Chapter 6
Chapter Six
The east-wing writing nook had become her refuge in the weeks since her arrival at Bearmoor Castle.
She sat there now, quill in hand, the inkwell open beside a sheet of cream paper that bore the beginnings of a letter she had rewritten three times. She had absolutely no idea how she would even begin to get it to her sister, but she had to try.
She paused. The quill hovered above the paper, dripping a small dark bead that she blotted with the edge of her sleeve.
What came next? Assurance that she was safe? Questions about Rachel’s safety that would only ratchet up her own anxiety?
The copper kettle hit the marble floor with a thud loud enough to make her jump. Ink leaped from its pot in a dark fountain, arcing across the letter, painting black over each word.
Alice pressed her palms against the desk. The ink seeped through her gloves, warm and slick against her skin. She exhaled.
Behind her, she could hear a muffled giggle, and she sighed.
“Freddie,” she said tiredly. Not a question, but a statement of fact, delivered to the empty air behind her chair.
She rose and turned. The writing nook’s doorway framed a small boy in a rumpled jacket, one hand still gripping the doorframe as though he required it for balance. His eyes were bright with satisfaction.
“You have excellent timing.”
She knelt before him so they were at eye level. Once she took off one glove, she placed her bare hand on his shoulder, feeling the small bone beneath the wool of his jacket, and waited until his eyes met hers.
“Was that truly necessary?” she asked, exhausted.
Freddie’s mouth curved, and he shrugged. “I don’t know,” he replied, then turned without waiting for a response and disappeared around the corner.
Alice remained kneeling on the polished floor. Ink darkened the palms of her right glove. The letter in the writing nook was beyond salvage.
After she took the other glove off, she rose and smoothed her skirts. It was no use.
Alice closed the door behind her. Perhaps she would write again tomorrow. And if she did, she would sit with her back to the wall.
For the rest of the day, Alice was acutely aware of her surroundings. Freddie’s laugh had made two things clear. The first was that he had no intention of stopping. The second was that he wanted to play.
She made her way to the dining room hesitantly when the gong rang. Dinner was eaten in utter silence, and for once, she did not attempt to start a conversation.
Kenneth sat across from her, his eyes fixed on his plate. Once her plate was cleared away, she looked up.
Charlie sat at the far end of the table, directly beneath his mother’s portrait. His arms were crossed over his chest.
Alice lifted the lemon tart from its stand. Cook had outdone herself. She carried it to Charlie and set it before him gently.
“Your favorite, I believe,” she said.
Charlie looked at the tart. His expression did not change.
“No, thank you,” he said coolly.
Alice frowned slightly. Even Kenneth looked up.
“Charles…”
“I’m not hungry anymore,” Charlie insisted.
Across the table, Freddie had arranged his peas into a formation that resembled soldiers in a war.
Alice could not help but wonder if the boy was aware of the irony. He had consumed approximately one-third of them. The remainder he shoved toward her with the flat of his knife, a gesture that transferred six peas onto the tablecloth directly beside her water glass.
“These are for you,” he announced. “A gift.”
“Frederick,” Kenneth warned.
Alice looked at the peas. They sat on the linen in a small green cluster, glistening with butter.
“Freddie,” she chided gently, “I believe Cook would prefer they remain on plates rather than tablecloths.”
Freddie shrugged. It took approximately two seconds before his left leg lifted, connected with the edge of the table, and applied sufficient force to the empty gravy boat that it tipped from its saucer and met the patterned rug with a crash that echoed off the dining room’s vaulted ceiling.
The sound hung in the air. Copper against wool, metal against hardwood beneath carpet, a percussion that announced itself with the emphatic clarity of deliberate mischief.
The gravy boat lay on its side. Thin amber sauce spread across the rug’s intricate pattern, following the channels between floral motifs with the patient determination of liquid mapping territory.
Freddie froze. His face performed a rapid sequence: triumph, followed by the realization that the triumph had exceeded its intended scale.
Kenneth had grown slightly red. His eyes were narrowed, his lips pursed. When at last he spoke, his voice was icy.
“Frederick Stafford…”
The boy’s face crumpled not quite with remorse, but with the apprehension of someone who knew precisely what came next.
Alice rose and crossed to the fallen gravy boat. “It was an accident,” she said gently.
Kenneth’s gaze snapped toward her. “It was not.”
“No,” she agreed. “But it can still be treated as one.” She righted the gravy boat and glanced at the rug. “Besides, the carpet has survived worse.”
“Duchess…” There was warning in Kenneth’s voice.
Alice met his eyes. “I know.”
She returned to her chair and saw him turning his gaze to his sons.
“Both of you, to your chambers,” he ordered.
The boys bolted from their seats with a thunder of small boots on the polished mahogany floorboards, the heavy dining room doors clicking shut behind them.
Silence fell over the room, broken only by the steady crackle of the fire. Alice caught the faint, sweet scent of roasted chicken drifting from the abandoned dinner plates.
Kenneth remained seated, his hands braced against the edge of the table. The amber glow of the candlelight caught the sharp angles of his cheekbones and the unyielding cut of his tailcoat.
“They ought to be disciplined,” he said, looking at her.
Alice adjusted her grip on her silk napkin, feeling the intricate lace embroidery under her fingertips to anchor herself. “They ought to be taught,” she agreed.
His dark eyebrows drew together. “That is precisely what I intend to do.”
“I know.”
“Then why do you keep interfering?”
Alice’s chin lifted, the stiff velvet of her high collar brushing her throat. “Because they are frightened of you.”
Kenneth went still, his silhouette cast long and rigid against the gilded flock wallpaper behind him. “They are not frightened of me.”
“Freddie was.”
“He was frightened of being punished.”
“There is a difference.”
Kenneth’s expression hardened, shadows deepening in the hollows of his face. “You have known them scarcely a month.”
“I have spent enough time with them to see the truth that you deny.” Alice immediately regretted her words, their harshness clashing with the soft ticking of the mantel clock. But she did not take them back.
Kenneth pushed away from the table, the heavy oak of his chair scraping subtly across the Oriental rug. “You know nothing of what it is like to raise boys alone.”
“No,” she said quietly, her voice barely carrying over the spit of pine sap in the grate. “But I know something about children who are desperate to be loved by their father.”
His jaw clenched, a muscle working beneath his fair skin.
Alice rested her palms flat against the cool surface of the table. “They test me because they do not know me yet. They want to find out what happens when they misbehave. Whether I will send them away, become angry, or leave.”
Kenneth’s expression shifted almost imperceptibly, his tense shoulders relaxing by a fraction of an inch.
“They need boundaries,” he said.
“Yes.”
“And consequences.”
“Yes.”
“Then we agree.”
“Not entirely.”
His dark eyes narrowed under the dim chandelier light.
Alice breathed in the rich scent of beeswax polish and damp autumn night pressing against the tall draperies.
“You provide everything they could ever need,” she continued. “A beautiful home. A governess. Horses. Clothes. Safety. But they do not need another servant to provide those things.”
His gaze returned to hers, piercing and unreadable.
“They need you to sit beside them at breakfast. They need you to ask about their lessons. They need you to know which one hates peas and which one pretends to hate them because his brother does.”
Despite himself, something almost resembling amusement touched his mouth, a subtle softening of his austere lips.
Almost.
Alice smiled faintly.
“They need to know that when they make a mistake, their father will still be there afterward,” she added.
Kenneth’s expression became guarded again, the shutter falling back into place. “You make it sound very simple.”
She shook her head, watching the firelight dance in the ruby depths of his untouched wine glass. “I imagine it is anything but.”
At last, Kenneth moved around the table, the rhythmic thud of his boots heavy on the rug. Alice’s pulse quickened, a sudden warmth blooming in her chest as he stopped beside her chair.
“You are asking me to change the way I raise them,” he said, towering over her.
“I am asking you to be part of their lives.”
Something flickered across his face. Not anger this time, but something raw and far more vulnerable.
For several seconds, he said nothing. The room shrank until there was only the hiss of the dying fire and the sound of his breathing.
Then he bent down towards her, resting his hands on either side of her chair’s armrests. He was close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from him, smell the crisp wool of his jacket and the clean, woodsy scent of sandalwood soap.
His voice, when it came, was quieter. “You are patient with them.”
Alice looked up, meeting his gaze. “I am.”
“More patient than I expected.” There was the faintest hint of reluctant admiration in his tone.
“I suppose that is a compliment.”
“It is.”
His gaze dropped briefly to her mouth before returning to her eyes. “I still expect them to become respectable young men.”
“They will.”
“And disciplined.”
“They will be.”
“And you will not allow them to turn the household into chaos.”
A smile tugged at her lips, breaking the heavy tension between them. “I make no promises regarding the peas.”
Kenneth’s mouth twitched, a genuine, fleeting line of humor. It vanished almost immediately into his usual stern composure, but she saw it.
“You may be right about one thing.”
She waited, her breath catching in her throat.
“I have been… absent.” The admission seemed to cost him dearly, dragged from somewhere deep inside him.
Alice’s heart softened. “You can change that.”
His gaze held hers, wide and unguarded. “I do not know how.”
It was the first honest thing he had said all evening. And suddenly, looking at the formidable duke standing vulnerable in his own grand dining room, Alice understood him a little better.
“You could begin,” she whispered, “by going upstairs and asking Freddie why he has a pocket full of smooth river stones.”
Kenneth blinked, caught off guard. “Stones? In his coat?”
“He thinks they are dragon eggs,” Alice said with a small smile. “He has been carrying them around all afternoon, waiting for them to hatch.”
Kenneth stared at her, the stern lines of his face softening. Then, to her utter surprise, he gave a quiet, breathless huff of laughter that warmed the cool air between them.
“Dragon eggs,” he repeated softly, shaking his head.
“He would be very proud to show them to you.”
He turned toward the doorway, his silhouette blocking the light from the hallway for a brief second, before he paused, his hand resting on the brass door handle.
“Duchess?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
And then he left her alone with the quiet fire and a warmth that lingered long after he was gone.