The Royal Nanny by Karen Harper Page B

to say at first just now before we argued. But if you don’t see things like me, won’t even give it a chance, there’s a girl I’ve been putting off in the village, and I won’t waste more time.”
    â€œA great honor but please understand, though I love you too—”
    â€œThat’s a lie! I get the picture—and,” he said, shoving me back, then lifting the feather picture and pressing it against my breasts so I had to take it, “you get this one. I waited nearly four years to speak, and that’s long enough. I swear, you’ll mourn this too, and it will come back to haunt you! I wish you well, then, Mrs. Lala.”
    I stood stunned as he turned around and stalked out. The words “Chad! Wait!” died in my throat. So there I stood in the jungle of flowering, fragrant plants with sleet tapping on the glass ceiling above me, sobbing.

Chapter 9
    A fter that, I felt fragile—and haunted by his yelling at me and cursing me. I wrapped and put the feather picture away because I couldn’t bear to look at it. I couldn’t sleep and was short with the children as if I blamed them. Funny how controlled, calm Chad was really as deep and strong as the sea, and I hadn’t known it.
    For days, after Queen Victoria was memorialized and buried, until the new king and queen sent for us to come to Buckingham Palace, nothing moved me, mired as I was in private despair no one knew about but Mabel. I think the others believed I was mourning the queen or sad to have the older boys soon leaving my care. Oh, how I wished Rose was here, but she would have probably just tried to distract me by carrying on about how Duchess May had ordered black mourning lingerie for herself and little Mary.
    But blast that man, Chadwick Reaver! I felt guilty each time Finch and I put our heads together about the boys. It had been decided—not by me—that when we returned from London,Finch would take over the care of David and Bertie. The perfect time, Chad had said, to make a break, but what was broken was my heart. Why had I not seen that friendly, proper Chad would want me for his wife? And had I made the wrong choice, the mistake of my life? I doubted myself, hated myself at times.
    â€œT HIS IS A great place to run around in,” David told us as our carriage pulled into the central quadrangle of the London palace the family called Buck House. “Now that he’s king, Grandpapa will let us run in our stockings and slide on the long floors, I’ll bet. Lala, why is he to be called King Edward when he was Prince Albert and called Bertie his whole life?”
    Finch, sitting across the carriage with Bertie answered for me. That would have annoyed me before, but now he might as well assert himself with them. It was going to be an emotional separation and transition even though the boys would be just down the hall and I could see them daily. But it horrified me that my separation from Chad—and the way we’d parted—was much, much harder. Yet I kept telling myself, these children need me more—in a different way at least, of course, they did.
    â€œBecause,” Finch answered David, “a new king is allowed to choose the name he wants, and that’s the one he likes.”
    â€œSo he likes it better than his own father’s name, Queen Victoria’s Prince Albert, who died a long time ago?” David pursued.
    â€œLet’s just say this,” Finch said. “So listen to me, you lads, and Lady Mary too. When a new king comes in, there are bound to be lots of changes. That’s it.”
    I was glad Finch hadn’t told the boys how much the new king resented his father’s bullying and scolding. Too close to home for them.
    On the ground floor of the palace, I tried to herd the children toward the large room we’d been given as a nursery on our other visits, but the boys—with Mary right behind—headed straight for the