His Lordship's True Lady (True Gentlemen #4)(43)

At this, the nursery maid sniffed.

Daisy shrank against him. “I’m not bad on purpose.”

Hessian had had a wonderful ride in the park with Miss Fer—with Lily—not three hours past, and a call on Worth had become pressing. He’d like nothing better than to ignore the nursemaid glowering down her nose at Daisy and ignore the desperation in Daisy’s grip on his neck.

A mess was brewing in his nursery, though, and messes invariably grew worse when ignored.

“Sykes, have you something to say?”

Her glower expanded to include Hessian. “A child benefits from routine, my lord. This haring about all over London when Miss Amy Marguerite ought to be in the schoolroom is why she doesn’t sleep well. If she can’t sleep, of course she’ll be fidgety and difficult come morning.”

“Fidgety and difficult?”

Daisy was absolutely still in his arms.

“And disrespectful. She doesn’t finish her eggs and toast some days, forgets to say grace other days, and spends far too much time staring out the window like a simpleton.”

Hessian wanted to cover Daisy’s ears—and his own. “A simpleton?”

“Mooning about, my lord. Hardly speaks above a whisper much of the time and takes her sweet time answering common questions. She needs routine, order, and discipline, and she’ll soon be showing her elders proper respect.”

Hessian walked to the window, Daisy affixed to him like a barnacle. Sykes sounded like the late Earl of Grampion, and a bit like the present earl too.

Sykes did not, however, speak with a northern accent. “You traveled with Daisy from Cumberland?”

“No, sir. The other nursery maid, Hancock, comes from the north. Your housekeeper hired me because Hancock must have some rest, and the child keeps the household up until all hours.”

With nightmares of routine and discipline, no doubt. “You’re aware that Daisy has recently lost both parents and been taken away from the only home she’s known?”

“All the more reason not to cosset her, my lord. Children must learn to weather life’s trials with stoic gratitude. All the ponies in the world or a trip to the park every day won’t help the girl learn those lessons.”

“Clearly, you have never had a pony.” Though, what excuse could there be for a London-bred maid’s failure to appreciate Hyde Park in spring? “Sykes, I thank you for your suggestions regarding Daisy’s welfare, but find that your approach to child-rearing and my own are incompatible. You will be given generous severance, a decent character, and coach fare to any location in the realm. Take as long as you need to find another position, but remove yourself and your effects from the nursery before sundown. The other maids will make accommodation for you in their dormitory.”

Her mouth fell open, and her eyebrows disappeared beneath her lacy cap.

Daisy peeked up, then tucked her face against Hessian’s throat. The tension went out of her, and Hessian stifled the rest of his lecture.

Children needed routine and order, true—at least, some children did some of the time—but they also needed love, understanding, affection, and joy.

So did titled lords. “I’ll have a word with the housekeeper regarding your wages when Daisy and I return from our call. Good day.”

He left the nursery maid standing in the middle of the playroom and knew a moment of pride in the child, for she hadn’t stuck her tongue out at Sykes, though Hessian could feel the impulse quivering through her.

“She meant well.” He set Daisy on her feet. “She was simply misguided. The poor woman has never raised a child of her own, and her theories are uninformed by parental experience.”

Daisy took his hand. “Was she bad?”

“She was not well suited to her position. We will provide her every assistance in finding a post more in keeping with her skills.” Scrubbing privies in the Antipodes, for example.

Daisy studied the newel post at the top of the steps. The wood was carved in the shape of a gryphon with folded wings.

“She said if I was bad, I’d be sent away.”

“She was wrong.” Good girls went to heaven, bad girls got sent away. Hessian put that conundrum together while Daisy blinked hard at the gryphon. “And you made a small miscalculation too, Daisy.”

“Will you send me away?”

“Never. We are family now. Family is forever.” Though sometimes, family got into stupid, stubborn muddles that took a few years to sort out. “Your miscalculation is understandable, because becoming a family in a situation like ours doesn’t happen in an instant.”

“I made a mistake?”

“We both did. You should have told me that Sykes was spouting stupidities, and I should have asked you how you were getting on in the nursery when we had privacy to air our honest feelings. You will join me for breakfast starting tomorrow, and we won’t make the same mistakes in future.”

Children did dine at the family breakfast table, once they had some manners. At Daisy’s age, Hessian had taken great pride in his breakfast privileges, while Worth had remained in the nursery of a morning.

“You want me to eat downstairs? My brothers ate downstairs.”

“You have fine manners, and mine are in good repair as well. We’ll manage breakfast, as long as you don’t steal the newspaper or the preserves.”