“How about I skip it tonight and take one tomorrow?” she pushed.
“I don’t mind if you don’t bathe,” Apollo put in and his daughter’s happy eyes came to him. “In fact, you are more than welcome never to bathe again. However, this would make you stinky and I wouldn’t hold my girl in my lap if she was smelly.”
Élan made another face, this time scrunching her nose. But his words also served to get her moving. She jumped from his lap only to dash two steps toward Bella, stop and dash back.
She jumped back on the sofa, threw her arms around Apollo and whispered in his ear, “I’m happy you’re back, Papa.”
Apollo wrapped his arms around her, pulled her close and took in her scent, which was far from unpleasant.
Then he returned her whisper in her ear and said, “Give your father a goodnight kiss and go to Bella.”
She pulled back, grabbed his face in both hands and gave him a loud kiss on the cheek before she again jumped off the couch and ran to Bella.
Taking her outstretched hand, she followed the maid out as Bella called, “Chris, you’re next.”
“All right, Bella,” Christophe called back and Apollo’s eyes went to him.
“Son?”
Christophe looked up at his father.
“Sit with me,” he ordered.
Rolling side-to-side as only a child would do, he got his feet under him and came to the sofa.
Apollo studied him as he did so.
Christophe had, some time ago, eschewed what he called “little boys’ clothes” and demanded to wear breeches, or trousers and high boots, not just breeches and ankle boots. He’d also taken to wearing full cloaks that fell to his calves, not short ones that fell to his backside.
Apollo had allowed this. If his son wanted to be a little man, there was no reason why he couldn’t be. He did excellent at his studies and was talented on a horse, not to mention, showed great promise with a bow and his wooden sword.
And anyway, Apollo had hated ankle boots when he was Christophe’s age so he saw no reason to force his son to wear them until he was thirteen.
Apollo watched as Christophe sat on the sofa at the opposite end to him, arranging his boy’s body in his father’s exact pose as best he could with his much shorter frame. That was to say, leaned back with one leg crossed, ankle resting on the other knee. However, he didn’t have his arms spread wide along the back and the arm of the couch as his arms didn’t reach.
Apollo quelled his smile and caught his son’s eyes.
“With your sister gone, I thought we’d talk, man to man,” he began.
Christophe’s chest swelled up and Apollo was forced to quell another smile.
“You’re well?” he asked quietly.
Christophe nodded. “Yes, Papa. I’m all right. And Élan is too. I knew Achilles and Derrik wouldn’t let them get to us.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about, son,” Apollo noted carefully.
Christophe looked to the carpets. He knew what he was talking about.
“Look at me, Chris,” Apollo urged and Christophe looked back to his father. “Madeleine, which is what she wishes to be referred as in this world, is very anxious about meeting you, knowing how she will appear to you.”
Christophe said nothing for long moments but he didn’t look away from his father.
Then, he blurted, “Nathaniel told me.”
Apollo blinked.
Perplexed at this change in subject, he asked, “Nathaniel told you what?”