Page 22 of A Duchess for his Family

For once, Sophia did not feel irritated by the remark. She felt frightened because she understood it.

When the visit ended, the girls walked with them to the door. Amelia pressed a folded paper into Sophia’s hand.

“My list,” she beamed. “Of books I have read. So you may tell me what should come next.”

“And I have made a list of trees,” Marjorie added.

The Duke closed his eyes briefly.

“Not to climb,” Marjorie said quickly. “Only to admire.”

“That remains to be determined,” he replied.

Sophia smiled despite herself. As her mother descended the steps, Sophia paused and looked back at the hall. The twins stood together beneath the great chandelier, two small figures in a house too quiet for them. Amelia lifted her hand in a shy farewell. Marjorie lifted both hands, then remembered dignity and dropped one. Sophia returned the wave.

All the way home, her mother spoke of rank, fortune, duty, consequence, and the extreme rarity of ducal proposals. Sophia heard very little. She was thinking of Amelia’s careful smile, of Marjorie’s weight against her knee, and of a beautiful house where children laughed softly, as though joy itself had been given rules.

The more she thought of them, the harder it became to imagine walking away.

When the question of the final decision arose three days later, it was not posed by the Duke but rather by the girls.

“Miss Norton, will you stop visiting us?”

Sophia had been prepared for many things that afternoon. She had prepared herself for the Duke’s grave expression, for her mother’s hopeful silence, for the dreadful weight of refusing a proposal that any sensible family would call extraordinary. She had even prepared the words.

‘Your Grace, I am honored, but I cannot accept.’

Then Amelia asked her question, and every careful sentence in Sophia’s mind fell apart. The little girl stood near the tea table with both hands folded before her, so neat and still that she looked almost part of the room’s arrangement. Only her eyes betrayed her. They were too wide, too watchful, fixed upon Sophia as though she were listening for a verdict already feared.

Marjorie stood beside her, less composed in every visible respect. Her bonnet ribbon had come half loose, one curl had escaped over her brow, and her fingers worried impatiently at the seam of her glove. Yet even she was not smiling.

Sophia glanced at the Duke. Benedict stood a little behind his wards, tall and severe in dark morning dress. He had said very little since arriving. He had greeted her parents with all due courtesy, accepted her mother’s invitation to sit, and then looked once at Sophia with such quiet steadiness that she knew he had come for her answer.

“I…” Sophia began, but no explanation came.

Marjorie took a step forward. “If you do not come, who will read to us?”

Amelia colored faintly. “Marjorie.”

“And who will walk with us in the garden?” Marjorie continued, gathering speed because distress, in her, always became motion. “And who will listen properly when I tell a story? Uncle Benedict listens, but he looks worried whenever the story has a roof, a pond, or a ladder in it.”

“That is because your stories often end with someone falling,” the Duke said.

“That is the best ending for a story.” Sophia might have smiled on any other day. Marjorie looked back at her. The brightness in the child’s eyes turned brittle. “And Amelia made a list of books. A very long list. She used her best handwriting.”

“I did not mean to presume,” Amelia blushed, as though an apology might soften rejection before it arrived. “Only… you said perhaps we might speak of them.”

Sophia’s throat tightened. She could feel her mother watching from the sofa, silent for once. Her father stood near the mantel, pretending not to attend too closely while attending to every word.

Sophia had told herself she had to refuse. It was the sensible choice. She repeated this for days, until the phrase had worn a groove in her mind. She was not made for a ducal household. She was not grand enough, experienced enough, admired enough. She did not know how to become a duchess merely because a lonely house required one.

But the girls did not ask whether she would become a duchess. They asked whether she would leave. And there it was, the thing Sophia had not allowed herself to name. Amelia and Marjorie were not merely disappointed. They were bracing themselves.

Sophia saw it in the careful set of Amelia’s mouth, in the way she had folded herself into politeness before pain could make her untidy. She saw it in Marjorie’s chin, lifted too high, as if defiance could keep hurt from reaching her. They had lost enough to recognize the shape of another loss before it arrived. The thought was unbearable.

Benedict moved at last. “Girls,” he spoke quietly, “Miss Norton must be allowed to answer freely.”

Marjorie looked down. “We know.”