“She will not tolerate unfairness,” Rosamund said. “Even among waterfowl.”
“A quality I find rather more admirable in her than in most members of Parliament.”
Clara finished her crumbs, declared the ducks adequately provisioned, and spun toward them with the velocity of a child who had located her next objective.
“Race. From this tree to that one. I am the judge.”
“Absolutely not,” Rosamund said.
“You must.”
“I am wearing —”
“I had not realised,” Tristan said, from somewhere to her left, “that the Duchess feared losing.”
She turned. He stood with his arms folded across his chest and his face arranged into something so precisely, devastatingly innocent it constituted a declaration of war.
“I do not fear losing.”
“Then you merely prefer not to compete? A reasonable position. Entirely sensible.”
“I will outrun you to that oak and back before you have drawn your next breath.”
“Bold. Shall we test it?”
“Ready!” Clara positioned herself between the trees with Bess raised like a starter’s flag. “No cheating. No pushing. If you fall down, you get up and keep running. Those are the rules.”
“Brutal rules,” Tristan said.
“Fair rules. Go!”
Rosamund gathered her skirts and ran.
She had not run—truly run, with the full reckless abandon of a body that had temporarily misplaced its dignity—since girlhood. The ground blurred beneath her boots. The wind tore a strand of hair loose and whipped it across her face. Behind her, Clara’s shrieks split the afternoon—faster, faster, he is catching you—and closer still, the measured tread of a man who was very obviously not running at full speed and was very obviously pretending otherwise.
She reached the oak. Turned. Pressed her back against the bark and gasped.
Tristan arrived three strides behind her, barely winded, the amusement he was suppressing having broken through every barricade he owned.
“You let me win.”
“I allowed you dignity in front of the child. Do not mistake it for weakness.”
She swatted his arm. The gesture was instinctive—the kind of thing she would have done to Eleanor—and her hand connected with the solid muscle of his forearm before her mind could intervene.
She snatched it back.
His gaze dropped to the place where she had touched him. Stayed there. Then rose, slowly, to her face.
Clara crashed into them before the moment could become something neither was ready to name.
“Rosamund is the champion! Your Grace is very slow and must practise.”
“I shall add it to my schedule,” Tristan said, but his eyes had not left Rosamund’s, and the weight of them followed her as she bent to straighten Clara’s crooked collar.
They found a bench beneath the chestnut trees while Clara investigated an ant colony with the intensity of a natural philosopher conducting field research. She would be occupied for some time. Ants, like ducks and pigeons, required her full administrative attention.
Rosamund sat. Tristan sat beside her. The space between them was correct—six inches, perhaps eight—but the bench was narrow and the warmth of him radiated across the gap with a persistence that no spring breeze could dispel.
