Heather nodded seriously as she said, ‘I imagine they expected a certain standard of behaviour from you both, knowing that the world would be paying more attention to the sons of an earl than to just us normal folk.’
Cal barked out a harsh laugh, one that hurt even his own ears and made Heather wince. ‘Sorry. I just... Yes, you’re right. To a point.’
‘To a point?’
Her head tilted to the left again and he wondered suddenly if she’d purposefully led him down this path to revelations. However they’d got there, he wanted to backtrack.
‘We’re not here to talk about my childhood. We’re here to talk about Daisy and Ryan’s.’
‘True.’ Heather shuffled the stack of paper in her hands—even larger than the binder of clipped pages she’d given him. ‘Let’s get started, then.’
Cal tried to listen as she talked about recent studies and best practice and a child’s need for attention. But his mind wouldn’t focus. He felt as if he was drifting back twenty years and her words faded away to a hum at the back of his mind.
Because the rest of him was a child again, trying to survive within the cold and loveless walls of Lengroth Castle.
‘The strange thing is, our impulse is to believe that shouting at children, punishing them—giving them negative attention, basically—will drive them away from the behaviour that caused it,’ Heather said. ‘But actually the opposite is often true. If a child isn’t getting high-quality, regular and predictable time and attention from a parent or guardian or whoever, then they’ll take whatever attention they can get—however negative. So rewarding bad behaviour with attention of any sort can actually just make the child do it more.’
Rewarding bad behaviour. Was that the problem the Bryce family had? No matter how badly they behaved they only seemed to be rewarded for it—with lands and estates and money and attention in glossy magazines like the one Ross had that bloody contract with.
Except, no. Because those rewards relied on nobody ever finding out about all the scandals and cruelty. Their high station had just made it easier for them to get away with things.
Like Ross had done for so long.
But Ross had to have been a better father than their own had been, right? Cal felt sure about that much, at least. Ross would never have beaten a child. Would never have threatened to slit his dog’s throat in front of him at the dinner table for some imagined or perceived slight against him.
Would he?
Cal swallowed as he remembered the reason he’d never had a pet dog as an adult. Not after what had happened to Cavall, the night of the worst of his father’s rages...
‘Cal?’
Heather had put her papers down on the table beside her chair. When had she done that? When had she stopped talking? He wasn’t sure.
He shook his head. ‘Sorry. I was just...remembering.’
‘Growing up here?’ she asked softly, and he nodded.
She bit her lower lip, a habit he’d noticed last night in the hallway and something that had previously made his pulse kick up a gear just at the sight of it. But tonight his heart was already racing from memories, and Heather’s lips couldn’t compete with them. Quite.
‘I think... Cal, I think that if you want to learn how to take care of Daisy and Ryan we need to talk about some other stuff first. Okay?’
Cal reached for the bottle of brandy beside his table. ‘There’s nothing to talk about.’
‘Right. Except...you know...everything.’ She gave him an apologetic smile. ‘Look, if it makes you feel better I’ll go first.’
‘Go first?’
She shrugged. ‘You know... I’ll show you my childhood trauma if you show me yours.’
Cal paused halfway through taking the lid off the brandy bottle to pour himself a glass. ‘Your childhood trauma?’ He couldn’t imagine Heather having anything except the kind of perfect, idyllic childhood he’d read about in storybooks before he was old enough to accept the world as it really was.
‘We all have one, right? So... Pour me a drink—non-alcoholic, please—and I’ll begin.’
Slowly he leaned across to select a second glass, then found the bottle of elderflower cordial. There was no way he intended to share his childhood at Lengroth with anyone. But he wanted to know what kind of childhood had made Heather the way she was. Especially since it couldn’t be anything like his own and Ross’s.