‘No,’ William said dejectedly. ‘He’s usually in bed until noon.’
‘You eat alone?’ Maura busied herself in the little chamber, straightening here and there so her questions didn’t seem like an interrogation. This was something she needed to know. She didn’t want to upset a family ritual of eating together.
‘Yes,’ Cecilia proclaimed proudly. ‘We fill our own plates and eat as much as we want of whatever we want. The chairs are big, though, and my feet don’t touch the ground.’
Children eating copious amounts of self-selected food unsupervised wasn’t a family ritual; it was a recipe for disaster. The breakfast trays arrived and Maura hurried to clear the round table in the centre of the nursery.
‘Mmm, it smells good.’ Cecilia scampered after her and Maura noticed even William didn’t have to be asked twice to the table as she set out the dishes and removed the covers.
‘What’s that?’ William pointed to the plates arranged with strips of toast alongside an egg cup.
‘These are eggs and soldiers.’ Maura placed a plate in front of each of them and sat down. ‘Have you ever seen it before?’ She’d rather thought they would have. She’d been raised on it.
They shook their heads. ‘Soldiers?’ William asked curiously, poking around at the egg.
‘The toast strips are the soldiers.’ Maura picked up a spoon and tapped the top of the soft-boiled egg. The top broke open, revealing the runny yolk inside. ‘Now, you take a soldier and dip it in the egg.’ She demonstrated and took a bite. ‘Yummy. Try it,’ she urged them.
After the first bite, eggs and soldiers was an immediate success. ‘This is better than the porridge we had with those other governesses.’ Cecilia made a face reflecting her distaste of the porridge. ‘But,’ she proclaimed with a mouth of toast, ‘this is as good as breakfasts with Papa Elliott.’ She paused long enough to swallow. ‘He was Uncle Ree’s brother, but he’s dead now, like our father. I hope Uncle Ree doesn’t die.’ It was said with a child’s innocent carelessness of the facts, but Maura’s heart went out to them. Three father figures in eight years was a lot of change.
‘Why is it called eggs and soldiers?’ William ate his last bite.
Maura leaned forwards. ‘My mother told me eggs and soldiers was the tale of Humpty Dumpty.’ She recited the nursery rhyme to them. ‘The toast strips are all the king’s men and the runny egg is poor old Humpty Dumpty who can’t be put back together again.’ They laughed and Maura gathered up the dishes. ‘Who’s ready for a game?’
‘None of the other governesses played games,’ William said sceptically.
‘Well, Six does and I like her,’ Cecilia put in emphatically, turning blue eyes Maura’s way, a sudden concern mirrored in her eyes. ‘You aren’t going to leave, are you?’
‘No, of course not,’ Maura reassured her. She couldn’t possibly leave, no matter what. Leaving would mean being homeless. It would mean having no way to support herself. The children could put frogs in her bed and she’d have to stay. ‘Who knows what lava is?’
Cecilia had no idea, but William did. ‘It’s the hot stuff that comes out of volcanoes. Papa Elliott told me about Mount Etna in Italy.’ He grinned. ‘It sounds exciting, all that noise and rumbling. I’d like to be an explorer and see one some day. Papa Elliott said the last time Mount Etna erupted a little village almost got destroyed.’
‘The village was called Bronte,’ Maura supplied. ‘We could pretend today that our nursery is that village and we are explorers who have come to rescue the people from the volcano.’ Maura bent over and swept up a rag doll. ‘I got her, she’s safe. Does anyone know this little girl’s name?’
‘That’s Polly,’ Cecilia supplied.
‘Can you take Polly to a safe place on a shelf away from the lava?’ Maura handed the doll over to her. ‘In fact, the whole carpet is lava and we have to pull everyone and everything out and get them to safety. Cecilia, can you be in charge of saving all the dollies? William, you can be in charge of saving the village’s things, like their games, and the soldiers. Step quickly so the lava doesn’t burn your feet, too! I’ll get the books.’
Off they went, all three of them hopping about, grabbing up the ‘villagers’ and getting them resettled. It was a noisy business. Sometimes the rescuers weren’t fast enough and got burnt. Cecilia squealed the most over her imaginary close calls with the lava. Even William got involved, telling them an elaborate story about how his soldiers had come to help, but been cut off by a sudden earthquake that left them stranded on the mountain’s left slope.
It took the better part of an hour, but when the last villager was rescued, the floor was empty and the nursery was tidy.
‘Whew.’ Maura plopped into a child-sized chair at the table. ‘That was hard work. Good job, rescuers. See how nice the nursery looks.’
‘You tricked us.’ William sulked, suddenly suspicious. ‘That wasn’t a game, it was a trick to make us pick up.’
‘Did you have fun?’ Maura challenged good-naturedly.
‘Well, yes, a little bit,’ William confessed. He’d had more than a little bit of fun.
‘Then it was a game,’ came a male voice from the doorway.
‘Uncle Ree!’ The children ran to him, pelting him with hugs. Maura rose, pushing at a loose strand of hair, conscious of her appearance after an energetic game of ‘Save the Villagers’. She looked rather mussed compared to Lord Chatham’s immaculate toilette. He was turned out for driving in tan breeches and boots and a dark-blue coat that emphasised his eyes.
‘I heard all the commotion and thought I’d come up to see what was going on.’ Lord Chatham looked a question over the children’s heads.
‘I’m sorry if we were too loud,’ Maura apologised hastily.
‘Not too loud, just too early.’ He did look a bit pale and there were traces of bags under his very blue eyes.
‘Uncle Ree stays up late and sleeps in,’ William said. ‘I want to be like him. That’s why I stay in bed,’ he announced proudly. Maura could think of better behaviours to emulate. She could well imagine what had kept Lord Chatham out until all hours of the morning. After drawing circles on her hand at dinner, he’d likely moved on to actresses and courtesans.
‘We were rescuing villagers from the volcano.’ Cecilia hopped up and down on one foot. ‘We saved Polly first. And we had eggs and soldiers for breakfast.’
Lord Chatham grinned at her, looking entirely irresistible. ‘It sounds like a very productive morning.’ He glanced out the window. ‘The sun is out and since I’m up, who wants to go to the park? Will, get your boat, the new one I got you, and we’ll try it out. Cecilia, get your hoops and the little kite. There should be enough of a breeze to fly it.’ The children went wild with excitement and scurried about the room, gathering their things.
She was coming to hate when he did that. How dare he be likeable after just reminding her how unlikeable he should be. He’d been out carousing all night, a behaviour that boded ill, and now he was offering to play the doting father figure and take the children to the park. With hardly a care for your own plans, her defences reminded. Are you going to let him walk in here and disrupt your day?
Maura stepped forward. An outing to the park wasn’t quite what she had in mind. ‘Lord Chatham, the offer is most generous and I’m sure well meant. However, I must politely protest. We haven’t done our lessons yet.’ She kept her voice low. ‘Yesterday, you and I talked of the necessity for a schedule.’
Lord Chatham shrugged, unconcerned. ‘Lessons can wait. A day of good English sunshine cannot. One never knows when we’ll see the sun again. We must