The Lonely Duke Waited Months for His Bride — Then She Arrived With His Missing Son
Chapter 12
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Marian came with Honoria on the fourth of September. Oliver had prepared a list of questions for his father, beginning with whether the river was angry and ending with whether a man could walk on a wooden leg if he had only hurt his ankle. Benedict answered each with as much patience as he could muster.When Oliver departed for his lesson, Marian sat beside the window. Honoria was at the writing desk in the adjoining portion of the room, near enough for propriety and far enough for ordinary conversation."You frightened me," Marian said."I frightened myself.""You made a joke when they brought you ashore.""I am told I do that when I have nothing sensible left to say.""Then I hope never to hear you be so witty again."He smiled and reached for her hand. She let him take it.They spoke of the long silence after Celia's death. Benedict confessed that he had once believed keeping her rooms unchanged would protect Oliver from forgetting her. Then he realized the boy had become afraid to touch anything that might remind his father of sorrow."Grief taught me to manage," he said. "It did not teach me to live."Marian told him about the years after her father's death. An employer had once praised her for being indispensable, and dismissed her without a week's notice when a relative could do the same work for nothing. She had learned to keep money for the fare home, to make herself useful, and to ask for very little."I began to think being needed was the nearest thing to being wanted," she admitted.Benedict frowned. "Surely you know the difference.""I know it when I see it in another person's life."He asked what she would do if she never married. She described a small school, books, a garden, perhaps a pony. Even if they married, she hoped to teach a few village children. Benedict said the idea pleased him, then caught himself beginning to suggest arrangements before asking what she envisioned. She noticed and let him finish his question.He pictured that table at Harrowmere. He pictured Marian at it on a winter morning, her hair untidily pinned, laughing at something Oliver had said. The image made him long for a future with a force he had not experienced in years."If I were useless tomorrow," she asked, watching him, "if I could not mend an account, or soothe a frightened child, or offer a single practical service, would you still wish me here?""Yes," he began, startling himself with the certainty. "I want—"He looked toward Honoria's pen moving at the desk, and heard in his head the promises a widower had failed to keep. Afraid of speaking something he could lose, he reached for familiar ground. "You have brought so much into this house. Oliver speaks with a freedom I thought he had lost. Even Finch says you helped him see—"She gently withdrew her hand. "That is not quite what I asked."He stopped. The foolishness of his answer struck him, but he could not yet find a better one in the presence of his own fear. "I did not mean—""I know you meant to be kind."