Chapter 65. After Dinner

Proserpina

True to her inimitable nature, Ria had begun to call him Pappa. I guessed that she had been asking questions and speaking to the young sons of the head gardener. The little boys, Jose and Phillipe, came in the afternoons and sometimes played with my children. Watching them interact with their father, Jean Louise had probably ignited the curiosity in her to find out about her own father.

Piers refused to have anything to do with Lucien and slid off the chair after he was done. As the nurse took Ria away to brush her teeth, she stopped at the door, her small paw in the woman's hand.

Turning, she tugged at the woman’s hand and broke free. Trotting up to her father's seat, she placed a tiny hand on his dark sleeve and dimpled up at him, imploringly as she said in a soft voice, batting her lids entreatingly,

'Papa, read Tia stoyy," she urged giving him a toothless smile to add to the statement. Translated to mean, Pappa, read Ria a stor