Page 64 of A Duchess for his Family

Nathaniel’s grin widened. “Right beside her.”

Benedict pushed back his chair. “In the tree?”

Nathaniel laughed. “No, no. Her Grace remains upon the ground. She is merely watching the whole affair with remarkable composure.”

For one suspended moment, Benedict said nothing, then he rose. The chair struck the carpet behind him.

“Which tree?”

“The oak beyond the east garden.”

Benedict crossed the study before Nathaniel had finished speaking.

“Ah,” Nathaniel pointed out, rising with considerably less urgency. “I see your position remains unchanged.”

Benedict strode into the corridor. His boots struck the polished floor with enough force to summon a footman from the far end of the passage. Benedict ignored him. The east garden lay beyond the morning room and across the south lawn, farther than he had any patience to walk at present. Behind him came Nathaniel’s hurried steps.

“Slow down,” Nathaniel called. “Some of us are carrying valuable spirits.”

“No one instructed you to bring the glass.”

“I had scarcely begun it. Abandoning good cognac would be wasteful.”

Benedict descended the stairs two at a time.

“It would be less wasteful than spilling it upon the carpet.”

“You are remarkably concerned with carpets for a man whose ward is apparently in mortal danger.”

The words tightened something already drawn painfully taut inside Benedict.

Marjorie in a tree.

He saw, not the harmless adventure Nathaniel evidently imagined, but the broken branch beneath the old oak at Keswick. He remembered leaves scattered across the grass, Amelia’s white face, and Sophia’s torn glove. He remembered the sickening certainty that he had arrived too late.

He had spoken plainly after that incident. There was to be no climbing without permission, no climbing without supervision and no height greater than he judged safe. There had been no ambiguity.

He crossed the morning room and pushed open the terrace door. The garden air met him, warm and fragrant with roses. Somewhere ahead, beyond the clipped yews, Marjorie’s laughter rang out. Benedict’s jaw tightened.

Nathaniel emerged behind him, still holding his cognac with impressive determination.

“She sounds grievously injured,” he remarked.

Benedict did not answer. They followed the gravel path past the rose beds. The laughter grew clearer. Marjorie’s was bright and triumphant, Amelia’s was softer, and Sophia’s was warm enough that Benedict might have stopped to listen under very different circumstances.

Then the oak came into view. Marjorie was perched upon a broad branch several feet above the ground… several feet too many. Amelia stood below with both hands cupped around her mouth, offering advice which Marjorie had plainly ignored. Sophia stood beside her, with one hand raised toward the child, her face turned upward.

“Move your left foot to the branch beneath you,” Sophia instructed. “No, not that one. The thicker branch.”

“I can reach the higher one.”

“You are not going higher.”

“I would only be a little higher.”

“And I would still say no.”

Marjorie sighed with the burden of being denied all reasonable pleasures. Sophia laughed.