Page 20 of The Duke’s Caught Bride

The gravy boat lay on its side. Thin amber sauce spread across the rug’s intricate pattern, following the channels between floral motifs with the patient determination of liquid mapping territory.

Freddie froze. His face performed a rapid sequence: triumph, followed by the realization that the triumph had exceeded its intended scale.

Kenneth had grown slightly red. His eyes were narrowed, his lips pursed. When at last he spoke, his voice was icy.

“Frederick Stafford…”

The boy’s face crumpled not quite with remorse, but with the apprehension of someone who knew precisely what came next.

Alice rose and crossed to the fallen gravy boat. “It was an accident,” she said gently.

Kenneth’s gaze snapped toward her. “It was not.”

“No,” she agreed. “But it can still be treated as one.” She righted the gravy boat and glanced at the rug. “Besides, the carpet has survived worse.”

“Duchess…” There was warning in Kenneth’s voice.

Alice met his eyes. “I know.”

She returned to her chair and saw him turning his gaze to his sons.

“Both of you, to your chambers,” he ordered.

The boys bolted from their seats with a thunder of small boots on the polished mahogany floorboards, the heavy dining room doors clicking shut behind them.

Silence fell over the room, broken only by the steady crackle of the fire. Alice caught the faint, sweet scent of roasted chicken drifting from the abandoned dinner plates.

Kenneth remained seated, his hands braced against the edge of the table. The amber glow of the candlelight caught the sharp angles of his cheekbones and the unyielding cut of his tailcoat.

“They ought to be disciplined,” he said, looking at her.

Alice adjusted her grip on her silk napkin, feeling the intricate lace embroidery under her fingertips to anchor herself. “They ought to be taught,” she agreed.

His dark eyebrows drew together. “That is precisely what I intend to do.”

“I know.”

“Then why do you keep interfering?”

Alice’s chin lifted, the stiff velvet of her high collar brushing her throat. “Because they are frightened of you.”

Kenneth went still, his silhouette cast long and rigid against the gilded flock wallpaper behind him. “They are not frightened of me.”

“Freddie was.”

“He was frightened of being punished.”

“There is a difference.”

Kenneth’s expression hardened, shadows deepening in the hollows of his face. “You have known them scarcely a month.”

“I have spent enough time with them to see the truth that you deny.” Alice immediately regretted her words, their harshness clashing with the soft ticking of the mantel clock. But she did not take them back.

Kenneth pushed away from the table, the heavy oak of his chair scraping subtly across the Oriental rug. “You know nothing of what it is like to raise boys alone.”

“No,” she said quietly, her voice barely carrying over the spit of pine sap in the grate. “But I know something about children who are desperate to be loved by their father.”

His jaw clenched, a muscle working beneath his fair skin.