The Lonely Duke Waited Months for His Bride — Then She Arrived With His Missing Son
Chapter 5
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"Papa walks quietly, except when he is worried."Benedict gave a helpless laugh. "I am apparently very easy to study."Oliver looked back at Marian. "Will you forget your father?""Never. But some days I think of him with more laughter than tears."The boy considered that with the solemnity of a judge. Then, he showed Marian the wooden horse he carried in his pocket, painted long ago by Celia. Its nose was chipped; its tiny tail had nearly worn away. They spoke of horses until Oliver grew tired and went with Honoria to inspect the kitchen cakes.Benedict stayed by the window. He had expected the mention of Celia to hurt, as it always did. It had hurt, but not alone; there had also been warmth."Thank you," he began.Marian turned toward him. "For listening to your son? He had something worth saying.""I fear I sometimes make it difficult for him to speak of his mother.""He watches your face when he mentions her.""I know.""Perhaps let him see that you miss her, too."Benedict nodded. After a pause, he asked, "Your father taught you to ride?""He did. I was an impatient pupil. My first pony was timid, and I believed courage could be communicated by pulling harder on the reins. Father told me the pony was afraid enough without carrying my temper as well.""That sounds like sound advice for more than horses.""Unfortunately, I did not take it immediately." She told him about an afternoon when she had fallen into a shallow ditch and insisted on climbing out without help while her father sat on the grass and waited.Benedict laughed, a full laugh that surprised him. "And did you finally accept his hand?""After half an hour. I called it a mutual rescue to preserve my pride. I suspect he knew better.""He always did."The grief that passed over her face was brief, but unmistakable. Benedict felt an impulse to comfort her, then realized she had offered him a memory, not asked him to repair its sadness. He simply listened.When he rose to leave, he said, "There is a book in the Harrowmere library you mentioned in your March letter. Would you and my aunt care to visit next week?"Marian agreed.That night, opening her borrowed desk to write to her aunt, she found Oliver's impossible horse tucked into her journal. She smiled, then remembered Benedict laughing. It was his laughter, she realized, that she wanted to hear again.The library at Harrowmere was a long room of high windows, faded carpets, and books whose owners had been dead for a century. Marian entered beside Lady Honoria and discovered Benedict waiting with a slim volume in his hand."You remembered," she said when he showed her the title."I am capable of reading letters attentively.""Most men would consider that an extravagant claim.""Then I shall make no others until I have proved this one."Honoria moved toward the shelves containing travel accounts, leaving them in a conversational privacy that offended no rule of courtesy. Benedict opened the volume to a poem Marian had mentioned during the spring. She told him it had once made her cry on a railway of thought that began with her father's empty chair and ended, absurdly, with a childhood garden.