Page 49 of Her Duke Next Door
But when he burst into Katie’s room, he found a girl sitting up in bed, her voice brighter as she looked at both Dominique and Mary.
“Oh, youaretogether!”
Eloise blurted out, “It worked!”
Dominique stormed over to the curtains in Katie’s room and pulled them open sharply, showing a healthy girl in her bed. “Katie!”
His daughter had already giggled and flung herself into his arms. He startled before placing his hands on her shoulders, pushing her back. She was lying. She had not been ill at all.
“Did you know about this?” he demanded of Mary.
“I—I did not,” she said. “I thought her to be ill.”
“Katie, you have lied to Mary? And me?” Dominique asked his daughter. “I have rode hard these past few days to visit you, thinking you to be gravely ill! Only to find out that you are not ill at all! What is the meaning of this? Why would you do something so devious?”
Katie’s wide, tearing eyes gazed up at him. Her lower lip trembled. “I—Papa?—”
“You are too old to play such silly games, Katie! I was in the middle of business. I am extremely cross with you.”
“But Papa?—”
“I do not want to hear your excuses,” he said, shaking his head. He sighed and walked out of her room, not trusting himself not to scold her too hard. Mary had wanted him away from her so he had left but that had only caused his daughter pain once again.
He walked away from Katie’s room, only to hear footsteps following him.
“Your Grace, you should not scold her so.” Mary’s voice came from behind him. He stalked to his study, whirling around to face her. She hovered in the doorway.
“If you are going to tell me how to parent then you may as well come in,” he snapped. “She is old enough to not do such childish things! She knows I travel a lot. I spent several days of travel worried sick about her, frustrated that I could not be faster with my travel, only to find that there was no reason for her to call me back at all.”
“Katie has been… Acting out these past weeks,” Mary said. “All she has done is talk about you. And I think she had finally gotten used to you being back home when you left. She enjoyed her time with my family, and meeting my nephew. I think to suddenly lose her own father after seeing another family so close was hard on her.”
Dominique still struggled to put his anger to bay but then Mary’s face softened.
“She has missed you, Your Grace.”
“She is not doing anything she is not used to.” He waved her off.
“Your Grace, she is ten years old. Why should she grow used to her papa not being around her as she grows up?”
The question caught him off-guard unpleasantly. “I—I provide her with everything she needs, anything she could ever want.”
“Yes, but they are materialistic things. She needs her father, shewantsher father.”
He stalked to the window, gazing out at the garden, thinking of the days when he would walk around with Katie on his shoulders out there, back before he left to travel away from the ghosts of his past.
“You ignore her, as you are ignoring me,” his new wife accused.
But he did not get a chance to say he was merely reminiscing. Still, Mary came forward, annoyed, trying to be noticed. He merely gazed back at her. Her face was caught in the afternoon dimming light, making her skin glow and the green of her eyes blaze like the richest emeralds.
For a second, he was captivated, and could not look away.
“Mary,” he whispered, her name falling from his lips almost too naturally. She gazed back at him as he did her as if they were thinking the same thing. Seeing each other in this light—perhaps a new light.
“Forgive me, Mary,” he said. “I should not have?—”
“Say it again,” she said boldly. “Say my name again.”
“Mary,” he repeated, his voice soft. “You are not afraid of me, despite the rumors you have been told about?”
