“You’ve done what I hired you to do, and you’ll be compensated according to your agreement.
But we’re ending the arrangement.”
Her eyes flashed toward Ruby.
“You’re replacing me with a cleaning woman?”
Ruby stiffened.
Edward’s voice became firm.
“I’m not replacing you with Ruby.
Ruby is not their therapist, nanny, or mother.
She’s Ruby.
And apparently that has been more valuable in this house than I understood.”
Mrs.
Thompson gathered herself.
She glanced once at the twins, then at Edward.
“I hope you know what you’re doing.”
Edward looked around the office Sarah used to tease him for hiding inside.
“For the first time in two years, I know what I was doing wrong.”
Mrs.
Thompson left.
The front door closed several minutes later.
Nobody cheered.
Ruby picked up her cleaning basket.
“Well,” she said softly, “I still have half a hallway downstairs judging me.”
Olly smiled.
Edward stopped her before she reached the office door.
“Ruby.”
She turned.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For putting you in this position.
And for assuming that because I paid you to clean, I understood the limits of what you could bring into this house.”
Ruby studied him.
“Mr.
Royce, I’m still going to clean your floors.”
“I know.”
“And I’m not becoming a child specialist.”
“Understood.”
“And Stanley the vacuum is not negotiable.”
Edward blinked.
Then, unexpectedly, he laughed.
Olly and Liam stared at him.
It was not a polite laugh.
It escaped before Edward could control it, rusty and strange after years of restraint.
Ruby pointed at him.
“See? Dangerous.
Now everybody’s doing it.”
The twins laughed too.
That evening, Edward did something he had avoided since Sarah’s funeral.
He entered the music room.
The boys followed several feet behind him.
Ruby had already gone home.
Margaret was finishing downstairs.
Edward stood in front of the white grand piano beneath its protective sheet.
He could still remember Sarah sitting there barefoot, playing badly on purpose whenever he complained that she was distracting him.
Olly touched the edge of the sheet.
Edward nearly told him not to.
The old command rose automatically.
