Page 2 of A Touch of Charm
“Let’s go to my carriage,” Stan said. “I’d like to return to London before the baron does.”
“I think it’s time. My patients await, and so does the rehabilitation center.” Andre nodded to Alfie and watched him escort Bea into the bustling ballroom.
“And I have to get back to my task at hand,” Stan added. “After all, I’ve come to England to find the reason for the trade problems at home in Transylvania.”
“You said that it had been a surprise, even to you, to pinpoint all the trouble to the Prussian baron.” But Andre decided not to push his friend further, he knew it was a matter that caused him much distress.
“Yes, I need to heal my country, and you need to heal your patients. Let’s hope they don’t share the same source of the violence,” Stan said with one last glance in Baron von List’s direction.
Andre Agreed. What took a moment to inflict could forever occupy a person’s life, as was the nature of many of his patients’ injuries.
With a final wave to his friends, Andre joined Stan, stepping away from the warmth of the ballroom. The night air was crisp, filled with the scents of blooming flowers and distant rain. His heart felt light despite the weight of responsibilities, his resolve firm as he climbed into the carriage beside Stan. The road to London stretched ahead with uncertainty and promise. Andre settled back, determination mingling with the soft rhythm of hooves against cobblestones, his mind already shifting to those who awaited his care.Yes, he thought, his place was at the practice with his patients and not among the nobility.
And it was never going to change.
*
Upstairs in Silvercest Manor…
Everything had changedsince Thea had come to England. Her full name, Princess Josephine Theodora Andrea Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, seemed as far as her home these days, for she didn’t feel very royal. Well, she wasn’t letting anyone know that she was—royal that was—and liked the predictability and freedom of life as a governess, except when the mattress’s spring poked her in the back. Plus, letting people know where she was would allow the one person she was hiding from to find her.
Never!
But even though she was purposefully hiding, in the spartan room designated as the nursery for her six-year-old ward, Mary White, Thea couldn’t sleep. Although Mary should have had her own room, there wasn’t enough space, and Thea was glad to be there for the little girl and not at home awaiting her wedding just in time for her twenty-first birthday.
Silvercrest Manor, where Mary’s parents stayed for a ball underway downstairs in celebration of a wedding Thea knew little about, was only supposed to be a stop on a longer journey while Mr. White pursued his business. They’d already said their goodbyes before dinner and planned to reunite in London at a later date. In fact, Thea was to take Mary to London and tend to her on the morrow until Mr. And Mrs. White returned from their travels. Thea felt a deep empathy for Mary, understanding her loneliness and promising herself to be present for her own children, just as she and Mary were there for each other now.
Mary put her fingers in her ears. The music from the ball two floors down was altogether too loud, and she was too secluded; this was the first time in Thea’s life that she wasn’t the princess with a filled dance card.
“I can’t sleep,” Mary said, sitting up in her frilly white nightgown. She brushed her hair out of her face. She usually slept like a log, but not tonight. “I can’t go to Europe with Mother and Father. It’s not fair.”
“How can I help?” Thea asked, moving as little as possible lest the bed screech with the shrill sound that made her cringe every time. It had been her fault for running away; from her elegant silk pillow covers and the comforting canopy over her bed, in the same dusty pink as her favorite roses in the gardens outside Bran Castle. Instead of her sizeable four-poster bed, she was in a cot. But she was free, anonymous, and there wasn’t a royal in sight forcing her hand in marriage—not her father or her alleged betrothed. She was free.
Alone.
Penniless, lest for the small salary she received from the Whites to look after Mary.
And it wasn’t easy for a princess to make do without her lady’s maids and all the little luxuries she took for granted before she left Bran Castle.
Thea shifted, and the bed screeched again. She grimaced when the sound assaulted her ears. She didn’t mind working as Mary’s governess; the little girl was darling. However, life without the comforts of being a princess in a castle proved to be exhausting. She had to wash and dry her clothes, and there were no gowns tied in the back but rather sensible and simple dresses with buttons in the front.
“Are you thirsty?” Thea asked, noting that the water jug on the side table was only half full. “Or cold, perhaps?”
“So many questions,” the little girl waved grandly. Her philosophical streak often gave Thea reason to suppress a chuckle.
“Tell me.” Thea spread her arms, and Mary pulled her white sleeping gown up and climbed onto her lap. Mary’s thoughtful expression was a welcome interruption to Thea’s musings.
“Well, why do girls pull all the time?” Mary asked.
“Pull what?”
“In the Latin declination you put on the board today. Nominative:puella, the girl, genitive:puellae, of the girl, dative:puellae, to or for the girl.”
“Puell, not pull,” Thea said when she realized the clock on the mantel showed eleven o’clock, which was long past the time of a Latin lesson—or Mary’s bedtime. Thea yawned and blinked groggily.
“Do the boys in Rome pull the girls because of their pigtails?” Mary asked again.
“Why would they do that?”
