Chapter 27 #2
“How romantic!” Daphne sighed dreamily.
“Hmm, I agree,” Victoria declared proudly. “I would also duel for my sisters.”
Alasdair gave her a playful nod. “Then we’re allies, lass.”
The conversation shifted then, laughter flowing as easily as the lemonade.
At one point, the twins began chasing each other around the tree, Wilhelmina joining in to corral them. Elizabeth watched with a strange tightness in her chest. She had missed this: her sisters’ chatter, the normalcy of shared sweets and afternoon sun.
About a quarter of an hour later, Alasdair stood a few paces from the picnic blanket, holding a long, thin branch he’d plucked from the grass like a broadsword.
He twirled it lazily in one hand, his stance exaggeratedly wide, knees bent, his shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows, his hair loose and flowing in the soft summer breeze.
“En guard, ye wee menace!” he called, pointing the branch toward Victoria, who was brandishing a shorter stick of her own with immense concentration.
“I am not a menace,” Victoria huffed, eyes narrowed. “I am Lady Victoria the Dragon-Slayer, and you’re the beast!”
“I remember you quite vehemently defending dragons a few moments ago,” Wilhelmina remarked with a smirk.
“Hush, you!” Victoria glared at her sister, “I have an important quest to fulfil!”
“Aye?” he drawled, pretending to consider. “Well, perhaps I am a dragon, but I’m nae ordinary one. I breathe insults instead of fire, and I eat jam tarts rather than villagers.”
“That’s not terrifying at all,” Daphne said through a giggle, clutching her stomach.
“Let me at him,” Victoria said, brandishing her stick. “He shall regret the day he left his lair!”
“Och, nae, not me lair!” Alasdair cried, stepping back dramatically and raising his “sword” like a true thespian. “Anything but me soft pillow and tartan blanket!”
Victoria lunged, her stick tapping his shoulder. “Take that, foul creature!”
He gasped as if struck by a mortal blow, staggering backward in a theatrical stumble. “Ach! I’ve been bested by a slip of a lass!”
Another tap to the chest, and he clutched at his heart, dropping to one knee.
“Oh no, he’s falling!” Daphne shrieked in delight.
“I die nobly!” Alasdair cried, then toppled fully onto his back, one arm flung over his eyes. “Tell yer sisters… I never learned to eat me sweets.”
Victoria stood victorious over him, breathing hard, her cheeks flushed with triumph and laughter. “I warned you, Dragon Duke.”
Alasdair peeked at her from beneath his arm. “You did. Remind me never to cross swords with ye again.”
“Maybe next time you’ll think twice before underestimating a lady with a stick,” she declared, then promptly dropped her own and flopped onto the grass beside him.
Daphne ran over and collapsed in a heap of giggles next to them. “That was the best duel ever! Even if it was unfair because you’re taller and stronger and still lost.”
“Strength has nothin’ to do with brains,” Alasdair said solemnly, though the corner of his mouth twitched. “Yer sister outwitted me. Clearly.”
From her spot on the blanket, Elizabeth watched it all unfold with warmth blooming in her chest. The summer light caught the gold in Victoria’s curls as she leaned back against her husband’s shoulder, the two of them laughing at some whispered joke.
Alasdair’s smile was wide, open, utterly unguarded. It was not a smile he gave to society.
No, this was a boy’s smile, the kind she imagined he must have worn long before the world had hurt him, before treachery and loss, before dukedoms and politics.
She’d seen it before: in the quiet after their lovemaking, in the way he watched her draw, in the jokes he cracked when no one else was listening.
But here he was, spread out in the sun, indulging her sisters, swordless and laughing.
Heavens, the warmth he made her feel was almost overwhelming.
Then, Seth leaned closer to Elizabeth, his smile fading into something more serious. “You’ve changed our Sandy boy, you know.”
Elizabeth blinked. “Have I?”
“You’ve softened him. Scowls less, lets go more. But he’s still digging, Lizzie.”
She went very still. “Into his father’s death?”
He nodded. “He’s found traces. Records, a vanished letter, strange payments. Names. He suspects a bribe may have changed the fate of the entire case. He won’t rest until he gets to the bottom.”
“Has he found anything about Kittridge?”
“Only that he always seems nearby. We need more.”
Elizabeth’s gaze drifted to Alasdair again. He was laughing as Victoria declared herself queen of the sword, and the sight twisted something in her chest. He looked so free, so light.
But his quest for justice… The storm would return.
“Are you drawing anything later?” Marianne asked, scooting over to sit beside her.
“Perhaps,” Elizabeth replied quietly. “Something peaceful. To remember this.”
Her voice almost cracked at the end. The moment was lovely, but she could feel the weight of something darker just beyond the horizon.
And Alasdair, for all his strength, would be standing at the center of it.
She looked at him again, committing every smile and line of laughter to memory.
She would need to remember the brightness when the shadows returned.