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Then she composes herself, as if remembering she’s not supposed to laugh or smile around me. “I need to go back to the boys,” she says, her face blank, and makes her way past me.
So that’s all I get. Just that one moment. Guess it will have to tide me over until the next one.
I go in my room and pack, taking heed of Laila’s warning and Lady Jane’s talk about snow tunnels. This time, suits won’t cut it. I cram sweaters, long johns, socks, thermals, gloves, hats, and scarves all in a duffel bag with the Norwegian Royalty Protection Unit crest on it. When I finally step back into the hall, chaos has taken over.
Bjorn is tearing down the hall and back, dressed in black snow boots and snow pants but no shirt, holding up a toy airplane. He stops when he sees me and aims the plane at me, and I’m afraid he’s going to chuck it at my face.
Instead he makes shooting sounds and then yells, “Du er død!” which I take to mean that I’m dead or something.
“Bjorn!” Laila yells from the upper floor. She goes down the stairs and runs down the hall in her socks, almost slipping on the floor, looking slightly more mussed up than before. She’s holding out a long-sleeved shirt for him, a sweater tucked under her arm.
Bjorn laughs, like the bloody devil, and starts to run away, but I’m quick.
I reach out and grab him by both shoulders, my touch light but firm enough to keep him in place.
He looks up at me over his shoulder and he hisses. Like a snake.
Bloody hell.
“Bjorn,” Laila admonishes him again, out of breath. She gives me a sheepish smile, brushing her hair out of her face. “Thanks, James.”
Bjorn lets out a bloodcurdling scream, and then there’s another scream from the other end of the house. Tor. It’s like two caterwauling creatures of the night.
“Need me to hold him?” I ask her, still not letting go, even with Bjorn squirming and screaming. My eardrums feel shot out, and I wonder how Laila hasn’t lost her hearing yet.
“Please,” she says, and I crouch down to grab Bjorn by the waist while she pulls his shirt and sweater over him. I don’t know how she does it—the way he’s squirming in my grasp, it’s like trying to hit a moving target—but eventually she gets him dressed.
She gives me a look to say I can let go, and I release him.
He runs off, screaming down the hall.
“I don’t envy you,” I tell her in a low voice, watching as he disappears into their playroom. “I think I’d rather take a bullet.”
She snorts. “You wouldn’t last a day.” Then her eyes go soft. “But really, thank you for that.” She pauses. “Being a nanny, you sometimes forget that this should be a two-person operation.”
I glance over her shoulder. There’s no one else near. “I’m sure Magnus and Ella do a lot.”
“They do,” she says quickly, eyes wide. “Don’t get me wrong. They’re tucking them in every night, they’re with them as much as they can be. If they lived in Oslo, closer to the king and queen, and were more involved with the public and the limelight, I’m sure we’d see them far less. Remember, I’m officially their first nanny. One of Magnus’s sisters was helping them before I came along, and I don’t even think she was paid for it.”
“Then it’s no wonder they hired you,” I tell her. “I can tell you think you’re not doing a good job, but you are. You’re doing a really good job. It’s not easy.”
She purses her lips thoughtfully. “How did you know that?”
I shrug. “I just know you, that’s all. I know how you think.” I’m not about to tell her how closely I observe her when I think she’s not looking, how even when she tries to pull on a hardened mask, some vulnerability seeps through. I love those glimpses of her, raw and real beneath the surface.
Her brow raises. “I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”
The screaming suddenly intensifies.
She exhales noisily, shoulders slumped. “I better go check on them.”
She walks off toward the terrorizing demons just as Magnus, Ella, and Lady Jane come down the stairs with their bags.
“You’re all packed?” Magnus asks. “You know, we’re going to be going up into the mountains on four-wheelers. This isn’t the place for suits, James.”
“I didn’t pack any,” I assure him, and I’m wearing a heavy-knit sweater-and-jeans combo that would rival any that Chris Evans wore in Knives Out.
“You’re learning, then.” Pause. “You smoke cigars, don’t you?”
