Page 79 of A Duchess for his Family

Sophia looked over Amelia’s shoulder. The little bird had a round body, a solemn eye, and, thanks to Marjorie, a weapon nearly twice its length.

“I fear the sword may make flying difficult,” Sophia said.

Marjorie considered this. “He may leave it upon the ground until needed.”

“That seems sensible,” Amelia replied, though her mouth trembled.

Marjorie leaned back against the cedar trunk, satisfied. “Uncle Benedict would not approve.”

The words fell lightly, but Sophia’s fingers stilled upon the sewing in her lap. Amelia’s pencil paused, too.

“Of the sword?” Sophia asked.

“Of the robin fighting,” Marjorie clarified. “He would tell it to remain in its nest.”

Amelia looked down at her drawing. “Only if he thought something might happen to it.”

“Something always happens,” Marjorie replied. “That is what makes a story.”

The breeze stirred the branches above them. A drop of rain fell from a needle and darkened the paper near the robin’s foot. Sophia dabbed it gently with her handkerchief.

“That is why Uncle Benedict always worries,” Marjorie added.

Amelia nodded. “Mhm, because he loves us very much. But he worries all the time.”

Marjorie pulled a cedar cone apart with restless fingers. “He even worries when nothing is happening.”

“That is often when he worries most,” Amelia said.

Sophia looked at her. Amelia inherited the peculiar gravity of children who learned too early that happiness might alter without warning. She bent her head over the drawing, with her dark lashes lowered.

“He comes to the nursery at night,” she revealed. “He thinks we are asleep.”

Marjorie glanced up. “I am usually awake.”

“You are usually pretending to be asleep because you do not wish him to ask why you are awake.” Amelia traced the edge of the paper. “He stands beside the beds and looks at us. Sometimes he touches the curtains or checks the fire, though Nurse has already done it.”

Something tightened in Sophia’s chest. She could see Benedict doing it: silent in the dim nursery, moving through the shadows with the same stern concentration he brought to matters of estate and Parliament, as though vigilance might bargain with fate, as though the world could not take anyone he loved if he stayed awake long enough to prevent it.

“He did not worry so much before,” Marjorie sighed.

“Before what?” Sophia asked softly, though she already knew.

“Before Papa died,” Amelia whispered.

Marjorie’s fingers closed around the broken cedar cone.

“And Mama,” she added.

The girls rarely spoke of their parents. Sophia never pressed them. Their grief lived within Rivermere like a room whose door remained closed, not forbidden, but approached with care.

Amelia’s gaze remained upon the sword-bearing robin. “Papa used to let us climb the pear tree near our old house.”

“The branches were very high,” Marjorie said, her eyes beginning to brighten. “Higher than the oak at Keswick.”

“They were not.”

“They were nearly as high.”