
The children were surprised but delighted when their father entered the nursery.
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