Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
“Iam starving. Perhaps a biscuit or two would rectify this.”
Marjorie closed her book with the solemnity of one announcing a national emergency.
Sophia looked up from the embroidery she had not advanced by more than three stitches in the past half hour.
The girls sat together upon the rug before the drawing-room fire, though their choice of reading had placed them in entirely different worlds.
Amelia had been absorbed in a volume on British wildflowers, one finger carefully marking the page while she copied the names of several plants into a little notebook.
Marjorie’s book concerned the voyages of Captain Cook, though Sophia suspected she ignored every passage about navigation in favor of storms, unfamiliar islands, and the occasional threat of shipwreck.
“You cannot be starving,” Sophia frowned. “You ate seed cake with Mr. Wilkes this afternoon.”
“That was hours ago.”
“It was scarcely two hours.”
“Exactly.”
Amelia glanced toward the mantel clock. “Supper will be served soon.”
“All right,” she replied, returning calmly to her wildflowers.
Marjorie stared at her twin in disbelief. “How can you accept this?”
“Because supper will be served soon.”
“But I may not survive until then.”
Sophia set her embroidery aside. “You cannot possibly be so hungry that you are unable to wait another half hour.”
Marjorie rose slowly from the rug. Her expression became tragic.
“Oh, Your Grace,” she began, pressing one hand to her stomach. “I do not wish to alarm you.”
Sophia refrained from chuckling. “That is considerate.”
“But I feel my strength leaving me.”
Amelia did not look up. “You were jumping over the footstool a moment ago.”
“That consumed what little strength remained.”
Marjorie took two unsteady steps toward the settee, dragging one foot behind her as though she had crossed a desert rather than a carpet.
“My sight is becoming dim.”
“You are looking directly at the fire,” Sophia pointed out.
“I shall never see the gardens again. Tell Mr. Wilkes…” Marjorie paused, swallowing with great emotion. “Tell him I was sorry about the delphinium.”
Amelia finally lifted her head. “You were not sorry.”
“I shall become sorry before the end.”
Sophia pressed her lips together, but laughter was already threatening. Marjorie collapsed dramatically against the arm of the settee.
“My poor, empty stomach,” she whispered. “Abandoned by those I trusted most.”
“It is not empty,” Sophia reminded her. “There is seed cake in it.”
“The seed cake has deserted me as well.”
That defeated her. Sophia laughed, the sound escaping warm and helpless into the quiet room. Even Amelia’s solemnity broke, and she covered her smile with the edge of her book.
Marjorie opened one eye. “I am pleased my suffering provides amusement.”
“You are not suffering.”
“You cannot know what occurs within me.”
“I can see precisely what occurs within you. You are attempting to persuade me to order biscuits.”
Marjorie sat upright at once. “Is it working?”
Sophia tried to maintain a stern expression. It was impossible when both girls watched her so expectantly: Marjorie with open hope and Amelia attempting to appear indifferent while already closing her book.
Sophia sighed. “All right. One biscuit each.”
Marjorie sprang to her feet, miraculously restored.
“But,” Sophia continued, lifting one finger, “you must promise to eat your supper.”
“I promise.”
“You answered before I finished speaking.”
“I knew what you intended to say.”
Amelia placed her notebook neatly inside the book. “I promise, too.”
“And only one biscuit.”
“One large biscuit?” Marjorie asked.
“One ordinary biscuit.”
“What if Cook has made them unusually large?”
“Then Providence has favored you.”
The girls exchanged delighted looks. Marjorie hurried toward the bell pull, but Amelia caught her sleeve.
“We should ask properly.”
“I was going to ask properly.”
“You were running at it.”
“One may run politely.”
Sophia rang the bell before the argument could expand.
A few moments later, Lucy entered and curtsied. “Your Grace?”
Sophia still felt a small start at the title, though she had learned not to turn around in search of another woman.
“Would you ask Cook to send up a few biscuits, please?”
Lucy’s mouth twitched. “Yes, Your Grace.”
Amelia settled beside Sophia upon the settee, bringing her wildflower book. “May I show you something while we wait?”
“Of course.”
She opened to a page displaying a delicate drawing of wood sorrel, its pale petals shaded with such care that Sophia could almost imagine them trembling in the woodland air. Marjorie climbed onto Sophia’s other side, still clutching her book of voyages.
“There are no biscuits in Captain Cook’s book,” she said mournfully.
“There are ships’ provisions.”
“Mostly salted meat. It sounds dreadful.”
“Perhaps you should be grateful you are only required to wait half an hour for supper.”
Marjorie considered this.
“I am grateful,” she announced. “But I should still like the biscuit.”
Sophia smiled as both girls pressed close against her, one smelling faintly of paper and lavender, the other of fresh air and whatever trouble she had encountered in the garden.
The house still seemed enormous at times. The title still startled her, and Benedict’s anger beneath the oak remained an uncomfortable weight at the edge of her thoughts. Yet here, between Amelia’s careful pages and Marjorie’s extravagant hunger, Sophia did not feel like an impostor.
She felt needed.
And when the door opened several minutes later, and both girls sat up with identical expressions of joy at the sight of a plate of biscuits, Sophia thought that perhaps duchesses were permitted to preside over small rebellions before supper.
Benedict had a perfectly plausible question to ask the girls as he walked toward their nursery. It was whether they would care to accompany him to the village school the following morning. But the moment he entered the nursery, he stopped, and the question died on his tongue.
Amelia and Marjorie sat on the settee with Sophia between them, all three gathered around a small plate.
Amelia held half a biscuit delicately between her fingers.
Marjorie had already taken a bite large enough to preclude any immediate explanation.
A scattering of crumbs rested on Sophia’s skirt.
For one moment, no one moved. Marjorie attempted to conceal her biscuit behind her back.
Benedict closed the door with deliberate care.
“Why are you eating biscuits before supper?”
Marjorie continued chewing. Amelia lowered hers to the plate with the solemn guilt of a child returning stolen jewels.
Sophia looked up at him. “They were hungry.”
Benedict nodded once. “Yes. That is why we shall feed them at supper.”
Marjorie swallowed with difficulty. “I was exceptionally hungry.”
“So I understand.”
“I might not have survived.”
“You appear to have recovered remarkably.”
Sophia’s lips trembled, though whether with amusement or irritation, Benedict could not tell.
“It was only one biscuit,” she said.
“One biscuit before supper.”
“Yes.”
“Which is precisely why Rule Three exists.”
Sophia stared at him. “You number the rules?”
“The household rules concerning the girls, yes.”
“How many are there?”
“That is not the point.” Benedict looked at the biscuits. “An orderly household is not maintained by observing only those rules one finds dramatic enough to remember.”
A new shipment of books had arrived from London, and he imagined Amelia would delight in examining them before they were placed upon the shelves.
Marjorie would likely be less interested in the books than in the journey, the horses, and whatever trouble might be discovered between Rivermere and the village.
It had been intended as a pleasant offer.
Instead, he found himself once again standing before Sophia while she calmly dismantled a decision he believed settled.
“They promised to eat their supper,” Sophia urged.
“That is not the same as waiting for it.”
“They were hungry.”
“Children are frequently hungry when food is visible.”
Marjorie nodded. “That is true.”
Benedict gave her a look. She lowered her eyes to the remaining biscuit.
Sophia set the plate upon the table. “It is still two hours before supper. I did not see the harm.”
“That is becoming a familiar phrase.”
Her expression changed. The warmth left it first.
“I beg your pardon?”
Benedict knew he ought to stop. Nathaniel often accused him of allowing fear to disguise itself as principle, but this was not fear. It was deep, weary frustration sharpened by the certainty that every structure he had built since the girls came to him was being quietly loosened.
“The tree,” he clarified. “Now this.”
She frowned. “You cannot truly compare allowing them a biscuit with permitting Marjorie to climb under supervision.”
“I am comparing two occasions upon which you decided my instructions could be ignored.”
“I did not ignore them.”
“You revised them.”
“Because circumstances required judgment.”
“The purpose of a rule is that it does not alter according to every passing circumstance.”
Sophia rose. Amelia’s hand caught lightly at her sleeve, but Sophia gave the child a reassuring glance before facing him.
“The purpose of a rule,” she replied, “is surely to protect or guide someone. Not to exist merely so that it may be obeyed.”
“It teaches discipline.”
“It was just a biscuit.”
“It is not just the biscuit.”
“No. It appears to be the fact that I made a decision without consulting you.”
“A decision that contradicted mine.”
She folded her arms. “I did not know the third rule of your extensive catalog concerned biscuits.”
“No food before meals.”
“That sounds less like a rule and more like an ambition.”
Marjorie made a small choking sound. Benedict looked at her. She covered her mouth and pretended to cough. Sophia’s eyes flashed with something dangerously close to amusement, but irritation quickly overtook it.
“You wished me to care for them,” she continued. “That requires me to make ordinary decisions.”
“I wished you to support the structure already in place.”
“And I do, when that structure is sensible.”
The words struck harder than they should have.
“When it is sensible,” Benedict repeated.
“That is not what I meant.”
“It is precisely what you said.”
Sophia exhaled. “I mean that I cannot ask your permission every time one of them requests a biscuit.”
“I do not expect you to ask permission. I expect you to know the answer.”
“And the answer must always be no?”
“When supper is imminent, yes.”
“What if they had eaten poorly at luncheon?”
“They did not.”
“What if supper were delayed?”
“It is not.”
“What if Marjorie truly were about to faint?”
“She was not.”
Marjorie lifted one hand. “I felt very weak.”
“You performed a dramatic monologue,” Amelia said softly.
“It expressed my condition.”
“It expressed your wish for a biscuit.”
Benedict looked toward Sophia. “You see?”
“Yes. I saw the entire performance.”
“And rewarded it.”
“I laughed.”
“And then gave her what she wanted.”
Sophia’s face warmed. “Because it was funny.”
“That is not a reason.”
“It was also harmless.”
“You cannot know that until supper, when she refuses to eat.”
“I shall eat,” Marjorie promised quickly.
Amelia nodded. “So shall I.”
“This is not a negotiation,” Benedict said.
“It was not one until you entered,” Sophia replied.
Silence fell. The girls looked between them.
Benedict became aware of the fire ticking softly in the grate, of the scent of warm sugar and butter, and of the darkening evening beyond the nursery windows.
It should have been a comfortable room. Sophia had made it so.
Books lay open upon the rug. Marjorie’s wooden horse had been arranged beside the hearth as though it possessed a right to warmth.
Amelia’s notebook rested against Sophia’s abandoned embroidery.
It looked like a family room. Yet Benedict stood at its edge feeling strangely outnumbered.
“They need boundaries,” he told her more quietly now. “They need to know that what is said today will remain true tomorrow.”
“And they need to know that affection is not withdrawn because they make an unreasonable request,” she retorted.
He felt irritation rise in him. “No one has suggested withdrawing affection.”
“Sometimes your refusals sound as though the matter is closed before they have even spoken.”
“Because often it ought to be.”
Marjorie slipped down from the settee. “Sophia did nothing wrong.”
“Marjorie,” Benedict warned.
“She only gave us one biscuit.”
“And made us promise to eat supper,” Amelia added.
“I am aware of the terms.”
“Then why are you angry with her?” Marjorie demanded.
Benedict looked at the child. He could not answer honestly without saying that he expected marriage to bring unity into the household.
He expected Sophia’s warmth to soften what his rules could not, but he could not imagine she would stand on the opposite side of every boundary he established.
He thought they would act together. Instead, it became increasingly clear that Sophia made her own decisions and later presented them as accomplished facts.
“I am not angry,” he sighed. “I came to ask whether you wished to accompany me to the village school tomorrow,” he told the girls. “The new books have arrived.”
Amelia brightened instinctively, though the tension in the room quickly subdued her. “I should like that.”
“So should I,” Marjorie smiled.
“Then the carriage leaves at nine.”
He turned toward the door.
“Your Grace?” Sophia called out.
Her voice stopped him, though he did not face her at once.
“We need not quarrel over every small thing.”
“No,” he replied. “We need not.” But that would require them to stand upon the same side. He left before he said so.
The corridor beyond the nursery was cool and dim, the lamps not yet lit against the approaching evening. Benedict walked toward the stairs while the distant preparations for supper moved through the house.
It was the order and routine of the quiet machinery that kept a household secure.
He'd believed Sophia would enter that life and complete it.
Her gentleness would give the girls what he could not, while his steadiness would provide what she lacked.
Instead, she questioned every decision, softened every refusal, and treated rules as objects to be examined, altered, or discarded whenever affection pulled her elsewhere.
Perhaps I have been rash.
The thought was unwelcome but would not be dismissed. Perhaps, in his eagerness to provide the girls with warmth, he had chosen a woman too inclined to indulgence. Perhaps kindness without firmness did not create a home but disorder disguised as happiness.
Sophia did not feel like his ally with the girls. She felt like their accomplice. And as Benedict returned to his study, the word that followed him was not warmth, nor home, nor family.
It was chaos.