for her gums, and she liked that well enough.”
Anna was now tapping her teeth together, quite aware the conversation had everything to do with her. “You minx,” Cybelline teased. “You cannot imagine a world in which you are not the center of everything.” She kissed her daughter’s brow. “And that is quite as it should be.”
Anna buried her face in the curve of her mother’s neck and shoulder and snuggled. This surfeit of affection squeezed Cybelline’s heart to the point where drawing a breath was painful. For a moment her eyes welled. Turning so that Nanny might not see them, she rapidly blinked back tears.
“I am having my breakfast here with Anna this morning, Nanny Baker. There’s no need for you to stay.”
“Will you want me to finish dressing her?”
“I’ll do that. Anna will help me, won’t you, darling?”
Anna’s head came up abruptly. Her damp, red-gold curls fluttered around her ears and forehead. “No!”
“Really?” Cybelline asked, untroubled by this refusal. Her daughter was possessed of that singular independence common to two-year-olds, or so she was given to understand. She was perhaps more indulgent regarding this expression of individualism than Nanny Baker, but she did not let it rule her. “Because I was going to tell you a story, but I need your help first.”
“Story!”
“Help.”
“No!”
Cybelline merely smiled and waited Anna out. “You can go, Nanny Baker. I’ll manage here.”
“I can’t say that I like it when she speaks to you like that, ma’am.”
“I’m not particularly fond of it, either, but didn’t you tell me it will pass?”
“I did, and so it will, but she’s especially headstrong for one that just had her second birthday.”
“Is that so?” She tapped her daughter on the mutinous line of her lips. “I cannot imagine where she comes by that. Her father was a most agreeable gentleman.”
Nanny Baker snorted softly, pursing her lips together in disapproval. “I’ll be in the servants’ hall,” she said, excusing herself.
When Cybelline heard the heavy fall of Nanny’s retreating footsteps in the stairwell, she finally gave in to the urge to laugh. “Nanny takes herself—and us—a bit too seriously, doesn’t she? She thinks I don’t know that you are in every way my daughter. It is true that your father was most agreeable. I, in perfect contrast, have rarely been.”
Mimicking Cybelline’s good humor, Anna giggled.
Cybelline gave Anna a little bounce. The giggle changed pitch, causing Anna’s blue eyes to widen as she realized the wavering sound came from her. Cybelline bounced her again to the same effect, and they carried on in such a manner until one of the younger housemaids arrived carrying their breakfast tray.
“Not there,” Cybelline said when the girl moved toward the round cherry wood table near the fireplace. “Put it on Anna’s tea table. I’ll sit in one of her chairs.” The maid did as she was directed while Cybelline turned her attention back to her daughter. “You like it when I sit perched like a bird on one of your tiny chairs, don’t you?”
Anna looked around, caught by the part of her mother’s sentence that she understood best. “Bird? Where bird?”
“Oh, dear, now I’ve done it.” She carried Anna to the window where the drapes had already been tied back. The morning was overcast, but there was a break in the distant clouds that held the promise of sunshine. Cybelline opened the window and allowed Anna to poke her head out.
“Bird?” Fortunately, there were several plump pigeons on parade. They were strutting along the lip of the neighbor’s roof, perfectly content to be the object of so much admiration from across the way. “Bird! There bird!”
“Indeed.” Cybelline squeezed her daughter, making small cooing noises that were not unlike the conversation going on between the pigeons. It was only when Anna flapped her arms that the birds objected. They scattered so quickly that Anna was startled. Her small head snapped back, catching Cybelline on the chin.
“Oooh!” They said it in unison.
Cybelline rubbed the back of her child’s head, forgoing the urge to massage her own chin. She kissed the injured spot for good measure and to keep Anna’s face from crumpling, she pointed to her chin and said, “Kiss Mama here.”
Anna pursed her dewy lips and followed her mother’s finger. There was a rather loud smacking noise and a bit of drool, but the sentiment was clear.
“How I love you,” Cybelline whispered, her heart in her throat. “There are no words.”
Lady Rivendale set down her cup as Cybelline entered the breakfast room. “I was not certain I would see you this morning. I thought you might enjoy a lie-in. You returned quite late, I noticed.”
Instead of responding to this overture, Cybelline went to the sideboard and served herself from the plate of eggs and sliced tomatoes. “Good morning, Aunt Georgia.”
Georgia Pendleton, Countess of Rivendale, was in point of fact no blood relation to Cybelline, nor even the wife of a blood relation. Those who might offer the homily that blood was thicker than water failed to measure the viscosity of the relationship that Lady Rivendale had nurtured over a score of years with her godson and his younger sister.
The countess, being the dearest friend of Cybelline’s mother, had been named godmother to Alexander Henry Grantham at his baptism. Eight years later, when Cybelline had had the same rite performed on her, Lady Rivendale was touring the Continent, and no one was named to that position of responsibility. It was just as well, Cybelline had come to realize, for Lady Rivendale would have cheerfully removed the competition.
When Cybelline’s parents perished in a fire it was the countess who came to take her and her brother in hand. There had been an uncle who was named guardian, but Lady Rivendale and her solicitor made short work of that. It was not as if the uncle had tried very hard to keep them. She was not long out of the nursery and her brother—now the Viscount Sheridan—was still at Eton. They must have seemed singularly uninteresting persons to their uncle, she thought, but to Lady Rivendale they were fascinating—in a bug-in-a-jar fashion.
“You are smiling,” Lady Rivendale said as Cybelline turned away from the sideboard. “Am I right to count that as a happy turn?”
“I believe it is a good thing, yes.” She took her seat beside the countess and picked up her fork. “I was remembering your timely rescue of me and Sherry from our uncle’s home. Do you know that he called us brats at the funeral of our parents?”
“I knew it. I didn’t realize you did.”
“I overheard him, the same as Sherry.”
“You trod on the man’s toes, I hope.”
“No, but I sobbed until I made myself sick—at his feet.”
“A perfectly elegant solution. I have
