Page 14 of His Scandalous Duchess (Icy Dukes #4)

CHAPTER NINE

“ Y ou’ve had enough of the housekeeper, I imagine.”

“I suppose,” Cecilia responded to him with twitching eyebrows. “Why?”

Valentine stepped farther into the morning room, his gaze brushing over the untouched tea before her.

Cecilia had not been idle all day, that much was clear.

He had seen her trailing Mrs. Linton, the housekeeper, across corridors and staircases all morning, nodding attentively as inventories and staff schedules were recited to her.

“How has Mrs. Linton been so far?” he questioned, placing both hands behind him.

Cecilia adjusted her gloves and lifted her chin a fraction. “Efficient,” she replied. “She has quite the memory. It is such a big manor, I wonder how she recalls everything.”

Valentine’s lips curved faintly, though it wasn’t quite a smile. “She’s been running Ashbourne longer than I’ve had the title.”

“It’s quite obvious,” Cecilia answered, picking up the cup of tea left on the table. “Why have you summoned me into the morning room, Your Grace?”

“Because I’d rather you spent the rest of the day with Abigail.”

Cecilia’s hand paused at her lips just as she was about to take a sip. “Oh.”

Valentine studied her for a beat longer than was polite. “She’s not an easy child to please,” he added after a pause. “So, I reckon it’s important to start building a relationship with her early.”

Cecilia nodded slowly. “I agree.”

He gave a brief incline of his head, but even as he turned to lead her toward the side terrace where Abigail waited, something unsettled lingered.

This woman. Cecilia. From the moment they met, he had not been able to read her, and that frustrated him more than he cared to admit.

He had noticed it from the moment they met.

That absurd, unforgettable evening when she barged into his room and began unfastening her gown without even taking a moment to check her surroundings.

With most people, he could discern their intentions,their angles, their ambitions.

It was second nature to him, like identifying the weight of a coin just by holding it.

Perhaps, it was an effect from years of doing business with different people, but he liked that trait.

He knew how to use that trait to his advantage.

But with Cecilia, there was nothing obvious to hold onto.

At the time when they first met, he noticed that about her, and he’d overlooked it.

He had needed a wife, not a mystery. But in the days since, he’d begun to realize it wasn’t a fluke.

It was her nature. Cecilia talked freely, sometimes to excess, yet nothing she said ever seemed to touch the core of her.

He wasn’t sure yet whether her contradictions were dangerous or harmless. He couldn’t tell if she was playing a long game or if this was simply how she truly was. Different. Unscripted. Difficult to place. But Valentine had no fondness for things he could not categorize.

He glanced at her again as they stepped toward the garden path. “What is it?” he asked, noting that she had said very little.

Cecilia glanced at him. “I’m not sure what you are asking, Your Grace.”

He narrowed his eyes slightly. “You’ve been uncharacteristically quiet.”

“Your Grace, it’s only been a few minutes since we greeted each other for the first time today.”

“I only meant,” he said, with the barest flicker of patience. “That last night’s conversation ended rather abruptly.”

Cecilia turned her gaze forward, where the gravel path wound its way toward the orchard and the edges of the walled garden. The same garden, he recalled, where Abigail had once declared the roses better company than governesses.

“I thought we said everything that needed saying, Your Grace,” she replied at last, her voice calm.

Valentine did not respond immediately. There was a tension behind her words, something pulling tight. She had not seemed angry last night. Not even particularly hurt. But she had left too quickly, and now, this quiet? This measured politeness?

No. He didn’t like it.

“I just wanted to ensure you understood,” he said after a beat, choosing his words carefully. “Also, if you need me to clear up anything, so we make sure we are on the same page, I would be happy to.”

Cecilia turned to him then. “I do understand,” she said gently. “You’ve made yourself quite clear.”

Valentine watched her from the corner of his eye as they strolled. Although she wasn’t the bride he had planned to marry, it didn’t matter. Abigail’s world had grown smaller and quieter. The house had grown colder. Something had to give.

Cecilia, for all her habits and unpredictability, fit the person he had imagined for Abigail.

She had character, she seemed warm, and she grew up with siblings.

What he needed was someone who could walk into Abigail’s silence and bring light.

Someone who wouldn’t shrink beneath the shadows in the house.

Cecilia, despite everything, did not seem inclined to shrink.

“Papa!”

The voice rang out clear across the garden. Valentine turned just in time to brace himself as Abigail approached them in a quick pace, running past her governess. She halted just short of him, lifting her face to greet him with a smile.

He placed a hand gently atop her head and smiled faintly. “I’ve told you countless times not to run like that,” he said. “You seem in fine spirits today.”

She gave a small shrug in response. Valentine studied her face, noting the soft flush on her cheeks, the absent wrinkle between her brows, and for a moment, he allowed himself the hope that this walk might not end in cold silence or sullen glares.

Perhaps Cecilia’s presence had done something already, or perhaps it was just a good morning. Either way, he would take it.

“Are we taking a stroll, Papa?” Abigail asked him.

Valentine nodded in response. “I thought today might be a good day for a walk. I’d like for you and the Duchess to see more of the estate together.”

Abigail turned her gaze toward Cecilia, assessing her in the way only children could. She didn’t blink, but she took her time to give Cecilia a good stare down.

Valentine cleared his throat. “Abigail,” he said quietly. “This is the Duchess of Ashbourne. She is your mother now, and I expect you to treat her with kindness.”

He didn’t look at Cecilia as he said it, but the words were meant for both of them.

Cecilia stepped forward with a graceful curtsy. “It’s lovely to finally meet you, Abigail,” she said gently. “My name is Cecilia.”

Abigail didn’t respond. She only studied her again, then turned and walked on ahead without a word. Valentine exhaled through his nose and offered Cecilia the smallest of glances. “Shall we?” he murmured.

They followed the narrow path that curved around the east wing. Cecilia kept a careful pace beside Valentine, while Abigail darted slightly ahead, her green skirts brushing against the rosemary bushes and low marigold borders.

“It’s so big,” Abigail said suddenly, glancing over her shoulder. “I didn’t know a garden could be like this.”

Valentine’s brow lifted, a flicker of surprise crossing his features. “I take it you’re pleased?”

Cecilia slowly nodded. “It’s so peaceful.

Like, it’s detached from the manor completely.

In a world of its own. It smells heavenly in here.

I like the fountain,” she said, her eyes fixed on the gentle stream of water tumbling from the stone basin.

“It makes a sound like someone humming. Also, the roses…so many colors.”

Valentine felt a small but steady shift in his chest. The compliment, brief as it was, pleased him more than he expected.

He had spent the better part of two years trying to bring the grounds back to life after everything.

It had become a solace for him, a place he frequented when the walls of Ashbourne grew too oppressive.

“I’m glad,” he said simply.

Cecilia turned to him, and he instinctively turned to her too, catching the suspicion etched on her face.

“You’re glad?” she asked slowly, tilting her head just slightly. “That is unexpected.”

Valentine arched a brow, not missing her tone. “Unexpected?” he echoed. “Is it so very shocking that I take pleasure in a compliment to my garden?”

“I wasn’t sure if you were being genuine, Your Grace,” she said plainly. “I find it difficult to tell with you.”

Valentine scoffed. “I have been nothing but honest with you since the moment we met, Duchess. Do you accuse me of insincerity now?”

“I don’t know you well enough to accuse you of anything,” she replied. “That is rather the point.”

“You expected me to be dismissive.”

“I did not say that,” she said with a shrug. “But it wouldn’t have surprised me.”

He paused just slightly, his gaze drifting toward the hedge that framed the edge of the path. “The garden is a place I value. That is all.”

He turned to look at her then, a proper look, not just a passing glance, and for the first time since they’d left the house, he noticed a peculiar shift in her expression. Her eyes, no longer fixed on him, had gone distant. Thoughtful. Distracted.

Valentine frowned faintly.

Before he could speak, Cecilia took two swift steps away from him, her gaze locked on Abigail, crouched a little ahead. She was kneeling in the soft grass beside a low-growing cluster of wildflowers, her fingers brushing lightly over the pale lavender petals.

“Do you like that one, Abigail?” Cecilia asked, crouching beside her. “It’s called forget-me-not. One of my favorites.”

Abigail did not answer, nor did she look up. She only continued to touch the flower with the silent absorption of someone deep inside her own world.

“They say it first grew along the banks of the Danube, where a French soldier plucked it for his beloved before being swept away by the current. Forget me not, he called to her.” Cecilia smiled faintly. “Rather dramatic, I suppose, but that’s how most memorable things start, isn’t it?”

She paused for a moment, touching the flowers too.

“There’s a lot one can do with these, you know.

My sisters and I used to press them between the pages of books.

Sometimes we’d make paper out of them. Very poor paper, mind you, but it was fun.

Once, we tried making ink, though that ended in absolute disaster?—”

Suddenly, and without a single word, Abigail shoved her and made a run for it.

It happened so fast that Valentine didn’t even have time to react. Cecilia’s figure lurched to the side, and before he could so much as take a step, she was swallowed by the hedge.

His breath caught. “Abigail!”

Without hesitating, Valentine crossed the short distance to her in quick, long strides. Cecilia was already attempting to rise, tugging at her skirt with one hand while trying, with the other, to extricate a small branch from her hair.

He offered his hand before he could think better of it. “Forgive her,” he said, his voice low. “She has never done anything like that before.”

Cecilia accepted his help, gripping his hand as he drew her up. Her eyes, when she met his gaze, were not hurt, not even startled, but sharp with something closer to defiance.

“That was low,” she said, panting. “Shoving me when I least expected it.”

“I’ll speak to her,” he added.

“She ran that way,” she said, brushing crushed leaves from her shoulder as her gaze swept toward the path Abigail had disappeared through. “I should go after her.”

“No,” Valentine said quickly, intercepting her movement. “Give her a moment. She knows the grounds, and her governess will find her shortly.”

“But it might be dangerous,” Cecilia added. “Plus, she might probably be upset by something I did, so I–”

“She knows the grounds,” he repeated. “She won’t come to harm. She’s prone to dramatics, but she never strays far.”

Cecilia hesitated, clearly unconvinced, but said nothing more. Her hand moved to her skirts again, shaking out the remnants of soil and green. Another leaf clung to her hair, just above her ear. Before he could stop himself, Valentine reached out and plucked it free.

“There’s another,” he muttered, reaching to pluck a damp, half-curled leaf clinging to her sleeve.

“And here.” His fingers brushed across the lace edge of her bodice where a bit of hedge had snagged.

Then another by her shoulder. A burr was tangled in her loosened ribbon.

Another was tucked just behind her collar.

He stepped around her slightly, not thinking. “Hold still,” he said lowly.

“I can manage,” she said quietly, reaching up with a shaky hand.

“You missed some.”

He reached again, fingertips skimming along the curve of her neck as he swept away a final petal. His hand hovered, just for a moment too long. Then he noticed a faint speck of dust along her cheekbone. Absurdly small. It shouldn’t have mattered.

Yet his hand lifted.

He brushed it away gently, thumb grazing the soft line beneath her eye, and in response, Cecilia froze.

The contact was brief, but it was enough. Her breath caught, and color spread slowly across her cheeks. She looked up at him, startled.

He felt it too. That momentary shift in the air. As if the garden itself had gone still. Then, remembering himself...remembering the boundaries he had so clearly drawn, he stepped away.

Fool .

He had told her only yesternight that he would never touch her. Yet here he was, contradicting himself. He stepped back immediately, dusting his hands against each other. What was he thinking?

Valentine stepped back immediately, the pads of his fingers tingling faintly. He dusted his palms together, as though he could shake the contact loose, erase the heat that lingered in his skin.

“It was a German knight,” he said suddenly, voice a shade too brisk, “not a French soldier.”

Cecilia, still adjusting her gown and tucking loose strands of hair back into her braid, looked up at him, blinking. “Pardon?”

“The legend,” he clarified, gesturing vaguely toward the flowerbed she had gestured to earlier. “You said it was a French soldier who called out to his lady. It wasn’t. It was a German knight.”

She frowned slightly. “Are you certain?”

He met her gaze. “I wouldn’t say it otherwise.”

“I read it in a book,” she said, tilting her head, clearly not one to relinquish her version without a fight. “It said French.”

“Then the book was wrong.” He said it without malice. “It was a German.”

Her lips parted, possibly for a retort, but he didn’t give her the chance. The strange tightness in his chest hadn’t eased, and he didn’t trust himself to linger any longer than necessary.

“I’ll check on Abigail,” he said, his tone reverting to its usual composed register. “I will have a maid bring you a change of slippers. Those are muddied.”

Without waiting for her reply, he turned and strode off toward the corridor of hedges, feeling her eyes follow him until he disappeared beyond the trellis arch.