Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
“Sixteen!” Hector heard the duchess’s voice echo through the hallway.
He returned home hoping for some peace and quiet after the harrowing meetings with his tenants about leaking roofs, boundary disputes, and unpaid rent. Jonathan entered half a pace behind him, silent and curious.
A shriek of laughter went up somewhere beyond the hall. It shot along the corridor, struck the walls, and seemed to multiply. His wife’s voice followed, and Hector heard a burst of running feet as the duchess counted.
“Seventeen… eighteen… nineteen…”
He and Jonathan stopped in their tracks. He did not need clear sight to understand the disorder around him.
“Twenty!”
Aurora shrieked, and Hector’s jaw tightened.
His house had never sounded like this before.
Since the children had arrived, there had been crying in the night, the uncertain patter of small feet, the occasional dropped object followed by shocked silence.
But this was different. This was an invasion, and he knew, with immediate and unreasonable certainty, who was responsible.
My wife.
Jonathan took his hat and gloves. “Shall I inquire where Her Grace is?”
“No.” The refusal came too quickly. “I will look for her myself.”
Jonathan stopped. “Very good, Your Grace.”
Hector began down the corridor and did not hurry. The cane tapped the floor ahead of him. He had long since grown familiar with every shadow and light within the house and its corridors.
“Twenty-six… twenty-seven…”
Her Grace’s voice could be heard clearly now, and Hector felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up in response.
It was not the carefully restrained voice she used when asking whether Aurora had eaten or whether the baby had slept.
This voice had warmth in it, and mischief, and an ease that seemed almost indecent within his walls, leaving him feeling unsettled.
“Twenty-eight…”
He followed her sweet sound.
At the far end of the passage, Aurora giggled and struggled to silence herself. Hector turned his head toward the sound and caught a fleeting impression of motion low to the ground.
“Twenty-nine…”
Despite his frustration, he decided to ignore Aurora’s hidden shadow and continued looking for the duchess. She stopped counting, and Hector was surprised to realize that he did not need her voice because her scent left a trail as well.
It was strangely intoxicating and simply so… Poppy.
Hector stopped again, briefly this time. It was absurd that he should know the jasmine scent in the air belonged solely to her.
“Thirty! Ready or not, here I come!” Her voice suddenly surrounded him.
There was laughter, then a rustle of skirts.
Hector moved toward the doorway from which her voice had come.
The room was brighter than the corridor, and for a moment the shape inside dissolved into pale glare and dark silhouettes.
He saw the motion of a slender figure as she turned and was nearly upon him.
Her breath caught. She tried to stop herself from crashing into him, but one foot slid, and she lost her balance. Hector moved before thinking. His cane shifted to one hand while the other closed around her wrist as he caught her.
For an instant, all the noise in the house seemed to recede.
“Oh,” Her Grace breathed.
She was close enough that her scent and heat enveloped him.
Her body halted against the force of his hold, and he felt the fine bones of her wrist beneath his fingers, the warmth of her skin, and beneath that, the quick, unmistakable, racing beat of her pulse.
It struck against his touch as if it were trying to escape, and Hector’s own heart answered.
They both froze, holding onto each other and recognizing the rhythm between them.
I should release her.
But he did not because it felt right, although it was too much contact for propriety’s sake.
Her breathing had changed, and he heard how shallow and controlled it had become. That knowledge slid under his skin and made him feel as though he were on fire.
Is she some kind of witch?
The thought came with such irritation that it almost steadied him. No woman should be able to disarrange a man merely by standing too near.
She spoke first. “Hector.”
He released her at once, but the absence of her wrist from his hand was displeasing.
Hector cleared his throat and closed his fingers around the head of his cane. “Would you care to explain what is happening in my house?”
Her posture shifted when she heard the tone of his voice, and he saw the lift of her chin. “We are playing a game of hide-and-seek.”
“I gathered.”
An awkward silence followed.
Her Grace lowered her voice and leaned closer to him. “Then I am not certain what requires an explanation?”
Hector breathed her in again, and his thoughts scattered. He had to concentrate, and that felt impossible with her. Especially after he touched her searing skin.
He took a deep breath and spoke in a cold tone. “The fact that the house sounds as though a circus has been granted tenancy.”
She frowned. “We were merely laughing.”
“There was shrieking upon my entrance. That is beneath the dignity of a duke’s estate.”
His words made her flinch. “Aurora is a child. You cannot expect her to keep silent at all times.”
“You have been encouraging her toward disorder.”
She drew in a breath, and he felt her temper in it before she spoke. “May I remind you that Aurora and Princess have spent most of their lives frightened of being inconvenient. I will not apologize for allowing them to laugh.”
His voice rose slightly. “You are failing at raising these children.”
Hector regretted his words as soon as they left his lips.
“You think I am failing them because they are happy for half an hour—”
He turned his head in the direction of her eyeline. Aurora stood at the entrance with a bright smile that was quickly vanishing.
How long has she been listening?
Her joyful expression was quickly replaced by fear. Hector felt the change like a blow beneath the ribs. Aurora stood with her hands gathered close to her body, and Her Grace attended to her at once. “There you are.”
The child did not look away from Hector.
He had frightened grown men before, but this was a child of four years. She was his niece and his responsibility. The guilt ate at him for causing a little girl to lose her smile.
When he spoke again, he stripped the command from his voice with care, leaving it softer than he was accustomed to hearing from himself.
“Good afternoon, Aurora.”
Her gaze shifted to the duchess, then back.
“G-good afternoon, Uncle.”
The stutter was slight, but it was enough to tell him everything. Hector felt his anger rise with such swiftness.
He had done that.
Her Grace crossed to Aurora. Her movement was calm, but Hector heard the protective urgency about it. “Come along, my darling. I think Princess will want us soon.”
Aurora took her hand immediately. The ease and eagerness of it was another small wound.
Hector stood aside as they approached the door.
The duchess passed near enough that her skirt whispered against the air between them.
Aurora moved on the duchess’s far side, using her as a shield without quite meaning to.
“Duchess,” Hector called to her quietly so only she could hear him.
She stopped nearby, her shoulders tensed in the way they always did when he reminded her of her title. Hector ignored the temptation to reach for her again.
“When Aurora is asleep,” he said, “come to my study.”
She studied him briefly. “Very well.”
Aurora’s hand tightened around hers before she turned and led the girl away. Their footsteps faded down the corridor as Hector remained where he was and his hand still remembering the beat of his wife’s pulse.
Poppy waited until Aurora’s breathing had settled into the deep, even rhythm of sleep before she left the room.
She stood a moment beside the bed, looking down at the small shape beneath the covers.
The day had exhausted the child. Laughter always did, though in a kinder way than crying.
Aurora had resisted sleep at first, asking whether Uncle Hector was angry or she had done something wrong, and finally she asked whether Poppy would be nearby.
Poppy had answered each question with more certainty than she possessed.
No, he is not angry. No, you have done nothing wrong. Yes, I will be nearby.
The last answer still held. “Near” was a flexible word in a house this size.
She closed the door quietly and stood in the corridor with one hand still resting against the wood.
The house had changed again. Afternoon’s riot had been folded away, and the servants moved in subdued patterns.
Somewhere below, a door closed with the careful restraint of a household trained not to disturb its master.
The silence made her aware of her own heartbeat.
Poppy had known all evening that she would have to go to him, so she prepared herself and told herself there was nothing to fear. His Grace could be severe, but severity was not cruelty. He had not raised his voice at Aurora. He had softened it. His touch, as well, was surprisingly soft.
She lifted the same hand to knock on the study door and hesitated as she flushed with the memory of the duke’s warm grip around her wrist.
“Come in.” His voice was level, and it gave nothing away, yet it still seemed to make her skin react.
Poppy entered the study, and the room felt different from the rest of the house.
It was a room arranged for privacy, for control, and for decisions made without interruption.
His Grace stood near the desk, tall and still, the line of his shoulders unmistakable against the darker mass of the room.
His cane was in his hand. In the dimness, his pale gray eyes caught what little light there was, making them look like the icy depths of a frozen pond.
Poppy closed the door behind her, and for a moment neither of them spoke.
His Grace turned his head slightly in her direction, listening to every sound of her steps. “Aurora is asleep?”