Chapter Three
The sky promised a pleasant day with scattered clouds dotting the bright blue.
Victor stood by the sleigh in front of the Abbey, inspecting the harness.
The horses, two monstrous grays bred for both beauty and brawn, stamped and snorted impatiently, their breaths pluming in the brittle air like kettle steam.
He watched as a groom swept aside one of the furs on a seat, then signaled for the passengers.
The girls came first, hurtling themselves into the vehicle.
Alice’s hair was barely contained beneath her bonnet.
Susie, already possessed of her mother’s caution, navigated the icy pathway with the dignity of a cathedral cat.
Pearl followed behind them, her face almost unreadable in the glare off the snow, but her stride resolute.
Victor took the girls one at a time, lifting them up onto the sleigh as if they weighed nothing, then tucking them into the rear seat with practiced efficiency. Alice looked up at him, blue eyes round with delight. “Are we to go very fast, Your Grace?”
“As fast as the horses wish,” he replied, schooling his voice into gruff warmth. “But you must promise not to shriek so loud that the partridges all die of fright.”
Alice giggled, feet drumming on the boards. “I promise!” Susie, already arranging her skirts, only nodded, but there was a sparkle in her gaze that said she wasn’t above a thrill or two.
He extended a hand to Pearl. Her palm was small and surprisingly strong, the grip a little longer than necessary.
He was aware, in a way that hadn’t plagued him since his twenties, of the total number of inches separating his body from hers.
He helped her settle on the seat in front of her daughters, then reached for the thickest of the fur robes and arranged it over her laps, tucking the edges with deliberate care.
It was nothing, a duty owed to any guest, but the intimacy of the motion made him oddly lightheaded.
Pearl’s lips curved into a smile—polite, distant, but real. “Thank you, Victor.”
He didn’t allow himself to answer, lest his voice betray the absurd jitter in his pulse. Instead, he climbed onto the seat beside her, gathered the reins in his gloved hands, and cracked them smartly.
The horses lunged forward with a joyful violence, sleigh bells bursting into a tinny, jubilant riot as the runners bit into the fresh powder.
The wind snapped across Victor’s face, bracing and alive.
He hunched his shoulders and looked back over his shoulder at the girls cocooned behind him.
They laughed gaily, their cheeks already reddening.
They shot down the drive, flanked on either side by ancient elms whose limbs bore the snow with a weary grace. The only sounds were the metallic laughter of the bells, the wet hiss of runners, and the girls’ running commentary on every passing marvel, “Look, Mama, the rookery!”
“There’s a fox den, I’m sure of it!”
“When will we see the deer, Your Grace?”
“In the lower meadow, if we’re lucky,” Victor called back. “And only if you’re silent for a moment or two—they have a taste for solitude.”
Alice put two fingers to her lips, miming an oath of silence, and was rewarded with a lopsided grin from the duke. Victor didn’t like to smile—he considered it an undignified waste of musculature—but in the raw chill of the morning, it seemed a permissible extravagance.
They took the first turn at the end of the avenue, and the Abbey fell away behind them, its dark stone softened by the blanketing white. Here, the land rolled in gentle dips and hollows. Susie pointed at a distant stand of yews. “Did you plant those, Your Grace?”
“My father did. I was about your age, I suppose. He said a good hedge lasts longer than a bad treaty.”
Pearl’s laughter surprised him. It was light and unstudied, like the sound a brook makes when it rounds a bend. “A practical man, your father.”
Victor glanced beside him, catching her profile.
The light had sharpened the planes of her face, and the cold put a flush in her cheeks.
Wisps of auburn hair escaped from their pins, lashed her jawline.
He watched her for a moment longer than necessary, until she turned and caught him at it.
He affected a cough, then bent as if to inspect the horses’ reins.
“We’ll take the long path if that’s agreeable. ”
“That would be splendid,” Pearl replied, and if she noticed the tremor in his voice, she didn’t acknowledge it.
The road narrowed as they entered the woods.
Victor eased back on the reins, slowing the pace to savor the silence.
He felt the press of the moment—two girls and a woman who had once nearly undone him, all warm and alive and somehow entirely in his care.
It was, he realized, the most dangerous sort of happiness, the kind that made a man reckless.
He half-turned on the bench, pretending to check the children, but really to look at Pearl again. She met his gaze directly this time, eyes bright with some secret she wasn’t inclined to share.
He leaned in, lowering his voice for her alone. “If you’re cold, I can adjust the rug,” he offered. “Or perhaps you’d prefer to trade seats with one of the girls. The back is less exposed.”
Pearl gave him a look equal parts amusement and challenge. “Are you always so solicitous, Victor, or is this a special service for helpless widows?”
“Only for those who refuse to shiver.” It came out sharper than intended, but she didn’t flinch.
“I assure you, I am perfectly warm,” she replied, but her fingers twisted at the edge of the fur, betraying her.
He hesitated, then reached across, brushing her hand with the back of his glove as he tucked the robe closer around her knees. The contact was brief, but it left a phantom heat in its wake. He withdrew his hand as if burned.
“Very well, Lady Graveley,” he said, and this time his smile was real. “But if you perish of cold, I’ll be forced to explain myself to your daughters—and I shudder to think of their cross-examination.”
Pearl’s eyes danced, but she didn’t reply. Instead, she turned to her daughters with a large smile. It was a clear dismissal, but not an unkind one.
Victor felt the impulse to press further, to test the line between courtesy and boldness, but restrained himself. He had never liked the sensation of chasing a woman, not even in youth. It smacked too much of desperation. Better to let the field lie fallow, and see what might sprout in spring.
To fill the silence, he addressed the girls. “Would you like to hear the tale of the Rettendon Wolf?”
Alice practically levitated. “There’s a wolf?”
Susie, skeptical, raised a single brow. “You never mentioned a wolf last night.”
He launched into the story, drawing from the old estate legend of a spectral wolf that haunted the outer woods, warning children who strayed from the path.
The tale was embroidered with enough menace to keep the girls entranced, but not so much as to spark nightmares.
Pearl listened, too, and he watched as her expression softened, the tension around her mouth relaxing with every turn of the story.
They crested a low hill, and the view opened to a wide expanse of snowbound fields, sparkling under the new sun. In the far distance, a line of red deer trotted single file along a hedgerow, their breath visible in the air.
“Look, Mama!” cried Alice. “The deer!” She half-rose, nearly toppling from the seat before her mother’s arm reeled her back in.
Victor slowed the sleigh until it drifted gently. “They winter in the north copse,” he said, indicating the stand of trees with a jerk of his chin. “If you’re very quiet, you can hear them chewing the bark.”
The girls fell instantly, comically silent, straining for any sound. Pearl’s hand, still resting on Alice’s shoulder, relaxed its grip.
Victor allowed the silence to grow, then said in a voice just above a whisper, “It’s the best time of year, really. The land tells its secrets when it thinks no one is listening.”
Pearl met his gaze again, her own voice soft. “Do you listen, Victor?”
He considered the question, letting it settle in the space between them. “More than I ought,” he replied. “It’s a failing.”
She shook her head, smiling. “I doubt you have many failings left.”
He wanted to say, I never learned to forget you, but the words would not fit past his pride.
Instead, he turned forward, flicked the reins, and sent the sleigh sailing down the next slope, bells shattering the quiet into shards of bright sound. The girls cheered. Pearl, caught up in the momentum, laughed with abandon.
Victor let the wind take his words and tried very hard not to think about the warmth he would feel if she let him try again.
***
They followed the estate’s old bridle path, a narrow cut between hornbeams whose bare, latticework branches seemed to press closer with every yard.
Here the snow lay undisturbed, the wind stilled by centuries of unbroken undergrowth.
The sleigh’s passage sent soft flurries into the air, each disturbance catching the rising sun in shards of sudden, transient fire.
Alice, never content with simple observation, had set her sights on the icicles dangling along a low-hanging limb. She leaned forward, nearly spilling out of the seat in her enthusiasm. “Can we stop, Your Grace? Please? I want one for a sword!”
Pearl opened her mouth to object—the idea of pausing in a predawn freeze, for the sake of a child’s whim, was contrary to every instinct she possessed—but Victor had already slackened the reins and guided the sleigh to a gentle halt opposite the offending branch.
He hopped down, boots crunching on the crusted snow, and looked back at Alice, whose cheeks glowed with anticipation. “Will you be needing a climbing ladder, Miss Alice? Or shall I lift you myself?”
Alice’s answer was to hurl herself bodily at the duke.
He caught her, not so much with grace as with the resigned competence of a man who has long since surrendered his dignity to the predations of children.
He balanced her on his forearm, supporting her with a hand to the waist, and together they surveyed the array of icicles.
“Which one?” he asked. “Mind, some are sharper than your sister’s wit.”
Alice pointed to the largest, a monstrous fang of glass dangling just above arm’s reach. Victor tilted her upward and, with a low jump, let her snap the icicle free. It gleamed in her glove, a trophy worthy of display.
“Thank you, Your Grace!” she crowed, then wriggled until he set her down. She waved the icicle at Susie, who rolled her eyes but accepted her sister’s victory with a smile.
Pearl watched the scene with a mix of exasperation and, if she was honest, something like relief.
Percy, rest his soul, would have ignored such a request entirely, or worse, chided Alice for her lack of composure.
The thought brought a twinge of guilt, but also gratitude.
In this moment, the duke—Victor—seemed less a specter of her youth and more the man he might have always been, had fate arranged itself differently.
Victor climbed back into the driver’s seat, dusting snow from his coat. Alice, icicle in hand, clambered after him, but Pearl caught her by the collar. “You’ll sit beside Susie, young lady, lest you turn the horses to ice with your shrieking.”
Alice grinned, unrepentant, and climbed behind her sister.
Victor waited until they were settled before he took up the reins, but as he did so, Pearl reached out, just a moment too soon, to help Alice arrange her new treasure.
Her gloved fingers brushed Victor’s as they both adjusted the blanket over the child’s knees.
The contact startled her, even with her gloves on. Her hand snapped back. She stared straight ahead, keeping her face carefully neutral, but the blush that had been winter’s gift now deepened by degrees.
Victor, for his part, said nothing. They continued along the path, the girls at the center of a swirl of talk—Alice brandishing her icicle and proposing duels, Susie commenting on things she noticed in the snowy fields.
Pearl’s attention was divided. Every so often, she would steal a glance at Victor, then quickly look away.
Victor responded to the children’s questions with steady patience.
As they approached the Abbey, the sun climbing higher, Pearl realized she would remember this morning for the rest of her life, not for its joy, but for the exquisite torment of what might have been.