CHAPTER THREE #2
He realised he had been staring at the drawing in silence. When he turned, Miss Grace was watching him with that same steady, assessing gaze, and he had the uncomfortable sensation that she could see more of his reaction than he wished to reveal.
“You’ve done well, Miss Grace.”
“The children have done well.” Her voice was even, neither proud nor falsely humble.
“I merely provided the structure.”
“You’re too modest.”
“I’m accurate.” She tilted her head slightly, as though considering how to explain something that should have been self-evident.
“Modesty is a performance. Accuracy is useful.”
Modesty is a performance.
The words struck him with unexpected force.
He had spent fifteen years surrounded by performances, giving and receiving them, navigating a world where nothing was quite what it seemed and everyone was playing some role or another.
The rake, the wit, the scandal, the charmer.
He performed constantly, automatically, without thinking about what lay beneath.
And here was this woman, in her grey dress and her practical hairstyle, looking at him with eyes that held no performance whatsoever. She was not trying to impress him. She was not flirting with him. She was not even particularly interested in his approval, as far as he could tell.
She was simply telling him the truth, as she saw it, without embellishment or apology.
He looked at her more carefully, for the first time since she had entered the study.
She met his look with an unwavering steadiness. She betrayed none of that conscious vanity or maidenly confusion which his Grace was so accustomed to eliciting from the ladies of the ton.
But of course, she did not know he was the Duke of Trevane. She thought him merely Mr. Langford, a gentleman of means but no particular consequence, a man the ton would overlook entirely.
She was looking at him as though he were simply a person.
The realisation was unexpectedly unsettling.
When had anyone last looked at him as simply a person?
His friends saw the rake, the companion, the man who could always be counted on for wit and scandal.
His enemies saw the duke, the title; the women who pursued him saw the conquest, the prize, the story they would tell their friends.
But Miss Grace saw none of these things. She saw a man who paid her salary and occasionally visited the children whose welfare he funded.
“Mr. Langford?” She raised an eyebrow slightly.
“Are you quite well?”
“Perfectly.” He shook off the strange sensation that had gripped him.
“Forgive me. I was merely… contemplating your philosophy. Accuracy over performance. It’s refreshingly unusual.”
“I find that honesty saves considerable time.” She moved toward the door, clearly preparing to escort him back downstairs.
“The children will be waking soon. Shall I have Mrs. Kemp bring tea, or would you prefer to join them in the nursery?”
“The nursery, I think.”
“Very well.” She paused at the door, turning back to face him with an expression that had shifted subtly. There was a question in her eyes now, something she was weighing whether to ask.
“Mr. Langford. May I inquire how long you intend to stay?”
“Three days, perhaps four.”
“I see.” She absorbed this information without visible reaction.
“I ask because the children have come to anticipate your visits. They mark the days on a calendar. It would be helpful to know the pattern, so that I might prepare them for your departures.”
They mark the days on a calendar.
The ache in his chest intensified. He had known, of course, that they looked forward to his visits.
The way they greeted him, the way Thistle launched herself at him from whatever height she had most recently scaled, the way Viola pressed close to his side as though afraid he might disappear if she looked away.
But he had not known about the calendar.
“I visit monthly,” he heard himself say.
“The third week of each month, barring unforeseen circumstances. I stay three days, sometimes four.”
“Thank you. I shall incorporate that into our planning.” Miss Grace nodded crisply and stepped into the corridor.
“This way, Mr. Langford. Mind the loose board at the top of the stairs. Thistle has been jumping on it to hear it creak, and I have not yet arranged for repair.”
He followed her down the corridor, past the loose board that did indeed creak alarmingly when stepped upon, and toward the nursery where his daughters were waiting.
Behind him, the drawing of Miss Grace holding Viola’s hand remained pinned to the schoolroom wall, a silent testament to something he had not expected and did not know how to name.
The nursery door burst open before they reached it, and Thistle exploded into the corridor like a small, determined cannonball.
“Papa!”
She launched herself at him with the fearlessness that Miss Grace had so accurately described, and Rhys caught her easily, from long practice, swinging her up into his arms where she immediately wrapped herself around him like a particularly affectionate barnacle.
“You’re early,” Thistle informed him.
“Anna said you weren’t coming until tomorrow. I told her she was wrong. Anna hates being wrong.”
“I made good time on the road.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, breathing in the particular scent of childhood: soap and grass and something that was probably Brutus. “How is Brutus?”
“Excellent. He learned to jump on command. Well, he jumped. I’m not sure he understood the command. But he definitely jumped.”
“Significant progress.”
From the nursery doorway, Anna appeared with her arms crossed and her expression set in the familiar lines of a child who was indeed annoyed at being proved wrong.
“You were supposed to send word when you were coming. That’s the protocol.”
“The protocol has been noted.” Rhys shifted Thistle to one arm and extended the other toward Anna.
“Come here, general. I’ve missed your protocols.”
Anna’s stern expression wavered, then collapsed entirely as she ran forward and threw herself against his side. He held them both, his wild daughters, and felt the tightness in his chest ease into something warmer.
Viola emerged last, as she always did. She stood in the doorway, her book clutched to her chest, her eyes fixed on his face with an intensity that always made him want to weep.
“Hello, little one,” he said softly.
“Will you come say hello?”
She hesitated. Then, with the particular deliberation of a child who was making a decision rather than simply reacting, she set down her book and walked across the corridor to join her sisters.
She did not throw herself at him as Thistle had. She simply slid her small hand into his free one and held on, her grip tight and her face upturned to study his.
“You look tired,” she whispered.
“I am tired.” He did not lie to Viola. She always knew anyway.
“But I’m here now.”
“For how long?”
“Three days. Perhaps four.”
She nodded, processing this information with the same solemn assessment Miss Grace might have used. Then she squeezed his hand once and stepped back to collect her book.
Rhys looked up and found Miss Grace watching from her position near the stairs. Her expression was unreadable, but something in her posture had shifted. She stood now with her weight slightly forward, as though she had been preparing to intervene and had stopped herself at the last moment.
Preparing to intervene against what? He could not say. But she had seen his daughters greet him, had watched the way they clung to him, and she was drawing conclusions.
They adore you, her posture seemed to say. They adore you, and you are going to leave them again in three days.
She did not say it aloud. But she did not need to.
“Miss Grace.” He cleared his throat.
“Thank you for the tour of the schoolroom. I am… pleased with what you’ve accomplished.”
“Thank you, Mr. Langford.” Her voice was as neutral as ever, but her eyes held something new. Speculation, perhaps, or wariness. Or simply the careful attention of a woman who was revising her understanding of a situation she had thought she understood.
“Papa,” Thistle said, tugging at his sleeve, “Miss Grace knows all the Latin names for bugs. Can you believe it? All of them. Even the ones with the long legs.”
“Can I?” He looked at the governess over his daughter’s head.
“That’s very impressive.”
“Daddy-long-legs are not actually bugs,” Miss Grace said, with a hint of what might have been amusement.
“They are arachnids. Thistle and I have had several discussions on the subject.”
“Several loud discussions,” Anna added. “Thistle doesn’t agree that spiders aren’t bugs.”
“Spiders have too many legs,” Thistle said firmly.
“It’s suspicious.”
“Eight legs is the standard configuration for arachnids,” Miss Grace replied. “We do not judge creatures for following their design specifications.”
“Can we show Papa the specimens?” Thistle was already pulling him toward the schoolroom.
“Miss Grace labelled everything. Even the snake skin. Did you know snakes have Latin names? I think Brutus should have a Latin name. Miss Grace says his Latin name is Bufo bufo but that’s just the sound he makes, which isn’t very imaginative.”
“It is, in fact, the scientific designation for the common toad,” Miss Grace murmured, but she had stepped aside to let Thistle tow Rhys down the corridor.
He went willingly, surrounded by his daughters, carried along on the current of their enthusiasm. But as he passed Miss Grace, he caught her eye for just a moment.
I see you, her gaze seemed to say. I see more than you meant to show me.
He thought of her careful question about the pattern of his visits. He thought of her mention of the calendar where his daughters marked the days. He thought of the way she had paused, almost imperceptibly, when he had stumbled over the word mother.
Miss Grace was watching. Miss Grace was thinking. Miss Grace was fitting pieces together into a picture she had not yet completed but would, eventually, understand.
And Rhys, who had spent fifteen years hiding the most important part of his life from everyone except Benedict, found that he was not as alarmed by this prospect as he should have been.
Where did Grieves find this woman?
The question echoed again in his mind as Thistle dragged him into the schoolroom to admire her properly labelled collection of feathers and stones.
And for the first time in longer than he could remember, he found himself wanting someone to find him out.