Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
“It was his idea,” Freddie accused, water dripping from his hair into his eyes as he pointed at his brother.
“He said the boat would sail better with a sail, and I said sails need wind, and he said the pond has wind because the garden has wind, which is logical, but then he wouldn’t let me test it properly and tried to grab the boat, and I held on, and he pulled, and… ”
The ornamental pond lay in ruins. Water lilies, once arranged in careful constellations across the dark surface, now floated in dismembered clusters. At the center of the devastation stood the twins, soaked to the skin and still trading accusations as loudly as possible.
“It was not my idea!” Charlie stood very still, his arms crossed over his chest in a posture that combined defiance with the dignity of a boy determined not to shiver despite the spring chill penetrating his wet clothes.
“I told him the boat was too heavy, and the pond wasn’t for sailing! I told him—”
“Enough.” Kenneth’s voice carried across the water with the force of a door slamming.
Both boys fell silent. Freddie’s mouth remained open, as though his father’s voice had interrupted not just his speech but the very mechanism that allowed him to close his jaw. Charlie’s arms tightened across his chest.
“You have destroyed,” Kenneth said, each word measured and cold, “a feature of this garden that has existed since before either of you were born. The water lilies were planted by my grandfather. They are not toys. They are not props for whatever fantasy you have constructed in the absence of adequate supervision.” His gaze moved from Freddie to Charlie and back.
“Explain yourselves. Properly. Without interrupting each other.”
Freddie found his voice first.
“We were only sailing.” His tone had shifted from defensive to almost contrite. “Charlie made the boat last week. We thought it would be fun to see if it would float. And it did float, Papa. Very well. Until Charlie decided it shouldn’t.”
“I decided it shouldn’t because it was sinking the lilies,” Charlie said quietly.
“They were getting crushed. I could see it happening. I tried to take the boat back, but Freddie wouldn’t let go, and then he pulled, and I pulled, and we both fell in.
” He looked down at his sodden shoes. “I’m sorry about the lilies. ”
“I am not sorry!” Freddie blurted out. “They’re flowers.
They grow back. The head gardener grows new ones every year.
I’ve watched him. He has special dirt he keeps in the shed, and he talks to the lilies when he thinks no one is listening, which is peculiar, but it seems to work because they always come back, so really we’ve only accelerated the natural cycle of—”
“You are confined to your chamber,” Kenneth cut in.
“Both of you. For a fortnight. No riding. No visits to the village. You will receive lessons and meals in your room. Now, you will apologize to the head gardener, and you will assist him in whatever repairs he deems necessary. And you will do so without complaint or commentary.”
The color drained from Freddie’s face. “A fortnight? But the bay pony—”
“Is not your concern for the next fourteen days,” Kenneth interrupted again. “Neither is the village fair. Neither is whatever scheme you had devised for the remainder of the week, which I can only assume involved further destruction of property, given the pattern thus far established.”
“Your Grace… If I may, I find that rather harsh.” The words left Alice’s mouth before she could recall them.
She stepped forward, her hand finding Freddie’s shoulder without looking, and felt the small bones tense beneath her palm.
“They made a mistake. They’re wet, cold, and they’ve already apologized.
A fortnight without riding seems excessive for an accident. ”
Kenneth turned to her. The look he gave her carried the same cold precision she had seen in the study, but it was distilled now, sharpened by the public nature of her challenge and the audience of two small boys.
“I will determine what constitutes appropriate discipline.”
“They are children.” Alice kept her voice steady despite the heat rising in her cheeks. “Children who fell into a pond because they were playing. The appropriate response is not to exile them from every activity that brings them joy for a period that will feel like eternity to seven-year-olds.”
“They need to understand consequences.” Kenneth’s jaw worked once.
“Consequences that extend beyond a stern talking-to and a biscuit before bed. This household operates on rules. When they are broken, there are penalties. That is how the world functions, Duchess, and shielding them from that reality does them no favors.”
“Understanding consequences is one thing; being crushed by them is another.”
Freddie had gone rigid beneath her hand, his shoulders rising to his ears as he stared at the ground. It made her want to pull him closer.
Kenneth looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Inside,” he ordered. “Both of you. Change into dry clothes. Then you will find the head gardener and offer your apologies.”
Charlie moved first. He walked past his father with his eyes on the ground, his wet shoes leaving dark prints on the gravel path. Freddie hesitated, his gaze moving from Alice to Kenneth and back, then followed his brother with the reluctant tread of a prisoner approaching a cell he knew well.
Kenneth watched them go without glancing at Alice.
“I would appreciate it,” he said when the boys had rounded the corner of the hedgerow, “if you would refrain from undermining my authority in front of my children. We may disagree on matters of discipline in private. In their presence, we present a united front. Is that clear?”
“It would be easier to present a united front,” Alice retorted, “if the front you presented were something I could stand behind.”
He turned to her then. The distance between them was mere feet, but it might as well have been miles for all the warmth that crossed it.
“Your conscience is not the arbiter of how I raise my sons. You were brought here to provide stability, not to rewrite the rules of this household according to whatever notions of child-rearing you imported from Peltbury.”
“I was brought here,” Alice said, each word colder than the previous one, “because my sister vanished and you decided I would do as a substitute. I did not choose this. But I am here, and I will not stand by while you treat those boys as though their childhood is an inconvenience to be monitored rather than a gift to be cherished.”
He held her gaze for three heartbeats. Then he turned away and walked off toward the house.
Alice stood alone by the ruined pond. The water had settled, its surface smoothing over the disruption, and a single water lily floated intact near the far bank, its white petals open to the afternoon light as though nothing had happened at all.
The rest of the day passed in quiet. As the boys stayed in their chambers, Alice stayed in her own, electing to take supper there rather than the dining room, though she did not want to face her motives for doing so.
When morning came, concern plagued her, and she made her way to their chambers. The door stood ajar. She paused on the threshold. It was eerily silent within.
She knocked softly and pushed the door wider.
Freddie lay on his stomach on the window seat, his chin propped on his fists, staring at the distant tree line with the concentrated gloom of a prisoner surveying the walls of his incarceration.
Charlie sat at the small desk beneath the bookshelves, a primer open before him, though his finger had stopped moving down the page some time ago and now rested motionless beside a column of sums.
Neither boy looked up when she entered.
“Good morning,” Alice greeted, moving to the armchair near the hearth. She settled into it with a deliberation that suggested she intended to stay.
Freddie’s response was a grunt directed at the windowpane. Charlie turned a page without reading it.
“I brought scones.”
She produced a napkin from her pocket, unfolded it on the low table between the armchair and the window seat, and arranged three scones in a neat triangle. They were still warm from the kitchen, the scent of butter and currants rising between them like a small flag of truce.
Freddie’s gaze slid sideways. His resolve lasted approximately four seconds before his hand darted out, claimed a scone, and retreated to the window seat where he consumed it in three bites.
Charlie accepted his with a murmured “Thank you.”
“The head gardener says the water lilies will recover,” Alice said, brushing a crumb from her skirt.
“Apparently, they are more resilient than they appear. He’s already replanted the ones that were salvageable, and the others will be replaced from the cutting garden.
The pond will look exactly as it did within a fortnight.
Possibly better, as he’s taking the opportunity to thin the crowding near the eastern bank. ”
Freddie scoffed. “A fortnight… like our punishment.”
“Your father’s punishment is… severe,” Alice sighed. “I won’t pretend otherwise. But it comes from a place of concern, not cruelty. He wants you to understand that actions have consequences. That the world beyond this castle operates on rules, and those rules are not always negotiable.”
“Rules,” Freddie huffed, flopping onto his back to glare at the ceiling. “Rules about the water, rules about the boat… Nobody cared about those silly flowers until yesterday! Then Papa’s yelling like we destroyed Grandfather’s prized treasure. It’s not fair!”
“It’s not about the lilies.” Charlie’s voice was quiet. He had set his scone down half-eaten, his fingers tracing the edge of the primer’s cover. “It’s about us not listening. We never listen. That’s what he’s angry about.”
Alice looked at him. The observation, delivered in that soft tone, carried more accuracy than she’d expected.