Page 72 of Yours Truly, the Duke
It was light enough they could still see one another. Charles was between the two girls.
“This is what we called a pillow fort when I was at boarding school,” Wyatt explained. “We didn’t have a table; we only had the pillows to hold up the sheets.”
“Who was the e-enemy?” Charles asked, his eyes filled with interest.
“The headmaster. Once we got the fort made, we knew we were safe.”
“What do we do while we’re under here?” Bella asked, twisting her hands together and moving her shoulders.
“We would see who could tell the scariest ghost story.”
Elise moved closer to her sister. “I don’t like ghost stories.”
“I do, Uncle!” Charles yelled, waving his hands excitedly. “I want to hear one.”
“Me too!” Bella squeaked again.
“You’ve never heard a g-ghost story,” Charles declared to his little sister. “Auntie won’t tell them.”
Wyatt could believe that. “Remember this is our fort. We want everyone to feel safe and no one to get frightened. What kind of stories do you like, Elise?”
“Stories about flowers. Auntie reads poetry about flowers to us and talks about beautiful fairies who live and work in gardens to keep everything blooming. They pick up all the petals that fall to the ground.”
“And they grind them up and put them back into the earth so they will help more beautiful flowers grow,” Bella finished for her.
“I don’t like stories about flowers. I want g-ghosts.”
Now that he had Elise in the fort with them, Wyatt didn’t want to send her flying from underneath with tales of goblins. “We’ll have to do the scary stories another time.”
Charles cast his eyes downward. “When?”
Wyatt studied over that. He needed to do something for Charles too. He’d be going over account books in his book room tomorrow. “Slip into my library when Miss Litchfield takes her nap tomorrow.”
“I will.” His grin seemed to reach from ear to ear.
Wyatt had no idea how to make up a story about flowers or fairies. He’d been thinking more along the lines of a headless horseman riding through town at midnight or a ghost coming out of a grave while a young lad was hurrying through a cemetery. He grew up in drafty old mansions with shadowy rooms, creaky doors, floors, and stairs. More than once when he was a small lad he heard strange and unexplained noises in old houses. Many nights he’d hidden his head under the covers when the winds howled fiercely outside.
Wyatt didn’t want to upset Elise. She was responding to him and that touched a place deep inside him. The same place Bella touched when she’d cried the first night they arrived in London. Somehow, he knew that however long they were in London, he had to help them.
He just needed a moment to think about a sweet story containing flowers instead of a skeleton with blood dripping out of his eye sockets.
“You start, Elise,” he finally said. “Do you have a story you can tell?”
“If she does, I’ve already heard it,” Charles complained.
Wyatt’s attention snapped to the boy. Had he just spoken a complete sentence without stuttering? And for the first time since Wyatt had known him.
“I can tell you one,” Bella offered happily.
“Let’s allow Elise to go first,” Wyatt said, making note of the fact that all the children were squirming, constantly moving their arms and legs. Enjoying themselves and acting like children, not—
“Auntie once told us about a fairy named Delfina who got lost in the garden. It was getting dark. She didn’t know how to get back home.”
“What did she do?” he asked, stretching out his legs and crossing his feet at the ankles.
“She hid under a mushroom,” Bella answered for her sister.
“That’s Auntie’s tale.” Elise lifted her chin defiantly. “I’m telling mine. The fairy didn’t hide in my story.”
