Page 16 of Matters of a Duke’s Heart

Felicity contemplated his question. Instead of outright asking, she cocked her head, giving him a conspiratorial smile.

“How about you and I take a walk around the grounds? I saw some woodland around the estate when I arrived, but I have yet to venture there, and I have heard you are quite the explorer.”

The praise did the trick, for Alexander’s expression changed into excitement as he frantically nodded. “Yes, please!” He hesitated. “But… Papa said I should not go into the woods.”

“You will be with me,” she assured him. “All will be well. Are you hungry? I can ask the cook to—”

Alexander shook his head.

“Then let us go, then.”

***

The walk out to the woods was exhausting in its own right, and once Felicity and Alexander hit the tree line, she was rather breathless.

“Heavens,” she complained, “I attend my family’s country estate, but it is nowhere near this expansive. And you enjoy coming out here often?”

Alexander nodded. “It is far away from the house.”

That was all he said, and the gentle truth made Felicity pause, her expression crumpling.

“Is that what you prefer?” she asked quietly.

Again, the boy nodded. “It is sad there,” he told her after several long moments where Felicity had thought he’d resigned to not answering verbally. She glanced down at him, her brow raising. “Papa never speaks to me unless it is to scold me, so I do not speak to him.”

“Did your mama scold you?”

Alexander stopped. He frowned up at her, and she got the point that he wouldn’t, or didn’t want to, discuss his mother. She only nodded gently, understanding.

But as they walked deeper into the woods, Alexander spoke again. “Miss Nightingale told me that you are my new mama.”

Grinding to a halt, Felicity was surprised the governess had said such a thing, even if it made sense to give Alexander the simplest explanation of her arrival into their lives.

She decided there and then what sort of action she had to take to secure a good future with him. If she was ever to have a hope of growing close to him or even proving that the duke had made the best choice with her, she could not push. A part of her didn’t want to, anyway. Not yet at least.

“Alexander,” she began, her voice gentle, “I do not have to be your new mama. I do not know if you will speak about your true mother to me, but I assure you I am not here to replace her. If you would like me to I will take on such a role. Yet, for now, it is much more imperative to me that we can simply be friends. Do you think you can see such a thing happening?”

The small boy gazed off into the depth of the trees for a moment, chewing on his lip, before he nodded. “Maybe. That means you must sneak me some extra almond biscuits when I do good in my lessons.”

They continued walking, with Felicity turning her face to hide her smile.

“Well, that depends on you not shouting at poor Mr. Hemming again.” They continued their walk easily.

Felicity found that Alexander was different to his father in the way that, although they both deigned not to speak first, Alexander spoke more when spoken to.

Her heart broke, for it was as though he simply waited to have the chance but never knew what to say first.

Eventually, Alexander mumbled, “Fine.”

“It is important to always be kind,” she told him. “I will not try to lecture you, for I think you are surrounded by enough of that. I am simply here to guide you, if you will let me. I think we really could be friends, no matter what.”

At that, Alexander gave her a pink-faced nod, and then he quickly scampered ahead to a creek that ran through the Bluebell woods. She followed after him at a more leisurely pace, never taking her eyes off him.

With Daphne being only a few years younger than her, Felicity had had some experience in being responsible for a younger child, especially when they were both children themselves. But this was nothing like that, not really.

Felicity was an adult, Alexander a child, and whether he grieved his mother or not, there would be something missing within him. An awareness that he’d once had a mother, but she was no longer there.

The full knowledge that he had a father who remained behind closed doors most of the day. Her heart cracked for Alexander. He must carry so much inside his mind that he never spoke about.

Felicity resigned to become someone he would feel comfortable opening up to, but she would never push. Their progress had time to be slow. After all, what else was she to do in this endless marriage?

***

Miss Nightingale was waiting in the hallway just inside the doorway to the manor, her face pale, and Felicity went to ask why until she saw the duke standing behind her. His face was tight with annoyance, and Felicity kept her smile up when Alexander looked at her.

“Go on, now,” she encouraged softly. “It is all well.”

“Am I in trouble?” he whispered.

“No,” she murmured. She gave him a knowing smile. “I fear it is me who is. Do not worry. Go on with Miss Nightingale.”

Alexander nodded and was hurried away, down the hallway, his questions most likely already piling up. Stiffly, Felicity turned to look at her husband.

“Can you explain to me why I saw Mr. Hemming in a nearby tavern today when he ought to have been in the school room tutoring my son?” he asked. His words were clipped, his irritation flaring in those icy eyes.

Felicity lifted her chin, standing her ground. “Well, I do not know why he was in the tavern specifically, but—”

“Felicity,” he said in warning.

She dropped all jesting. “I walked in on Alexander shouting at Mr. Hemming. He thought his tutor was calling him foolish or implying he could not do what was instructed. The tutor was cowering, and I very lightly scolded Alexander and talked him down. I thought that Mr. Hemming could use the rest of the afternoon to regather himself, and Alexander could use some fresh air. We have just been to the Bluebell woods.”

“Merriweather Woods,” he corrected, before going tense. His jaw tightened as Felicity frowned.

“As in—”

“Your family’s title, yes,” he said. “It has been a custom in my family to extend the nod of respect to the new duchess’s family. It is a wedding gift, of sorts. It is often renamed, of course.”

Felicity thought about how it would never have been Bluebell woods, then, but perhaps Harrington, after Lady Sophia.

“You did not say,” Felicity pointed out. “That is a rather touching thing.”

“Touching or not, I do not—” He cut himself off, his eyes narrowing. He didn’t say it outright that he disagreed with her, as if he thought himself too controlling if he did.

“You do not agree,” she accused softly.

“No.” His words were bitten out. “He ought to be in his lessons. That is proper.”

She carefully chose her next words. “He is not at all the rebellious boy everybody has made him out to be. I… I can see that he is frustrated and lonely, and he acts out because of it.” The tension in the duke’s face cracked for a moment, giving way to guilt.

It was there, and then gone, only a flicker of vulnerability.

“I think he wants to spend more time with you but fears that is not what you want.”

“Do not—”

“Perhaps if you did spend more time with him,” she scolded, growing frustrated. “Then you would have more care to not immediately blame Alexander for his tantrums, and perhaps look toward the man who has not spent enough time with his son.

Perhaps he is acting out because he misses his father and never knows what to say to him unless he is trying to impress him.” Her words flung out accusingly and she stepped closer.

In a moment, the duke’s hands clasped her wrists, his thumb brushing down the pulse point, and her heart took off like a hummingbird. She blinked at him, startled by the sudden contact. Did he feel her pulse racing? His hands were warm against her skin, distractingly so.

A blush settled on her face, and she could only gaze into those eyes, less sharp and icy at her scolding, but still hard with irritation.

“Perhaps then,” she continued, her voice quieter, “he would not be such a hellion. Although, for what it is worth, that is not an opinion I share at all.”

And then she tore from his grasp and stalked away, trying to ignore the fact that she could still feel his fingers on her skin. To her further horror, she found that wished she had not pulled back so soon.