A Gentleman Never Tells Read Online Free Page B

she couldn’t remove it; not with the sharp eyes of Abigail and Philip trained upon her.
    Philip, especially. Her son, her innocent angel, her damned stubborn nemesis, the one good thing she’d salvaged from six years of misery.
    He didn’t want to go to sleep. Not unusual in a boy of five and a half, of course, but Lilibet, who would have given anything to collapse into bed herself, felt almost affronted by his reluctance. “Darling, you’re exhausted,” she pleaded. “Just lie still and close your eyes.”
    “I’m not tired,” he said, eyes rolling. “I’m not.” He kicked off the covers.
    Lilibet drew them back.
    Philip kicked them off again.
    She felt it rising, the tide of her temper, so strong this time it took an almost superhuman strength to muscle it downward again. Be calm, she told herself, as she always did. Dignity. Clarity. She counted to ten, eyes closed, pausing on each number.
    There. She opened her eyes.
    Philip wasn’t on the bed.
    She spun around and saw Abigail, laughing, snatching him up in her arms just before he reached the door. “Naughty boy,” she said, and rubbed her nose into his tummy. “Naughty, wicked, despicable boy.” She blew rude noises into his skin, until he was giggling helplessly, writhing with joy.
    “Abigail, you’ll overexcite him,” Lilibet whispered, and put her fingers to her temples.
    How heavy could a piece of paper be? It dragged in her pocket like a stone: the massive, sharp-sided kind they collected in more primitive cultures to lob at adulterers.
    “You don’t deserve a story, you dreadful rascal, but I’ll tell one anyway,” Abigail said, tossing him into the bed. “But you’ve got to eat this bun for me while I’m telling it. It’s a magic bun, you see.” She drew it from her pocket and held it before him. “A wonderfully magic bun. It lets you understand me, even though I’ll be telling you the entire story . . .
in . . . Italian
.”
    “Italian! No, you won’t. You don’t know Italian.”
    “Yes, she does,” Lilibet said, drawing up the blankets. “She knows it perfectly.”
    “But this bun,” Abigail said, rotating it solemnly, “will make the words sound just like English.”
    “Ha,” Philip said. But his eyes narrowed.
    Abigail shrugged. “If you don’t believe me, then fine.
C’era una volta, viveva un re e sua figlia . . .”
    Philip snatched the bun from her fingers and trained his eyes on her lips.
    Abigail said: ”. . . 
in un castello antico solitario in cima a una collina
.”
    Philip bit into the bun.
    “The queen had died long ago, and the king was so stricken with grief that he ordered all the ladies of the castle to be banished, so he might never see another woman again,” Abigail continued, without missing a beat.
    Philip stared at Abigail’s lips, transfixed, nibbling away at the bun. Lilibet watched his little body relax into the mattress, his energy fading and settling around him. His eyelids drooped, and his hand dropped against the pillow, still clutching the bun between his fingers. Abigail continued on a minute or two longer, until his breathing became deep and regular and peaceful, the candlelight glowing softly around his round, smooth cheek.
    “They look so innocent when they are asleep,” Lilibet said softly, brushing the hair from his forehead. “It makes me feel guilty for being angry before.”
    “You were angry?” Abigail asked, and Lilibet, turning to her, saw that she was genuinely surprised.
    “Yes, of course.”
    Abigail straightened from the bed and smiled at her, a great, wide smile in her oval face. “Even-tempered Lilibet. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you angry.”
    Lilibet looked back at her son’s sleeping face. “All the time,” she said. “I’m angry all the time. Only I’ve learned how to hide it.”
    “You don’t need to hide it,” Abigail said. “We’d understand.”
    No, you wouldn’t
, Lilibet thought. All that anger, those wicked, immoral