"Stay Out of This, You're Only the Governess," His Fiancée Snapped — The Duke Stood in the Doorway
Chapter 4
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"Merivale! A whole day early, and in this dreadful rain! You will catch your death, and I shall never forgive you."She was, he thought, quite the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her gown had been changed. The carpet in the morning room had been swept. The daffodils were gone. And the Countess rose from the sofa to say how well he looked, and how wild the dear children had been all day."Quite wild," Lady Arabella agreed, laughing. "You will have to be firm with them, my love. I have been telling Mama that they want a man's hand.""Have you?" the Duke said. "I shall go up and see them."He went up at once, still in his traveling clothes, and the nursery door flew open before he reached it. Thomas struck him at the knees, and Charlotte was lifted onto his shoulder before she could decide whether to cry or laugh, and so she did both. The nursery fire was lit, the kettle sang on the hob, and on the table by the window, a brown jug held the daffodils, their stems trimmed, their heads already drooping a little."They're for you," Thomas said. "Miss Fenwick said they would keep till tomorrow if we didn't tell, but you came today, so it doesn't count.""It counts," said the Duke. "It counts a great deal."Miss Fenwick stood by the fire with her hands folded. She was rather pale, and there was a smear of river mud on the cuff of her green sleeve that she had not yet had time to change. She curtsied and said, "Your Grace," exactly as she always did.He looked at her for a moment over his daughter's head. He saw that she expected to be dismissed, and that she had decided to say nothing in her own defense. He saw that she had told the children nothing at all."Miss Fenwick," he said, "you have had a long day.""No longer than any other, Your Grace.""I think," said the Duke, "that it was longer." And he set Charlotte down, kissed the top of Thomas's dark head, and went out.She did not know what he meant by it. She stood by the fire a long while after he had gone, with Charlotte's arms about her waist, and told herself it was foolish to hope for anything from a man who had been engaged to Lady Arabella for three months and had never once asked the children what they thought of her.But he had not sent for her—that was something. She put the twins to bed, said their prayers with them, and went to her own small room to wait for morning.Morning did not come quietly.A little after 1:00, Lydia woke to a sound she had not heard since her father's house: a child coughing with the hard, barking note of a seal, and fighting for each breath between. She was out of bed before she had finished waking, and in the night nursery with a candle before the nursemaid had stirred.