"You told my granddaughter to be still, and the bees would not harm her. Do you remember?" "Yes." "Then be still, child, and do not let a swarm you have not seen frighten you away."
Vivienne began to cry silently without moving. The Dowager Duchess reached out and held her hand. "You are afraid," the old woman said. "Of course you are. You are afraid of drawing rooms, whispers, and mothers with sharp fans. You are afraid of being unequal to it."
"But you are not unequal to it. You knelt in the dirt for a bee. You walked through a swarm for a child. You are exactly equal to it. The whispers are afraid of you. They simply do not know it yet."
Vivienne pressed her free hand to her mouth. She said nothing for a long time. "I will think," she said at last.
"Think quickly," said the Dowager Duchess, releasing her hand. "He does not know that I have told you any of this. I would not have him think I interfered. But I am eighty-two, child, and I have spent enough years being quiet."
That afternoon, while Petra slept and the Duke rode over the estate, Vivienne asked a groom to saddle her a horse and rode toward the west boundary. A soft English rain had begun, and by the time she reached the woods her hair clung to her face and her riding habit was dark across the shoulders. She did not care.
He came round the corner of the path a moment later. He drew up when he saw her. He did not smile. He dismounted at once. "You are wet through," he said.
"So are you. You should not be out alone."
"I needed to think." He came a step closer. He did not touch her. She saw that his hair was dark with water and that a small drop hung at the tip of one eyelash and fell as she watched. "Your Grace," she said.
"Alaric," he said.
She swallowed. "Alaric."
"You are leaving tomorrow."