Chapter 8 #2
She looked remarkably comfortable. She looked, he thought to himself, entirely happy.
It was a look that puzzled him. He truly did not understand how anyone could find such immense joy in simply sitting on a woolen blanket in the grass. Usually, she was content to sit inside the house dealing with her duties, so why did a simple outdoor luncheon make her eyes light up so brightly?
Unable to keep the curiosity to himself, he leaned back slightly on one hand. “Why do you like picnics so much?”
Euphemia let out a soft laugh, her expression turning warm and nostalgic as she looked out over the lawns.
“When my sisters and I were young, we used to have makeshift picnics of our own,” she shared.
“Even as we grew older, we kept the tradition alive. We would gather whatever small treats we could find from the kitchens and steal away to a spot under the trees. It was the only way we knew how to truly escape, a precious few hours where we could completely forget about our lessons, and all the expectations placed upon us for the day.”
She turned her face back to him, her eyes bright. “I love them because they are inherently peaceful. There is no pretense out here. Just the open air.”
Nathaniel offered only a small, tight smile, his brow arching slightly. It was a sweet sentiment, but it was entirely foreign to him, a man whose entire life had been governed by duty and structure. He truly did not understand it.
Detecting his skepticism, Euphemia’s smile turned into a playful smirk. She leaned in just a fraction, her eyes gleaming with mischief. “Of course, you wouldn’t understand it. You certainly do not strike me as a picnic person, Your Grace.”
“I am not,” Nathaniel said flatly, refusing to even entertain the thought of admitting to such a preposterous notion. “I see no reason to pretend otherwise.”
He had never had a picnic growing up. The very idea of sitting on the damp earth to consume a meal that could be far more comfortably eaten at a mahogany dining table had never been presented to him, nor would his tutors have allowed such a frivolous waste of afternoon study hours.
Euphemia turned her face toward him, her eyes squinting with a sudden, deeply suspicious amusement. “Is this your first picnic, Your Grace?”
Nathaniel shifted slightly on the blanket, his jaw tightening as he looked out over the lawns. “And what if it is?”
A soft, breathless laugh escaped her, and she leaned back on one hand, looking at him as though he were a puzzle she was vastly enjoying tearing apart.
“Oh, my goodness. You are the Duke of Greymoor. You command entire estates, you have hundreds of tenants, you hold influence in the House of Lords, and yet you have never once had a picnic?”
“No,” he said. “Never.”
Euphemia shook her head, the playful smirk returning to her lips as she began to probe further, clearly determined to map out the exact boundaries of his joyless youth.
“Fascinating. Let us try another, then. Did you ever climb the ancient oaks on this property? Or perhaps sneak out of the manor to go swimming in the river on a sweltering July afternoon?”
Nathaniel stared at her, entirely unamused. “Certainly not. The river is treacherous, and climbing trees is an excellent way to break a bone.”
“Did you ever race ponies across the meadows with the neighboring gentry boys? Or stay up past midnight hiding under the covers with a single candle just to finish a ghost story?”
“No to both,” Nathaniel replied. “My ponies were for proper equitation lessons, not racing, and my nights were spent sleeping so that I might wake at dawn for my Latin dictation.”
Euphemia groaned softly, looking at him in disbelief.
“Why? Why would someone who possessed so much inherent power and authority, even at a young age, not have done anything ordinary? I have read books about the childhoods of the peerage, Your Grace. They are supposed to be filled with hunting, riding, and at least a small modicum of boyish mischief. Why was your youth so entirely different?”
“Books are romanticized fabrications,” he muttered, adjusting his cuffs just to give his hands something to do.
“Then what, pray tell, did you actually do for fun?”
“I read,” he said simply.
Euphemia raised an eyebrow, her lips twitching. “What did you read, Your Grace? Apart from estate ledgers, parliamentary reports, and boring treatises on agricultural reform?”
“Biography,” Nathaniel countered, and shrugged his shoulders. “Histories of the Napoleonic campaigns. Political philosophy.”
Euphemia let out a bright, melodic laugh. “Oh, you are entirely hopeless. Tell me, have you ever read Evelina, or the History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World?”
Nathaniel frowned slightly, trying to recall the title from the crowded shelves of his library. “What is that?”
Euphemia raised her eyebrows. “Fanny Burney?”
“I do not read satirical society novels, Euphemia.”
“Whyever not? It is a magnificent story,” she said curiously.
“It is about a young, innocent woman navigating the absolute chaos and treacherous judgments of the London ton. She has to deal with awkward scandals, terrible misunderstandings, and the attention of a certain aristocratic gentleman named Lord Orville.”
She tilted her head, a wicked spark in her eye. “Lord Orville is deeply noble, terribly protective, and behaves with absolute, flawless politeness at every ball he attends. I thought perhaps you might read it to see how a true gentleman behaves in a crowded ballroom before we make our own debut.”
Nathaniel let out a scoff. “I have absolutely no intention of reading a drawing-room comedy about a terrified lady and her lord. Why would I waste my time on a story like that?”
“Because it is a beautiful story,” she answered quietly. “Because underneath the wit, it is about someone learning to see past society’s expectations to protect the person they care about. You have to read it, Nathaniel. It might just change your life.”
“I doubt highly that a novel about London assemblies will change my life,” he murmured, though the earnestness in her voice lingered uncomfortably in his mind.
Deciding he had reached his limit for self-reflection and literary critiques this afternoon, Nathaniel deliberately changed the subject.
“Be that as it may, we must return to practical matters. I will let you know the exact details of the ball we will be attending shortly. The invitations arrived yesterday.”
Euphemia blinked, nodding her head. “In that case, I will need to go shopping. I need proper gowns for these occasions.”
“That is entirely fine,” Nathaniel said. “You may visit the modistes in town and get whatever you require.”
“All right,” she murmured. Then, she glanced over her shoulder toward the far side of the lawn, where Cordelia was currently laughing as the hound chased a stick.
She turned back to Nathaniel, her expression softening.
“Would you like to come and play with Cordelia for a few moments? You could throw the stick for the dog. I am certain she would love nothing more than for her father to join her.”
Nathaniel froze, looking at Euphemia. For a long moment, he genuinely considered it. He looked at the open space of the lawn, then at Euphemia’s encouraging smile, weighing the absolute absurdity of him running around in the grass with a hound.
Slowly, he stood up, brushing a few stray blades of grass from his trousers. He didn’t answer her directly, but he turned and began to walk across the lawn toward his daughter.
He knew Euphemia was watching him. He could feel her gaze resting firmly against his back as he crossed the distance, his stride long.
When he reached Cordelia, the little girl’s face lit up with absolute, pure delight, throwing her arms around his waist before picking up the fallen branch to hand it to him.
Nathaniel took the stick and hurled it across the grass, watching the hound bound after it. As Cordelia cheered, a rare, genuine smile broke across his face, one that he couldn’t stop, no matter how hard he tried.
But deep down, beneath the warmth of the afternoon sun and his daughter’s laughter, a cold truth settled in his chest. Euphemia was right. He hadn’t had a proper childhood. He hadn’t had fun, or picnics, or freedom, and he knew precisely why.
Images of a cold, unyielding father, of endless hours locked in a suffocating study being drilled on his duties, and the crushing weight of an ancient title thrust upon his shoulders far too soon threatened to surface.
His childhood had not been a good one, it had been an isolated, demanding trial that had broken any sense of boyish joy out of him long before he had reached manhood.
Nathaniel deliberately buried those rising memories back into the dark corners of his mind where they belonged. He did not like to think about the reason why he was the way he was.
But as he threw the stick for the hound once more, listening to Cordelia’s bright giggles and Georgianna trying her very best to join in, he knew the truth. He had been raised to be a monument, not a child, and the cracks in the foundation were only now beginning to show.