Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
“Are you all right?” Poppy asked Hector.
“Yes,” he answered flatly and continued eating his breakfast.
Poppy noticed that Hector had been too quiet at breakfast. She had watched him over the rim of her teacup and waited for him to speak, but he did not.
She worried that perhaps he would change his mind about the fortress and planned to tell them to take it down.
Poppy glanced at Aurora and Princess beside her.
They copied their uncle’s stern quietness as well until finally breakfast ended and Mr. Clarke appeared at the door.
“Your Grace, your guests have arrived.”
Poppy looked at Hector.
He rose, cane in hand, and said, “Meet me in the drawing room once you and the children are ready.”
He inclined his head with maddening composure and turned toward the door.
Poppy frowned. She looked at Mrs. Patterson for an answer, but the housekeeper shrugged in confusion.
“Is Uncle Hector upset?” Aurora whispered.
“I do not believe so, darling.” Poppy moved a loose curl away from Aurora’s eyes.
Not long after his departure, she made her way to the drawing room with Aurora beside her and Princess in Annabelle’s arms. Every step increased her suspicion until they reached the drawing room.
Poppy stepped inside, prepared for some grave announcement, perhaps a new tutor, perhaps a physician, perhaps some matter concerning the estate that Hector had inexplicably decided required the presence of two little girls.
When she entered the drawing room, she froze in an instant.
“Julia!” Poppy gasped. She could hardly believe her eyes.
Julia stood near the center of the room, smiling as though she had been holding the expression in place for several minutes and could bear the waiting no longer. Leander stood beside her, and Thomas close at hand with his nanny.
“Poppy, His Grace sent word, and we came—”
Poppy gently let go of Aurora’s hand and crossed the room so quickly that she forgot the dignity expected of a duchess. Julia met her halfway, and the sisters embraced with the force of all the words they had not written and all the worries they had not wished to confess.
“I cannot believe that you are here,” Poppy said, drawing back only enough to see her sister’s face. “I meant to plan a visit soon.”
“Poppy, you just got married and had a family to care for.” Poppy laughed, and the sound came out unsteadier than she meant it to.
Family.
“Oh! You remember Aurora and Princess?” She motioned to Aurora to approach them.
“Of course I do.” Julia beamed as she knelt before Aurora, who blushed with shyness.
“Aunt J…J…Julia,” she whispered nervously.
Aurora’s memory always surprised Poppy. She left the two of them to talk, and she turned at once toward Hector. His expression remained composed and calm. Poppy felt a sudden rush of compassion for the man before her.
“Your Grace.” Leander approached him, greeting him with easy respect. “Thank you for inviting us.”
Hector turned toward Leander with a polite smile that did not reach his eyes. “Thank you for accepting my invitation. My butler will show you to your chambers.”
Mr. Clarke appeared immediately and began guiding Leander and Thomas. Aurora and Thomas eyed each other curiously as Julia cooed at Princess, who gave her a toothless grin.
“Aurora, would you like to take us to our chambers, too?” Julia asked.
She nodded but did not say a word.
“How long will you be staying?” Poppy asked Julia, clutching her hands before she walked away.
Julia’s smile widened. “A week.”
“Truly?” Poppy could not hide the excitement in her voice.
“Yes, your husband invited us over for a week.” Julia smiled at Hector, and he nodded in response.
Poppy turned again in his direction. Hector had been speaking with Leander, but he seemed to sense the sudden direction of her attention. His head angled toward her.
“You invited them for a week?” she asked.
“Yes.”
The simplicity of the answer struck her harder than any speech could have done. She did not think. She released Julia at once and went to Hector.
He stiffened faintly as she approached him.
Poppy stopped close enough that she could see the disciplined line of his mouth and the way his fingers tightened around the head of his cane.
She had grown used to the solemn authority that clung to him even when he said nothing, but she had not grown used to his kindness, which arrived without announcement.
“Hector?” she whispered.
“Poppy?” he answered gruffly.
“I am smiling at you,” she said softly.
His brow shifted. “Are you?”
“Yes, very much. So, you should smile back.”
For a moment, he did nothing, and Poppy realized, too late, how absurd she sounded.
How intimate the request had been, spoken not as a duchess to a duke but as a woman to a man who had pleased her and must be made to know it.
Heat rose in her cheeks. She might have retreated, might have disguised the moment with some light remark, had he not then obeyed.
Hector smiled, and it was a genuine, startling smile directed toward her. Poppy ought to have said thank you. She ought to have said anything. Instead, she stood there, speechless, with her heart behaving as though it had been startled from sleep.
Julia saved her by appearing at her side. “If you are finished staring at your husband, I would like a word.”
Poppy’s cheeks warmed further. Julia laughed and drew her away before she could make matters worse. Poppy looked back and watched Hector leave the drawing room quietly.
The sisters settled together on one side of the drawing room, while the children disappeared with the men.
Their conversation was low, composed of masculine civility and occasional pauses.
Poppy tried not to look over too often, but she failed.
She felt a sudden pull to her husband that she did not understand, but she very much wanted to.
When Poppy turned back to her sister, she knew that Julia noticed everything that was left unsaid, as she always had.
“Now,” her sister said. “You must tell me everything.”
Poppy sighed. “That is a dangerous request, Julia.”
“I did not come for safety. I came for truth, no matter how harsh it may be. I also came for some gossip, and to determine whether I must abduct you.” She raised a thin brow.
“Julia,” Poppy warned.
“What? I would have been discreet. And you know Leander is very useful in emergencies.”
Poppy laughed, but the laughter quickly faded. “There is too much to tell.”
“Begin with whether you are well?” Julia held her hand gently and looked into her eyes.
It was such a simple question, and precisely the one Poppy did not know how to answer simply. She smoothed her skirt, glanced toward the door where Hector had just exited and took a deep breath in.
“I am better than I expected to be,” she said at last with a smile.
Julia looked relieved. “When His Grace sent word, I felt troubled. I thought that perhaps you needed help to adapt or wanted to leave.”
“No,” Poppy shook her head and folded her hands. “That is not the case at all.”
They smiled at each other.
“When you left, you looked like someone preparing to walk into a storm with no cloak. How are you feeling now?”
Poppy thought about the breakfasts and dinners they had been sharing together and how Hector allowed the song and dance for Princess’s sake. She almost laughed at the memory of him scowling and fighting the smile that threatened to appear.
“At first, I thought I had made a sacrifice when I married Hector—”
“Hector?” Julia’s head snapped toward her, wide-eyed.
Poppy blushed. “Yes, Hector.”
“Oh, my.” Julia gave her a look that made her want to run away and hide. “Do continue?”
“The girls needed care. And I thought, if I could be useful here, if I could protect the children in some way, then perhaps the… rest did not matter.”
“You mean, perhaps, the marriage would not matter?” Julia corrected her, and Poppy nodded.
“Yes, and…” Poppy pressed her fingers together and lowered her voice. “…Hector is not what I thought.”
Julia’s gaze flicked toward her sharply. “Has he done something?”
“No. He was merely severe when I first arrived and so cold. Everything had rules, and the rules had rules, but that is expected of a duke. The girls found it harder to settle in than I did.”
“And yet you are smiling now.” Poppy heard the confusion in her sister’s voice.
“He is changing.”
“Really? How has he changed?” That piqued her interest.
It should have been easy to answer. Hector’s actions were plain enough. He had allowed alterations in his own home and had invited Julia for a week because Poppy missed her, though Poppy had never directly asked.
“He began noticing,” she said.
Julia waited.
“He notices more than he admits. And he does things without making them grand, which somehow affects me so deeply that I think about it all the time. Especially when he is away.”
Julia’s smile became private and knowing.
Poppy frowned at her. “Do not look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“With mischief in your eyes.”
“I would never think mischievously about you and your husband!” She feigned surprise.
Poppy laughed, and Julia joined in.
“Very well. What else has changed with the icy-eyed duke?” Julia prompted.
Poppy hesitated slightly just before answering.
“He is gentler with the girls than he believes himself to be. He thinks restraint hides everything, but it does not. Aurora knows how to draw him into conversation. Even Princess quiets when he speaks, and all he has to say is her name. He pretends that they do not need him, but he is always near enough if they do.”
“And how is he with you?”
Poppy’s answer caught, and Julia’s brows lifted.
“It took him a while, but he eventually listened to me. Often after pretending not to. And he has begun to trust me and the way I handle the girls.”
“You seem fond of him, Poppy.”
Poppy stared at her and felt the heat rise to her cheeks again. “I am just admiring all that he has done thus far.”
“You are married. You are allowed to feel this way about him.”
Her sister’s words settled heavily between them.
“I thought we were too different,” she eventually said. “I thought that would be the central truth of us.”
“Sometimes the differences are what make it work even better. Have you found no common ground in the past month?”
Poppy opened her mouth, prepared to answer at once, and discovered she could not. She had spent so much energy worrying about the differences between herself and Hector that she had not processed the times they were similar.
“We both love the children, but…” she drifted in thought, and realization began to dawn on her.
“Yes?” her sister encouraged her.
“I enjoy order, and so does he. Hector needs predictability. He has made this house into a place where nothing unexpected can reach him unless it has an appointment. I thought that was tyranny. Perhaps some of it is. But I understand the need more than I wanted to.”
“Because you have it too.” Julia pointed out.
“I prefer to call it prudence.”
“You may call it whatever allows you to sleep.”
Poppy smiled faintly. “I spent years learning how to be useful enough not to be inconvenient. That requires attention and anticipation. Over time, I learned to manage what I could.”
Julia’s expression dimmed. “Poppy—”
“I am not asking for pity.”
“I know.”
The children’s laughter rose from somewhere in the house, bright and brief, warming both sisters’ hearts simultaneously.
“Hector and I both want to protect what we have been given. We both want the same things and like the same things too. It is…troubling.”
Julia laughed softly. “That is one way to put it.”
“We are both stubborn as well,” she muttered under her breath.
“Ah, that requires no deep reflection.” Julia rolled her eyes, and Poppy lightly slapped her leg.
“And we both hide what we feel,” Poppy spoke more slowly now, surprised by the recognition as it formed. “He hides behind severity while I hide behind my cheerfulness, perhaps. I am not sure how to describe myself.”
“You explained yourself perfectly.” Julia squeezed her hand, smiling through tenderness.
Poppy sat back, unsettled by her own list.
Love for the children. Control. Stubbornness. Concealment. Duty. Loyalty. Fear of disorder.
She had believed Hector to be the opposite of her, but now she wondered whether she had misunderstood him all along.
“Perhaps,” she said, “we are not so incompatible after all.”
Julia’s face brightened with such triumph that Poppy groaned.
“No. Do not beam. It is insufferable.”
“Can I not be relieved that my sister may be falling in—”
“Do not dare say that word.” Poppy pointed a warning finger.
Julia and Poppy stared at each other before they burst into laughter; the sound came freely just as Hector returned. Poppy immediately reacted to his presence and felt his attention on her.
“I came here expecting to help plan your escape,” Julia said through her laughter.
“I do not need an escape,” she said, smiling and enjoying the heat of Hector’s gaze.
“Good.”
“I mean, if I did, I would expect better planning than whatever you and Leander planned to do in an entire week.” Poppy shook her head disapprovingly, and Julia beamed proudly.
“Leander is very capable; we were just curious about the Duke of Sterling’s magnificent house.”
They laughed again, and when the laughter faded, Julia looked at her carefully. “You are where you want to be, right, Poppy?”
Poppy’s smile remained, and she felt the concern radiate from her sister.
She knew that Julia would always be there for her, no matter what, and she did not need to worry about anything.
Poppy turned and looked at Hector too, who was now accompanied by Leander.
They spoke in serious tones with somber looks.
Poppy drank in the sight of him, remembering all his kindness and this grand surprise he had planned for her.
“Yes, Julia, I am exactly where I want to be.”