“Something for your birthday.” He tapped her on the nose. “And no, I’m not telling you what it is. It’s only two months away.”
“Aw. I wanted to know.”
I laughed, and she turned to look at me, her face lighting up.
“You came back!” She rushed from Alex to me and hugged me just as tightly.
“Of course I came back.” I bent down, still laughing, and wrapped her in a hug. “I have to teach you for another four weeks, silly!”
“Really?” She turned to Alex.
He glanced at me, fighting a chuckle. “I did say the whole summer, Oly. Did you forget that?”
“I thought summer was over and I could go back to school now!”
“No. Four weeks left of the summer break, I’m afraid.”
“But Addy stays the whole summer?”
“Yes, Addy stays the whole summer.”
She looked at me. Happiness shone in her eyes, and a warm wave of affection washed through me when I looked at her.
Gosh, she was just the sweetest child in the world.
“Can I read my book today?” Olympia paused. “Please?”
“You want to read your book?” I asked, my eyebrows raising. “Really?”
“Yes! I couldn’t find it. I drew a picture of fairies for the library and wanted my book but I didn’t know where it was!”
“Sweetie, you can read your book whenever you like.” Oh, my heart. “All you had to do was ask Granny to call your daddy and I’d have said where it was.”
“Oh.” It was such a tiny, small “oh,” like she really hadn’t thought about that. “Can I have it now?”
Alex extracted her from me with a low laugh. “Okay, let’s make a deal. Why don’t you give me and Adelaide ten minutes to get in and settle after our drive, and then she will get you your book?”
Olympia looked down at her feet and scuffed her boot along the floor. “I suppose.”
“And in the meantime, you will take off your boots and put them in the mudroom, then you will ask either Miss Edwards or Boris to help you get a mop and bucket, so you might clear up the mess you’ve left behind.”
She slowly turned her head to look behind her at the trail of muddy footprints. “Oopsie.”
“Oopsie indeed,” Alex said slowly, straightening up. “Ah, Claire, we were just talking about you.”
Claire, one of the three housekeepers, paused with an armful of sheets in her hand. “Sir?”
“Olympia forgot to remove her boots and has left quite a mess along the floor.”
Claire’s head slowly turned as her gaze followed the mess. “Ah. I see. Let me pop these sheets in the cupboard, and I’ll clean it up.”
“No, please. If you wouldn’t mind helping her fetch a bucket and a mop, I’ll be down in a moment to supervise her cleaning it up.”
A small smile tugged at Claire’s lips. “I don’t mind helping her, sir.”
“I’ll only be a few minutes,” he assured her, then tapped Oly on the shoulder. “Go and remove your boots, please.”
Olympia took them off there and then, then raced through the hall to the back mudroom, dropped them off, and appeared back in record time.
Claire smiled. “Come on, then, Olympia. You can help me put these away, and then we’ll get to clearing up your mess.”
“Yes, Miss Edwards.” Olympia followed after her. “Do you want me to carry some of those for you?”
“Oh, no, thank you. These are clean, and your hands are most definitely not.”
Olympia giggled, and that was all we heard as they disappeared down the hall.
I couldn’t help but grin after them. “I love that you do that,” I told Alex as we grabbed our stuff to go to our rooms.
“I’ve got it,” he said, taking my suitcase. “Do what?”
“Make her clean it up. It would be so easy to just let Claire do it.”
“Absolutely not. I know she won’t be able to do it all herself, and she’ll never get it to Claire’s standard, so she’ll go over it again later today.” He chuckled. “But it’s the principle of the situation. Oly knows she needs to take her boots off in the mudroom, and she didn’t, so she has to clean up her mess.”
“My mum did that with us, too.”
“She lives an exceptionally privileged life here, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to grow up expecting everyone to do everything for her. If she makes a mess, she has to clean it up. I can cook and clean, after all.”
“You just don’t have to.”
Alex dropped his head back, laughing, and set my suitcase outside my bedroom door. “Exactly. But neither do you right now.”
“Point well made,” I acquiesced, wrapping my arms around my waist. “Um, thank you for this weekend. All things considered, it was a lot of fun.”
His blue eyes twinkled with amusement. “Thank you for saving me from Charlotte’s band of merry bachelorettes.”
“Anytime, good sir.” I pushed my bedroom door open. “And thank you for carrying my case up.”