Page 19 of His Scandalous Duchess (Icy Dukes #4)

CHAPTER TWELVE

“ I am telling you, Norman, she is impossible.”

The clatter of steel rang through the chamber, followed by a grunt as Valentine drove forward in another strike.

Norman parried deftly, boots scraping over the polished oak floor as they moved in rhythm.

Fencing had become one of Valentine’s favorite activities to do with Norman whenever he was on the estate.

It cleared his head. Or at least, it was meant to.

“She’s determined to argue over everything. Over books. Over Abigail. Over...” He shook his head as his blade lowered with exasperation. “Over a children’s story, no less.”

“Goodness,” Norman said dryly. “A woman with opinions. However, will you survive?”

Valentine shot him a look and tossed his blade onto the rack with more force than necessary. “It’s not opinions I object to. It’s the attitude. She storms about the house like some crusading governess, bending every rule that was carefully put in place for a reason.”

“She’s trying,” Norman said, leaning on his own sword. “I imagine it isn’t easy, coming into this house...into this family. You’re not exactly warm and open-armed, brother.”

Valentine exhaled through his nose. “It’s just not what I completely expected.”

“It’s her first time being a duchess, and technically, a mother,” Norman said. “Would you give her some space to figure it out? That’s the issue with you.”

Valentine arched his eyebrows. “What issue?”

Norman lowered his blade and gave him a dry look. “You don’t give room for error, brother. You assume everyone should know what you know, do what you do, and do it perfectly the first time.”

Valentine scoffed. “That’s not true.”

“It is. You’re reserved, calculating, always two moves ahead.

You don’t let people close, and when they don’t behave according to your expectations, you grow cold.

” Norman pointed his blade gently in Valentine’s direction.

“You’re strong, yes. Smart, quick-witted, self-assured, no one doubts that.

But you’re also stubborn. Overprotective to a fault.

Intimidating without trying to be, and half the time, you don’t even realize when you’re being impossible. ”

“Now you’re just spewing nonsense.” Valentine advanced with his blade raised, but Norman didn’t move. He just looked at him. “Watch it.”

“You know what the real issue is?” Norman asked. “You grew up idolizing Father.”

Valentine paused, his grip tightening around the hilt.

Norman pressed on. “The rest of us loved him, but we knew who he was. He was cold sometimes, and a bit too controlling. Impossible to please. Yet,you modeled yourself after him. Every edge. Every rule. You didn’t just carry the Price name, you wore it like armor.”

Valentine turned away, stepping back into the rhythm of the exercise, but his blade didn’t rise again.

“I’m not saying it is a terrible thing, Val.

Father was a wonderful man,” Norman added, more gently now.

“I’m just saying, since you know who made you this way, maybe you can start choosing who you want to be.

..you can be better than him. We have been sparring for over an hour, and you have been talking nonstop about how impossible your wife is.

However, what I can hear is that Cecilia might not be perfect, but she’s trying. You should try, too.”

“Trying?” he asked with raised eyebrows. “A week ago, she was rummaging through the library, looking for a book to read to Abigail. Want to guess which one?”

Norman tilted his head, wiping sweat from his brow. “I have no clue, brother. Which one?”

Valentine drew back, letting his sword fall to his side. “Goody Two-Shoes.”

Norman blinked. “You’re joking.”

“I wish I were.”

Norman gave a short chuckle. “Goody Two-Shoes? Didn’t know we kept that in the library.”

“We do not,” Valentine muttered. “Which is precisely the point. She thought she’d find it there. Thought it fitting for Abigail.”

He had tried, at first, to keep his tone neutral during the encounter that day.

But the irritation crept in unbidden, not because of the book.

..not really. Not even because she’d disobeyed some imagined rule of conduct, but because he hadn’t known what to do with the sight of her perched halfway up a ladder, absolutely sure of her purpose.

It was the way she had looked down at him, sure of her purpose, at ease in a house that had never known ease. That was what unsettled him. Then she had fallen, as expected.

Thinking back to it, Valentine surprised himself by catching her. For that one breathless second they shared, she had stared up at him, winded, blinking in surprise. Her hand had landed against his chest, and his was wrapped around her. They touched.

He had felt something then. A low, curling heat in his chest that made no sense and had no place.

That was the moment that everything started to unravel.

He hadn’t known what to do with the feeling.

He still didn’t. So, as always, he had hidden behind the comfort of coldness.

Behind the shield of sharp words and studied indifference.

Because if he didn’t, if he let himself look too long, or think too deeply, he was afraid he might begin to enjoy her presence. Worse still, he might want it.

Norman leaned back against the wall, arms crossed. “So? You’re angry because she wanted to read Abigail a children’s book?”

“I’m frustrated because she chooses sentiment over sense. It’s not a book I want my daughter exposed to. It teaches the wrong values.”

“How would you know, you’ve never read it?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Valentine pulled off his gloves. “She argued about it. Told me it didn’t matter where a book came from, only what it taught. That obedience and kindness and thrift are virtues, no matter who writes about them.”

Norman let out a soft sigh. “Val, it’s a children’s book. About virtue, I suppose. So what if Abigail reads it? It just makes her well-read.”

Valentine turned to Norman with squinted eyes. “Are you taking her side?”

“No, I am not,” Norman answered almost instantly. “I’m just trying to say that you married her, brought her into this family. You should let her be part of it. Does she not seem like someone who grew up in a loving home? Was she trained well?”

Valentine didn’t respond, but his brow creased slightly.

Norman crossed his arms and glanced off toward the far corner of the room.

“I mean, yes, she seems a little...unconventional. Lively, certainly. But not uncouth. She’s mannered.

Speaks well. Carries herself with dignity.

You might complain that she’s playing in the mud with your daughter, but I don’t think that is something that should bother you.

” He gave Valentine a sharp look at that, but it softened almost immediately.

“She seems to me like someone raised with affection.”

Valentine tightened his grip on the hilt of his blade. He wanted to scoff. To dismiss the entire conversation. But instead, he found himself turning Norman’s words over in his mind.

In a way, Norman was right. Cecilia did laugh too freely, spoke without caution, and sometimes behaved in ways that left everyone startled, but she never said anything truly out of place—never crossed a boundary without knowing exactly where it stood.

She was exuberant, yes, but never crude. Bold, but not disrespectful.

Valentine exhaled sharply, his jaw tensing as he forced the thoughts that were softening his resolve away so he could concentrate. “I’m not continuing this conversation,” he said to Norman. “If you’ve already chosen her side, then there’s nothing else to say.”

Norman raised both hands, still gripping the blade. “There are no sides, Val. We are having a logical conversation, and I am trying to see both sides of this, so I can speak objectively.”

But Valentine had already turned to leave the room. “We’re done for today.”

“Oh, come on. Your Grace!”

He didn’t wait for Norman’s response as he walked off the mat, leaving the room.

“But, Valentine!” Norman called after him, exasperation coloring his voice now. “Fine, at least come to the music room with me.”

Valentine halted just outside the threshold. He didn’t turn, but the pause was telling.

“Abigail’s practicing with her teacher,” Norman added. “Didn’t you say you wanted to drop by?”

A beat passed. Then Valentine gave a terse nod. “Yes. I did.”

Without another word, he adjusted the cuffs of his shirt and started down the corridor.

Norman fell into step beside him, wisely saying nothing more.

Valentine exhaled quietly, slowing his steps as they approached the music room.

The sound of the piano coming from inside was oddly comforting to him, and it pushed against the harsh edges of his earlier mood.

As Valentine approached the music room door, a sound caught him mid-step. It was a soft, familiar laughter. It floated past the threshold like a breeze, catching him off guard. He stilled.

Norman, already opening the door, stepped aside to let him in. Valentine entered, his gaze sweeping the room.

Cecilia was perched lightly on the edge of the pianoforte bench beside Abigail. “No, no, no,” Cecilia was saying in a faux-authoritative tone to Abigail, tapping the keys dramatically with one finger as she giggled. “We have to be serious, Abigail. All right, no more teasing. Play the note again.”

Abigail collapsed in laughter again, her small frame shaking with mirth. “No, play it again. I want to hear it again.”

Valentine remained by the doorway, watching them.

He’d noticed it before, ever since the day in the garden, when Abigail and Cecilia were caught playing in the mud. It almost seemed like whenever he encountered them together, even in passing, they were always laughing.

Abigail laughed more now. Always, it seemed, with Cecilia.