Page 41 of The Duke’s Caught Bride

The afternoon passed quickly. Alice watched from the morning room window as Jonathan led the twins across the south lawn, the telescope passing between them.

At eight, the dining room felt strangely warm. Cook had prepared a treacle tart that Freddie spotted the instant he entered.

“Uncle Jonathan gets the small piece,” he announced, sliding into his chair. “Because he said my fox was a dog, and he was wrong.”

“It was a dog,” Charlie insisted, unfolding his napkin across his lap.

“You don’t know that.”

“It came when Mr. Briggs whistled.”

Jonathan dropped into the seat beside Alice and accepted a glass of wine from the footman. “I see the prosecution has prepared its case. I yield to the terrier.”

Kenneth carved the lamb. He placed slices on each plate without asking about preferences. Alice noticed that he gave Freddie the largest portion and Charlie the leanest, because Charlie disliked fat and Freddie would eat anything that held still long enough.

He knew them. He paid attention in ways he would never articulate, despite her accusation that he was absent. Heat rushed to her cheeks.

“Tell us a story,” Freddie demanded around a mouthful of lamb. He pointed his fork at Jonathan. “About when Papa was young. Did he ever get in trouble? I bet he never got in trouble.”

“Your father,” Jonathan said, leaning back in his chair, “once rode his horse through the east wing of this castle on a dare.”

Kenneth set down his knife. “That is not an appropriate dinner story.”

“It is an excellent dinner story,” Jonathan countered. “He was sixteen. The horse was a grey mare called Vesper. She cleared the corridor but refused the turn at the gallery, and your father dismounted involuntarily into a suit of armor that had stood in that alcove since the reign of Henry the Eighth.” He sipped his wine. “The armor survived. Your father’s dignity did not.”

Freddie giggled. Charlie had stopped eating, his fork suspended above his plate, and a grin spread across his face that Alice had never seen before. It transformed him. He looked like a boy instead of a miniature diplomat.

“What happened to the horse?” he asked.

“Vesper lived to a grand old age and was buried on the estate. Your father wept at the funeral, though he will deny it.”

“I did not weep.”

“You were observed weeping by three stable hands and a gardener. The evidence is overwhelming.”

Kenneth reached for his wine, and Alice caught the softening around his eyes, the loosening of his shoulders that Jonathan’s presence seemed to elicit against his will. She had not seen him this close to relaxed since the night in the carriage. Since the kiss that still burned at the edges of her sleep.

She looked down at her plate.

“Was Vesper here before Mama?” Freddie asked.

The table stilled. Alice felt the shift before she understood it, a tightening of the air itself, as though the room had drawn in a breath and held it.

Kenneth’s hand froze around the stem of his glass.

“Vesper was here before your mother, yes,” Jonathan said carefully.

“Did Mama like horses?” Freddie pressed. He was leaning forward, his lamb forgotten, his eyes fixed on Jonathan. “Papa never talks about her. Did she ride? Was she good at it? Did she ride Vesper?”

“She rode.” Jonathan glanced at Kenneth. “She preferred the garden, though. Your mother loved flowers. She redesigned the south border the year before you were born.”

“What kind of flowers?” Charlie’s voice was barely audible.

“Roses, mainly. She had a fondness for the climbing variety. White ones, if I recall correctly. She trained them along the wall beside the orangery.”

“There are no roses on that wall,” Charlie pointed out.

Silence fell over the dining room. Kenneth had gone rigid in his chair, his knuckles white around his glass.