Page 67 of A Duchess for his Family

“No one is allowing them to run wild,” she told him calmly. “Marjorie was learning. Amelia was watching. I was here every moment.”

“And what would you have done had she fallen?”

The question left him more harshly than he intended. Sophia went still. Benedict saw the answer in her face before she spoke. She would have tried to catch the child. She would have placed herself between Marjorie and the ground without considering what it might cost her.

That knowledge did not soothe him. It frightened him more.

“I would not have allowed her to fall,” Sophia said quietly.

“You cannot promise that.”

“No,” she replied. “Nor can you promise that no harm will ever reach them simply because you make enough rules.”

The words struck the oldest wound within him. For an instant, the garden disappeared beneath other images: his brother’s empty chair, two little girls in black, Amelia asleep against his chest while he wondered how a man protected children from a world that had already taken too much.

Benedict’s voice became colder because the alternative was to let it break. “The rule remains.”

Sophia opened her mouth. He had no wish to hear another argument, not while Marjorie remained above the ground, not while the girls watched them, and not while Nathaniel stood near enough to observe every failure of Benedict’s self-command.

“Marjorie, come down.”

“But—”

“Now.”

The child’s mouth tightened.

Sophia looked up at her. “Do as your uncle says.”

There was no resentment in her voice, only a quiet firmness which made Benedict’s anger falter for half a heartbeat. Marjorie began descending. She moved carefully, using the lower branches exactly as Sophia had evidently taught her. When she reached the final one, Sophia stepped forward and placed both hands at her waist, guiding her safely onto the grass.

Benedict watched until both of the child’s feet were firmly upon the ground. Relief came first, then the anger returned to cover it.

“This conversation is finished,” he said.

Sophia’s eyes met his. “Benedict⁠—”

“I have correspondence waiting.”

It was a poor excuse. They both knew it. He turned before her expression could compel him to remain. Nathaniel glanced between them, then hurried after Benedict, protecting what remained of his cognac from the sudden movement. They crossed the lawn in silence for several steps.

“For what it is worth, Marjorie appeared to know precisely what she was doing,” Nathaniel told him.

Benedict did not slow. “She is eight.”

“Yes.”

“And Sophia should have supported my rule.”

Nathaniel looked back toward the tree. “She supported the purpose of it. She merely disagreed with the execution.”

“That distinction is unlikely to comfort anyone after a broken neck.”

Nathaniel’s amusement vanished. Benedict regretted the words as soon as he spoke them, but he could not call them back. He returned to the house. The laughter which had drawn him from his study was gone now.

Nathaniel did not follow him inside. The engineer would be waiting at the lower gate by now. After one last uneasy glance toward the oak, he set his glass upon the terrace wall and went to meet him.

When he reached his writing table, the letters still waited exactly where he had left them. Benedict sat, picked up his pen, and stared at the unfinished page.