Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Benedict Langley, the Duke of Rivermere, heard the severity in his own voice before he had quite intended it. It crossed the grass ahead of him, low and sharp, and struck all three figures beneath the oak into stillness.
The scene before him did nothing to lessen his alarm.
Marjorie stood with leaves in her hair, mud on her hem, and that guilty look that never failed to precede disaster.
Amelia sat beside her, pale and distressed, with both hands clasped tightly in her lap.
Between them sat a young lady Benedict had never seen before, her gown marked with bark and grass, and one gloved hand faintly scraped red where the leather had torn.
“Uncle Benedict,” Marjorie said at once, with admirable speed and very little wisdom. “I am perfectly well.”
He came to a stop before them. “Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Marjorie.”
She sighed. “Only my pride, perhaps. And that not very much.”
“Amelia?”
Amelia shook her head. “I am not hurt, Uncle. Truly. We were fortunate that Miss Norton saved Marjorie.”
Benedict turned then to the stranger.
Miss Norton.
She was younger than he had first thought, slender, quiet in appearance, and yet there was an unsteady dignity in the way she lifted her chin to meet him. Hazel eyes, clear and anxious, looked back at him without quite retreating.
Benedict was conscious, absurdly, of the sunlight moving through the oak leaves and trembling across her face.
“You are Miss Norton?” he inquired.
“Yes, Your Grace. Sophia Norton.”
So, this was Lord Keswick’s youngest daughter. He had heard her name in passing. He expected someone mild, perhaps timid, not a young lady with torn gloves and bark dust on her sleeve, standing before him as though she had been discovered in battle.
“You climbed the tree?” he asked.
Her color deepened. “I did.”
Benedict looked once more at the fallen branch.
It lay in the grass like proof of every fear that lived in him since the day the twins became his charge.
For a moment, he could not speak with civility.
Then training, discipline, and years of being observed by others came to his aid. He bowed, stiffly.
“Then I am indebted to you, Miss Norton. You have my sincere thanks.”
Her expression softened a little. “It was nothing.”
“It was not nothing,” he corrected more sharply than he meant. “Marjorie might have fallen.”
“I did not fall,” Marjorie put in.
“You would have,” Benedict returned, turning on her, “had Miss Norton not been here to remedy what should never have occurred.”
Marjorie’s mouth closed.
“I gave very clear instructions,” he continued. “You were to remain near the drive. You were not to wander. You were not to climb. You were not to take Amelia with you into mischief merely because she is too loyal to abandon you to it.”
“I did ask her to come down,” Amelia whispered.
“And I nearly did,” Marjorie said.
Benedict fixed her with a look.
She considered, then amended herself. “Eventually.”
“Lady Marjorie,” Sophia said gently, though her gaze remained upon Benedict, “I believe your uncle was frightened.”
Benedict looked at her. It was not an impertinent remark. It was worse. It was accurate.
“I was not frightened,” he said, because fear, when spoken aloud before children, felt too much like surrender. “I was justly concerned by disobedience.”
Sophia’s lips pressed together, not in submission, but in thought. “Of course. Though sometimes children wish to climb trees for no more wicked reason than that the tree is there.”
Benedict stared at her. “Trees are not invitations.”
“To children, I believe they often are.”
“They are dangers.”
“They may be both.”
The answer was so calm that it irritated him more than open defiance would have. She was not bold in any obvious way. Her voice remained soft, though her cheeks were still touched with color. Yet she placed herself between his anger and the children as surely as if she’d stepped before a carriage.
“My wards have rules for a reason, Miss Norton.”
“I do not doubt it.”
“Then you will understand that rules are of little use if they may be set aside whenever an oak tree appears agreeable.”
“I should never recommend setting rules aside entirely,” she explained. “Only that a rule which forbids every risk may sometimes teach a child to take risks in secret.”
Marjorie looked suddenly delighted.
Benedict saw it and frowned. “Do not look pleased.”
“I am not,” Marjorie grinned, looking very pleased indeed.
Sophia lowered her gaze briefly, and he suspected she was hiding a smile. He found it intolerable, chiefly because he nearly wanted to smile himself.
“Miss Norton,” he inhaled before speaking, “you cannot believe I ought to encourage reckless climbing.”
“No. But perhaps she might be taught to climb safely.”
“Safety and climbing are not natural companions.”
“Neither are children and stillness, Your Grace.”
A breeze moved through the oak, carrying the smell of leaves and warm earth.
Benedict became aware of Amelia watching him with anxious hope, of Marjorie watching Sophia with open admiration, and of Miss Norton herself, who seemed to grow more embarrassed the longer she stood her ground and yet did not yield an inch.
She had good arguments. Very good ones. Benedict had no intention of saying so.
“What you call stillness,” he replied, “I call preservation.”
“And what you call preservation may occasionally feel like captivity to those being preserved.”
The words struck with unexpected force. He looked at the twins. Amelia’s gaze dropped to her lap. Marjorie scuffed one shoe against the grass. Neither child spoke.
Benedict felt the last of his anger alter shape.
It had not vanished. It never did so quickly.
But beneath it lay the fear he refused to name.
He had buried too many people. He had stood beside too many beds.
The world had taught him that those who were loved could be taken without permission, without fairness, and without warning.
“I was frightened,” he said at last.
The admission cost him more than he expected. Marjorie’s expression changed at once. Amelia’s eyes lifted.
Benedict kept his own voice controlled. “When I saw that branch upon the ground, I thought…” He stopped. There were images not fit for children. “I thought you had been hurt. Both of you. And I have little patience with rules being broken when the consequence might have been grave.”
Marjorie’s grin faded completely now. “I am sorry, Uncle Benedict.”
“So am I,” Amelia said, though she had done very little wrong, as usual.
His sternness weakened. That, too, irritated him.
“You are not to wander out of sight again,” he urged. “And if there is to be climbing, it will be discussed before it is attempted, supervised, and conducted no higher than I judge reasonable.”
Marjorie opened her mouth.
“No higher,” he repeated.
She closed it, but looked as though she had already begun negotiations in her mind.
Benedict turned to Sophia. “Miss Norton, I owe you an apology as well as thanks. I spoke harshly.”
“You were alarmed,” she supplied.
“You make generous allowances for strangers.”
“Only when they appear to love their nieces very much.”
For one strange moment, Benedict had no reply. The words settled somewhere uncomfortable in his chest. He was accustomed to being called dutiful, responsible, severe, dependable. Love was a less manageable accusation.
He bowed again, more properly this time. “You have helped my ward today, and more than that, you kept your head when many would not have done so. I owe you a debt.”
Sophia’s blush returned, softer than before. “There is no debt.”
“There is,” Benedict assured her.
Then, because the twins were watching, because his heart was still beating too hard, and because Miss Sophia Norton’s courage unsettled him in ways he had no leisure to examine, he offered each girl a hand.
“Come. We are returning to the house.”
Marjorie took his right hand with unusual meekness. Amelia took his left. As they turned away, Benedict looked back once. Sophia stood beneath the oak with a book clasped to her chest. Benedict inclined his head. She curtsied.
And as he led the children across the grass, he found himself thinking not of the broken rule, nor even of the broken branch, but of a young lady who climbed without hesitation toward danger and then dared, with perfect politeness, to argue him out of his fear.
Noise met her at once upon returning home.
“Sophia!” her mother called. “Where have you been?”
Sophia paused, guiltily conscious of her hem. “In the garden, Mama.”
“In the garden? In that gown? You have ruined it!”
“It is only a little grass.”
“A little grass,” her mother repeated, as though Sophia confessed to a political scandal. “We are to leave in less than two hours!”
Emma appeared behind their mother, with a pearl pin between her lips and a child attached to one hand. Her eyes softened at the sight of Sophia.
“You found your quiet, then?”
“For a little while.”
Frances emerged too, fastening an earring. “If you found quiet, you must tell me where it lives. I should like to send Andrew there until he admits my blue silk is superior to the rose.”
From somewhere behind her, Andrew exclaimed. “I never denied the blue silk. I merely said the rose was also becoming.”
“That is what denial sounds like when dressed as diplomacy,” Frances returned.
Sophia might have smiled, but her mind remained beneath the oak tree, on Marjorie’s brave little face, Amelia’s anxious eyes, and the tall gentleman who came striding through the grass like judgment in a black coat.
Her mother’s gaze sharpened. “Sophia, your glove is torn.”
Sophia looked at it too quickly. “A branch caught it.”
“A branch?”
“I was near the far oak.”
Her father, who had been crossing the hall with an expression suggesting he regretted leaving his study, glanced up. “The far oak?”
“Yes, Father.” She hesitated to continue, but curiosity overpowered her. “There was a gentleman there, with two little girls. I saw them only for a moment.”
It was extraordinary how warm one’s cheeks could become from a sentence composed almost entirely of truth.
“A gentleman?” her mother echoed.
“Yes. Tall. Dark-haired.” Sophia busied herself smoothing a crease from her skirt. “Rather stern-looking.”
Frances laughed. “That describes half the men of consequence in England, and all of them when presented with a bill.”
Her father’s brows rose. “Then that must have been Benedict Langley, the Duke of Rivermere. His estate borders ours beyond the western fields. A very respected man. Rather grave, I believe, but dependable. He is guardian to his late brother’s daughters.”
For a moment, the hall seemed to tilt.
The Duke of Rivermere.
She’d argued with a duke. Worse, she’d argued with him while muddy, disheveled, flushed, and in possession of a book that had been treated with less care than most stable buckets.
“Sophia?” Emma asked. “What is the matter?”
“I am quite well.”
Frances narrowed her eyes with immediate sisterly interest. “You have gone pink.”
“It is warm indoors.”
“It is not.”
“It feels warm to me.”
Her mother gave her a distracted look. “If you encountered His Grace, I hope you made a respectable impression.”
Sophia thought of her torn glove and her voice, soft but stubborn, disagreeing with his rules.
“We only spoke briefly,” she said, and felt her conscience pinch.
“Rivermere is not a man one wishes to offend,” her father remarked, though without severity. “He is said to be proper in all things.”
Sophia’s horror deepened. Proper men, she felt certain, did not appreciate being contradicted by young ladies who climbed trees.
“I shall go change my dress,” she said quickly.
“That would be wise,” her mother replied. “And do ask Jenny to brush your hair thoroughly. It looks wind-tossed.”
Sophia escaped before Frances could ask why a simple walk in the gardens left her looking as if she had been pursued by the weather.