The Royal Nanny Read Online Free Page A

Dugdale that after addressing the duchess the first time as “Your Grace,” I could switch to “milady,” so I hoped I was doing that proper.
    â€œCharlotte it is, then.”
    â€œLala,” Bertie declared with his mouth full of grapes. “She Lala.”
    Feeling a bit softer toward Mrs. Peters for her being a widow, I sat on the stool and held Bertie while his mother fed him as if he were a little bird—a ruffed grouse with all his fancy baby garb. And he did seem starved.
    â€œI do hope you will be able to help Mrs. Peters deal with David,” the duchess said. “I do worry so for his delicate nature, since so much will be expected of him. And I must keep reminding myself that his father will someday be his king too.”
    I was so relieved to find the children’s mother a sweet and caring parent. And here I sat with her in intimate conversation.
    â€œI will do my very best, milady.”
    â€œAs must we all, in any circumstance and station,” she whispered as if to herself. Her jaw set, and she blinked back tears. From that moment on, whatever might befall, I admired her.

Chapter 3
    I soon came to understand how Nurse Peters could be so stern and possessive of the children, yet so well tolerated by the staff and the royal parents. Rose told me on the sly that she had actually saved the duchess’s mother, Mary Adelaide of Teck, from a dreadful fall on the front staircase. Quite a feat, since Rose said the woman was cruelly nicknamed “Fat Mary,” and must be three times the size of her pregnant daughter. So the Yorks felt they were beholden to Mrs. Peters.
    â€œI vow, Charlotte, poor ‘Fat Mary’ would have been a hard one to dress and care for her garments,” Rose had whispered with a roll of her light blue eyes.
    Though Rose was almost ten years older than me, she didn’t seem it. I liked her partly because she told me she had also gained her position here through a recommendation from Lady Dugdale. Rose longed to design fine ladies’ garments, though she knew her true lot in life was to care for them. I think she was lonely, caught between spending a lotof time with the duchess upstairs, traveling with her, but supposedly living downstairs with the servants. Anyhow, we got on splendidly.
    From Rose I learned there had been an even earlier nurse who had been dismissed before Mrs. Peters, for somehow insulting the duchess’s mother, who used to be much about before her current illness kept her confined to White Lodge at Richmond Park in London. That was the location of David’s birth, though Bertie had been born here.
    In short, the staff, including Rose, all felt they were skating on thin ice. As one of the footmen put it, no one wanted a “fall from grace” since the Yorks were quick to sack anyone who stepped out of line. And so, more than once, I saw the butler on down to the nursery footman merely roll their eyes and keep their heads down, however brusque Mrs. Peters acted and however much David howled and Bertie cowered.
    I, who worked closer than anyone with the woman, felt ill at ease with her all the time, so what must her little charges feel? Both were tense and skittish. I’d been in service at York Cottage for twenty-three days to be exact, and I feared Mrs. Peters might get me sacked for my cheery and affectionate way with the boys—Bertie, at least, since David always seemed off limits. The fact I was appalled at David’s behavior more teatimes than not didn’t sit well with her either. She mostly kept me at bay and treated me more like another nursemaid than undernurse, but I hesitated to complain.
    Today was Sunday, April 25, and we’d been to St. Mary Magdalene Church on the grounds, though without the duchess in her usual place since the birth was so close. Day of rest or not, that afternoon I planned to store a pile of clean nappies in theday nursery in preparation for the birth of