Page 41 of Matters of a Duke's Heart
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 anythingwith 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.
Chapter 14
“My wife has not emerged from her chambers again,” Spencer sighed to his steward, Thomas Bennington. “It has been three days now.”
“She has not,” Thomas confirmed. “Lottie has been serving her breakfast on the music room terrace.”
“And dinner?”
