The Accidental Countess (The Aristocrat Diaries 3)

It was no joke keeping these three busy.

It’d been especially good when Lucy had passed. It’d been a year since her age had caught up to her and her arthritis was too much, and I missed her like crazy. While Baxter had been my shadow during my pregnancy with Zachary, Lucy had been my fifth limb after he was born. She’d loved him so much, I was almost entirely certain that was why, two months ago, Matthew had shown up out of the blue with an eight-week-old spaniel in his arms who had come to love Zac just as much.

Who had also just pooped on my floor.

For the second time today. Like she hadn’t just been outside.

“Oh, Lulu.” I sighed, bending down with a bag over my hand. I scooped up the mess, tied the bag, and put it outside the side door to take to the bin later. “Can we please stop doing that?”

She looked up at me with her big, brown eyes, and wagged her little tail, then switched and pounced on Baxter.

If he were human, he’d groan. Instead, he simply lay there, letting her bite and play all over him until she went too far, when he’d finally give her a little warning snap and she’d back off.

“Anny Eva!”

I turned in time to see a tiny barrel of curly dark hair fly towards me. “Oomph! Who’s this big girl? That’s not my little Clementine, is it?”

“It me! I Clem!” She grinned up with me with her big blue eyes. “Anny Eva!”

I gasped. “Look how big you are.”

“I big! I big!” She stretched her arms over her head to exaggerate it.

“You are not big,” Alexander said from the kitchen doorway, holding a baby carseat.

She pouted at him. “I big!”

“You’re so big,” Olympia said over his shoulder. “Hi, Aunt Eva!”

“Hey, honey.” I wrapped her in a hug. “Have you grown as well?”

She laughed in that way teenagers did when they wanted you to shut up and stepped back. “Not you, too.”

I kissed Alex on the cheek. “Where’s Adelaide?”

“Asking Christopher how much wine is in the cellar,” he replied. “Someone is teething.” He glanced at the carseat as he put it down, and I grinned.

“How is it being a boy dad, hm?”

“I feel like that’s a trick question,” he replied, tilting his head to the side. “He’s peed on me three times this week alone.”

I laughed and bent over, looking at my baby nephew. “He’s so big now. I forgot how cute boys are when they’re this size and not capable of moving about.”

“Oh, he’s crawling,” Adelaide said, one hand on her hip. “At lightning speed. I’m thinking about getting a GPS tracker on him so we won’t lose him if he makes a break for it, the little hellion.”

I chucked sleeping baby Theodore on the nose gently and stood up to greet my sister. “Alex, if you want to take him upstairs, I put Zac’s old baby monitor in your room for him.”

“Oh, brilliant, Eva, thanks. I’ll do that. He’s not long gone down.” He picked up the carseat and carried him off in the direction of the stairs.

“Speaking of hellions, where are yours?” Adelaide asked, releasing me. “I’m guessing they were just here.”

I looked at the catastrophe that was my kitchen.

“Duh,” Olympia said, looking at her phone. “Chaos is their calling card.”

On one hand, three boys were hard work.

On the other, at least I didn’t have to deal with a teenage girl.

“Take your case up to your room, please,” Adelaide said to her.

Olympia sighed, dropping her head back.

“Now. Not when you decide to. And you can come back down with a better attitude as well, please.”

“Fine.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing. Yes, Mum.”

“Thank you,” Adelaide replied, smirking at her back. “Aren’t you glad you don’t have girls?”

“Depends on the day,” I mused. “Today? Kind of in between.”

She laughed. “I’ll help you pick up. Where’s Zac?”

“Matt is putting the twins to bed,” I told her. “They need a nap.”

“I help.” Clementine picked up the milk. “I put in fridge.”

“Is that because you want Grandma Eleanor’s cupcakes?”

Clementine grinned. “Yum.”

Adelaide pinched the bridge of her nose. “Great. Chaotic boys and a sugar-hyped Clementine. That’s all we need.”

“And the stragglers,” Christopher announced from the door.

Gabriella was preceded by her very round stomach, and Miles followed up behind her with a wriggling two-year-old Thomas stuck under his arm.

“Let go!” Thomas said, kicking his legs.

“I’ll tip you upside down!” Miles threatened.

Gabi sighed. “Just put him in a time out. He’s tired. That was a long drive up here.”

“We left at six a.m.!”

“And it took ten hours,” she retorted.

“You had to stop and pee five times alone.”

“You knew what you were getting into when you did this to me.” She motioned to her pregnant tummy. “Stop whining.”

I burst out laughing and hugged her. “Oh, I missed you so much. Christopher, would you mind showing Miles to their room, please? It looks like all the little ones need a nap.”