Page 27

Further to that point, Magnus had resolved not to let himself become undone by his wife again. The last time they had argued, he had crumbled on account of his lust, letting her get away with standing up to him when she should have known better. At least now she would know that he wasn’t one to be taken so lightly.

And hopefully a precedent might be set. Hopefully now she will know better than to argue with him. Hopefully that might nip in the bud any future... testy engagements.

“Your Grace!” Miss Brooks called to him from down the hall. “Your Grace!”

Magnus turned to find Miss Brooks hurrying after him, looking vexed as she did.

“Miss Brooks,” Magnus said. “What are you doing – why are you not with the girls?”

“I debated if I should tell you.” She came to a stop, out of breath and red in the face. “I was not certain if I should. But I worry for the girls. And you deserve to know.”

“What happened?” He looked past her, fear spiking through him. “Are they hurt?”

“What? No, of course not. It is...” She bit her lip. “It is... Her Grace. She has... she has ignored your order and taken the girls outside to play! I tried to stop her but --”

“What!”

“She was insistent! And what could I do?”

Magnus had stopped listening. Where before he was confused with how he felt around his wife, now that confusion was a thing of the past. Anger was what he felt. Fury at being so directly disobeyed.

To stand up to me is one thing. To have conviction in one’s own belief is one thing. But to go directly against my orders...

He stormed past Miss Brooks, his body shaking now with rage.

Magnus heard the girls before he saw them. Laughter was what he heard, coming from the back garden. If he was in a better state of mind, he might have stopped to realize that it was the first time he had heard the girls laughing in such a way since their father had died. He might have understood the importance of such a thing, conceding that in this, his wife had been correct.

Magnus was not in a better state of mind. And so, when he entered the back garden and saw the girls running around the large oak tree in the back corner, falling over and covered in dirt, he snapped.

“What is this!” he roared as he strode across the garden. “Josephine! Adeline! What do you think you are doing?”

The two girls froze as if they were statues. At first, it was just the two of them who he saw, his sights set squarely on their shoulders. But then his wife rounded the tree, hands held above her head as if she was chasing them.

“Do not stop!” she cried. “Otherwise, I will catch...” she trailed off when she saw Magnus coming.

“Duchess!” Magnus exclaimed as he came toward his wife and two nieces. “What is the meaning of this?”

In his wife’s defense, she did not look nearly as petrified as he might have expected. Although that was also a problem, as he sensed immediately this wasn’t going to be nearly as easy an argument to win as it should have been.

“I wish to say that we are playing... but that seems entirely too obvious an answer.”

He came to a stop a few feet away. Adeline and Josephine coward back, half-hidden behind Diana. He hated to see them like that, to think that they feared him. He did not want them afraid! That was not his intent at all. What he wanted was for them to be raised properly, to appreciate what he was trying to do.

“Did I not make myself clear, earlier?” he said, doing what he could to keep his temper under control.

“Concerning?”

He sucked through his teeth, rage building. “You know well what. I asked that Adeline and Josephine be left to their studies, and you deliberately disobeyed me.”

“I thought --”

“I did not ask for what you thought,” he snapped. “I gave an order, and I expected it to be followed.”

“And order?” she scoffed. “I was not aware that I worked for you.”

“That is not --” He bit back his tongue, only too aware of the two girls watching. He took some heart in seeing them hide behind the Duchess in defense, as clearly, they were warming up to her. But why did it have to be in defense of him? “Girls, Miss Brooks is waiting for you inside.”

Josephine looked at the duchess. “But... but she said...”