Free Kelly McClymer-Must Love Black by Kelly McClymer

could feel the girls getting more and more tense at the idea that they’d broken some big rule. Laurie was totally channeling Lady BV, treating them like inconvenient obstacles to business. Well, Laurie and Lady Buena Verde might have been happy to lock the kids in a tower, but I was under explicit instructions from Mr. Pertweath himself to make sure that his daughters got a daily dose of fun. “What’s the big deal?” I blurted.
    Laurie gave me an awfully patronizing look for someone who was basically my age. “Guests pay for peace and quiet. Frolicking children are not peaceful or quiet.”
    I glanced at the twins. Were we talking about the same kids? “We weren’t frolicking. We were quietly taking pictures in the butterfly garden.”
    Laurie’s tone softened. “I guess you can be forgiven. This time. But you have to understand that we run on very carefully arranged schedules. There are people here who don’t want to see another soul but Lady Buena Verde—not patron, staff, or interloper. They pay good money for that privilege. I hope you understand.”
    “I guess.” I thought about it for a minute. Solitude in a house full of people. Yeah, I could see why it would be worth a lot of money.
    “Well, I suppose no harm was done.” Laurie looked at the twins.
    Triste spoke up. “We’d really like to see Father. Just for three minutes.”
    “I’m sorry, girls, your father is in private sessions all afternoon,” Laurie sing-songed. Then she turned to me sternly. “From now on, please stick to the schedule. That’s why you were hired, you know.”
    I really didn’t like being lectured to by someone only a few years older than me. Actually, I didn’t like being lectured to at all, by anyone, of any age. But she had me with the job thing. Sigh. “Okay. We’ll stick to the schedule.” At least until I could get Mr. Pertweath to change it.
    Once we were back in our domain, the twins settled at the computers to begin identifying their butterflies. I picked up the binder intending to commit the schedule to heart—both so we wouldn’t get in trouble and so I could discuss what should be changed with Mr. Pertweath the next time I saw him. Which, according to the schedule, would be at dinner tonight.
    The computer beeped softly, and I felt like I was really beginning to understand the way this place was run as I went to answer Havens’s summons.
    “Good day, Miss.” Havens didn’t look too happy. “I’m afraid we have to cancel the family dinner this evening.”
    “Cancel? No.” Triste and Rienne were heartbroken, butterflies forgotten as they came up behind me to see Havens’s face on the monitor.
    “I’m sorry, girls. Your father’s schedule requires it.” Havens smiled grimly. “I will send up hot fudge sundaes with your dinner.”
    “With sprinkles?” Triste asked.
    “And whipped cream,” Rienne ordered. Then she saidto me, “We always get sundaes if Father has to cancel.”
    “How nice.” Nothing says I love you like a bribe from an absentee parent.
    “Would you like one, Miss?” Havens asked.
    “Do you have chocolate ice cream?”
    “We do.”
    “Then yes, Havens. I would. Thank you.” The simple life. Ask for a hot fudge sundae with chocolate ice cream and ye shall receive through the miracle of a dumbwaiter. I could get spoiled by this life.
    “You’re welcome, Miss. Girls.”
    I looked around the room. We got ice cream sundaes, but not freedom. This whole “domain” thing was rapidly beginning to feel like another word for “prison.” The doors were fancy, but locked, all the same.
    I looked at Rienne and Triste, who’d gone back to identifying butterflies, and felt a stab of sadness. I was choosing to be here, and being paid well for my time—this was a summer job, after all—but they had to live here for at least another eight years, being ignored by their father and lectured to by everyone else. And to think I’d been afraid they might be spoiled brats.
    I could