Summer rain had started to fall outside while they were working, and after their outing that morning Heather was suddenly reluctant to let them outside the grounds again that day anyway. So instead she pulled a board game down from the shelf, ignoring Daisy’s groan of complaint, and they settled down to play it together.
As they played Heather found herself watching them and looking for signs of their father and uncle in them. Hearing Cal echoing Ryan’s words about her worrying about them cheating had started her thinking about Cal’s own childhood. Hearing him state so baldly that he’d have to be taught how to love the children...well, that only confirmed her suspicions that growing up in Lengroth Castle couldn’t have been the warmest of experiences.
But maybe she could help change that for Ryan and Daisy. They’d be half-siblings to her own baby, after all. Which made them family. And Heather believed in family almost more than anything else in this world.
Which was why she had to help Cal see that, too.
After a gloating Daisy won the game, then retreated to her own bedroom with a book, Heather set Ryan up with some vaguely educational games on the laptop, then pulled out her own computer to do some work.
After heading a new document Lessons in Childcare and Love, she started to type.
Cal wanted to learn? Then she was more than ready to teach.
* * *
Cal was already regretting his request for kid lessons even before Heather showed up with a neatly typed syllabus, a reading list and a printout of study findings from the last five years.
‘You expect me to do assigned reading?’ he asked, incredulous, as he scanned the papers.
‘You wanted to learn,’ she replied with a shrug.
Rubbing a hand across his aching forehead, Cal flipped through the syllabus instead. ‘What are these?’ he asked, pointing to the sections that were colour-coded in green. Of course it was colour-coded. He didn’t know why he’d expected differently. ‘Practical modules?’
‘Those are the times you take the kids out and spend time with them.’
‘On my own?’ Cal winced as he heard how high and squeaky his voice had grown on the last word.
Heather shrugged. ‘Maybe not to start with. But eventually, yes. You’re their parent now, remember? The only person they have.’
As if he could forget.
Sighing, he sank down into the same armchair he’d sat in every night since he’d arrived at Lengroth, trying to figure out how to save the place and get it back on its feet before Ryan turned eighteen and took it over. This little sitting room, just off the kitchen, was the warmest room in the house in the winter, but cool and shady in the summer. It had a well-stocked drinks cabinet, a speaker system Ross had installed a couple of years before, and some of his favourite books in the whole castle on its shelves.
If Cal had to stay in Lengroth Castle at least he could use some of the comforts of the place to make it a little more bearable. And since it looked from Heather’s syllabus as if he’d be there a long time...
‘Maybe we should get a castle dog...’ he mused as Heather sat down across from him, in the same chair she’d chosen the night before.
That was nice. They were finding little routines and habits already. Things that might make the summer stretch less dauntingly ahead of him.
Heather rolled her eyes. ‘A dog—faithful companion and lovely pet that it is—can’t be a replacement for a parent’s time and affection, Cal.’
‘I wasn’t actually thinking of the children,’ Cal admitted with an embarrassed smile. ‘Although it might not be a bad idea. We always had dogs here when we were kids, Ross and I.’
They’d been the perfect companions. Friendly, affectionate—and they’d never shared any of the secrets he’d sobbed out to them in the dark of the night, alone in his room.
Heather was studying him again, he realised. ‘What?’
‘I was just wondering...what was it like, growing up here? With Ross?’
Was she asking because she wanted to know more about his brother? Or because she was trying to figure out what it must be like for Daisy and Ryan? Or maybe...just because she cared?
Cal looked away from those bright green eyes that always seemed to see just a little too much. ‘It was...difficult. Our parents had firm ideas about the aristocracy and our place in it, and the obligations that brought with it.’