Page 22 of Matters of a Duke’s Heart

“Je n'aime pas la pluie,” Felicity said, already giving Alexander a knowing smile as the small boy gazed out of the window of the school room. He sighed at the wet ground outside.

“What does that mean?” With no hesitation, he climbed off the chair he had been perched on, coming to her side. Over the last three weeks of her being at the manor, Alexander had started losing much of his hesitation in her company, and the two of them were growing closer. It pleased her so much.

“It means, I do not like rain,” she told him. “Would you like to try?”

Alexander pouted and then nodded. He tried to sound out the phrase but forgot it several times. After a few prompts, he finally got it—haltingly so, but Felicity applauded his attempt regardless.

“I think I learn more from you than Mr. Hemming,” Alexander mumbled grumpily, glaring at the tutor that was watching the two of them, confused, and slightly worried. Likely because Felicity kept coming to sit in on the French lessons.

At first it had been a precaution in case Alexander lashed out again, but then it had become a comfort. She had missed her own days of learning the smooth language, and now she found herself enjoying the young boy’s adapting to it.

“It looks as though it has tapered off greatly,” Felicity noted, nodding at the sky beyond.

“How about you and I go riding? We have been cooped up in the manor for several days with the rain not letting up. Mr. Hemming, I hear you are quite fond of visiting the tavern on your leisure time. Would you care to take such a trip?”

He blinked at her overfriendliness, not expecting such a manner from a duchess, no doubt. He looked at her though he tried to figure out if she was trying to catch him out or get him into trouble, but after Felicity drew closer to Alexander, she gave him a hopeful nod.

“I insist,” she added.

“Well.” Mr. Hemming looked between the two of them before nodding sharply. “If Her Grace insists.”

“She does!” Alexander cheered enthusiastically. “Arm-rev-war, Mr. Hemming!”

Felicity held back her giggle at his mispronunciation of au revoir, knowing now was not the moment to correct him, not when he beamed so brightly, likely at remembering the phrase in the first place.

Mr. Hemming quickly packed his things, dismissed kindly, and Felicity led Alexander to the stables.

After the dinner party a while back, her nerves had been on edge regarding Lord Radcliffe, especially when Daphne had reported that he had tried to intercept her trip to the theater with Lord Graham, and then again when they promenaded.

Spencer had already assured her he had men he could send to look over her sister, but Daphne had declined politely.

Now, as the two of them rode out toward the endless fields of Bluebell Manor, Felicity marveled at how well Alexander handled the reins of his small pony. She herself had been assigned with a mare named Elizabeth.

“You ride well,” she noted as they trotted around a curve, keeping the pace steady. The curved path led them further from the manor, but Felicity was sure to never let it go out of her sight.

“My mama died, and after she did, Papa made sure I grew up understanding horses. He wanted to make sure I knew to ride them well.”

Felicity frowned, unsure where the two linked, but didn’t push further. She only gave him an unsteady smile that she hoped looked more assuring.

She expected more silence as they rode, or perhaps for him to share his new favorite line of a poem as he had sometimes done, but instead, Alexander spoke more about his mother.

“I do not think Mama liked me,” he admitted, his small hands clutching the reins of his horse.

“Whyever do you think that, for I am certain it is not the case at all.”

Alexander shrugged for a moment before continuing. “I never really saw her. She always left the manor, left Papa and me. I did not really know her, and my papa hated her, too. I heard him say so to Lord Wexley.”

His words were stilted, as if he struggled to recall everything he wanted to speak about.

“I do not remember a lot about her,” he confessed.

“Papa says that is a good thing, but he never speaks about her, either. He told Mrs. Avery that my mama should have been better to me.” Alexander lifted his eyes to her, full of sorrow and confusion, before he looked away again.

“I do not think I miss her. At least, not with you here, anyway. I like you, Miss Felicity.”

Although the title wasn’t right for her, Felicity had heard him use it several times and it pleased her to know he had called her something just for her, something that felt right in his heart.

He was not pushing Mama onto her, and although she was beginning to care for the small boy, she knew she could not yet be his mother in the true word.

“And I like you, Alexander,” she answered gently.

Together, they rode on with Alexander finally turning his attention to the subjects she had expected.

He asked her for more clarification on some numbers and names of food so he might impress his father at dinner next time.

He declared that he thought he was ready to start having dinners with them routinely soon.

“Dinnertime is sacred,” he told her quietly as they finished up their ride, dismounted, and walked back toward the house. “That is the only time I really see Papa.”

Felicity missed her step she was so saddened by his declaration, but she quickly recovered when she saw a figure in the doorway to the school room. The very empty school room when she knew, deep down, it ought to have been otherwise.

All words died on Felicity’s tongue as she beheld her husband’s hard glare. In his hands were small paper bags that she tried to put the attention on.

“Papa,” Alexander spoke first, getting ahead of her. “Papa, we rode! We rode together!”

Spencer took a moment to look from Felicity to Alexander, and she swore she saw a flicker of pain across his face before it shut down. Felicity hurried to grasp Alexander, feeling fiercely protective of him against her husband’s mood. Had she caused it?

“I think your father is a little upset right now, Alexander,” she whispered. “How about you go on upstairs to your room and wait for me to call you back down?”

“But I think Papa has sweets,” he insisted.

“And I am certain you may have them later,” she assured him. “Go on, now.”

Alexander looked up at her, and then at Spencer, before his shoulders slumped. “Papa is always upset.” With that, he stormed off, throwing the parchment of paper he had taken with him on the ride to write down the words Felicity had helped him remember to present to his father.

Spencer looked at it, but Felicity scooped it up first, tucking it behind her back.

“You are… gentle with him,” Spencer said, his voice strained. There was a vacant look in his eyes as he gazed out at her.

She nodded. “It is not hard to be.”

He lapsed into silence, looking at where she tucked the paper away. “Is that for me?”

Again, she nodded. “He wanted to show you what I taught him,” she said.

“It is not your job to teach him,” Spencer snapped.

“You are to be his mother, not his tutor. You cannot—you cannot send his true tutor away, Felicity!” His voice rose, and she stepped back, not out of fear, but out of knowing that space could be needed.

“I have let you upend my house; I have let you write over memories I clung onto because they were all I had, and I have let you off one too many times with these frivolous adventures through the woodland outside. But I will not tolerate you interfering with my son’s schooling. ”

“Interfering?” she echoed, laughing incredulously. “Spencer, forgive my boldness, but I do not think he is learning anything with his tutor. I am helping him! He is coming on excellently because I am patient with him, and I encourage him.”

“Sending him out for foolish rides on horseback is not encouragement, it is distraction.”

“Yes!” she cried. “It is fun, and that is what a boy with such thoughts often needs. Perhaps you would understand that if you—”

“Do not,” he shouted. “Do not turn this onto me.”

“But it is true! If you can only see how much better he is becoming with his lessons due to these moments where I take him out for walks or rides. Spencer, just speak with him. He misses you! He said that dinnertime—”

“I do not need to hear this,” Spencer snapped.

He shoved the bag of sweets into her unsuspecting hands, and it tumbled to the floor.

He stared down at it, but Felicity was too furious to acknowledge it, let alone apologize.

Spencer stepped closer, his brow tugging.

“I am telling you that I have let go of a great deal of control when it has come to you, Felicity. Do not make me wish I had not.”

“Is that a threat, Spencer?” she whispered.

Is this where you swipe a hand across the mantelpiece and smash the ornament?

He shook his head. “No. It is a plea. Do with the house as you wish, but he is my son, and I shall decide what is best for him.”

“You will deprive your own son of days off,” she accused, “all for the sake of your pride.”

Spencer did not answer, and Felicity only shook her head, moving away. She could not believe it. He was being positively terrible about the whole ordeal. It was one meager horse ride, an hour or two away from the stuffy school room after bouts of rain for days.

Felicity could not help but storm away—away from the duke’s awful mood, away from the sweets she was not sure of the meaning of, and away from the hope that they may have had a pleasant evening together.

“Dinnertime is sacred… that is the only time I really see Papa.”

Felicity held back her emotion, so suddenly drained after standing up to the duke. He was not a terrible father, and she could see the distance between him and his son, but how could he not see that his son just missed him?

The two of them were carriages that drove the same road, parallel, without seeing one another. They both grieved and ached and lashed out, just in different ways.

Neither of them knew what to do with any of it, any of what the late Lady Sophia had left them with, and Felicity could not understand why Spencer couldn’t step up.

Where Alexander desperately wanted his father, Spencer pulled away in fear.

But she was upset with him, for that fear didn’t have to make him so unknowable to his own child. Alexander shouldn’t have to suffer because Spencer couldn’t speak about how he felt, and it couldn’t only be Felicity’s job to bridge the two of them closer together.

Stewing in her annoyance, Felicity went to her chamber and slammed the door shut.

Check on Alexander, she told herself. Ensure he is all right. You must, you must, you must—

But she was suddenly exhausted, torn down by the declaration of Spencer claiming Alexander so fiercely.

It was both bittersweet and awful, for he had brought her in to be his mother figure, yet prevented her from doing so. her doing so. Instead, he left his son wanting so much more,

It was all too much, and she let herself curl up on her bed, needing to find solace in the book she had left on her bedside.