Page 26 of The Duchess Trap
The children collapsed into laughter and chatter as they continued firing questions at him so quickly he could scarcely separate them.
“Do you wear a crown?”
“Do dukes fight dragons?”
“Have you ever killed anyone?”
“Children!” Mrs. Simms scolded, clapping her hands. “Mind your manners. His Grace is not?—”
“It’s all right,” Catherine interrupted, her smile widening. “They are only curious.”
Duncan shot her a look of consternation, but she pointedly ignored it. She crouched down among the children, smoothing a girl’s ribbon, listening to their excited talk.
“Is it true, Your Grace,” one boy piped up, his freckles vivid against wind-roughened cheeks, “that you live in a house with a hundred rooms?”
“A hundred?” she echoed, feigning shock. “Good heavens, no! I should lose myself before breakfast.”
The children dissolved into laughter, a high, tumbling sound that made even Duncan hide a smile.
A smaller girl tugged at Catherine’s sleeve. “But do you have a garden, ma’am? With roses?”
“With roses, and weeds enough to keep you all busy if you wish to visit,” Catherine teased. “I shall ask the gardener to ready the pruning shears.”
The giggles that followed were bright and irrepressible, and then came her laughter, clear and warm, spilling effortlessly into theirs. It wasn’t the polite, careful sound she offered at dinners or drawing rooms; this was unguarded, musical, and alive.
Duncan stood a few paces behind, utterly unprepared for it. The sound struck him not to the body, but somewhere deeper.
He marveled at her. Catherine was, quite simply, radiant here. Her green eyes gleamed with light; her smile softened every uncertainty he’d once seen in her. The easy grace of her hand as she ruffled the girl’s hair, the tilt of her head when she listened—all of it set his chest tight.
And still, the questions continued.
“Do you kiss the duchess?” a boy asked suddenly.
The laughter choked out of Duncan’s chest. Catherine froze, her cheeks flaming as she glanced at him, horror in her eyes.
Duncan’s jaw ticked. He adjusted his cuffs with deliberate precision.
The children must have read the sudden discomfort that lapsed between the Duke and Duchess because they instantly dissolved into shrieks of laughter before scattering like startled birds. Catherine pressed her hands to her face. Her shoulders shook as she fought to stifle her own batch of giggles.
Duncan exhaled sharply through his nose, fighting the heat clawing at his collar. “Inquisitive, are they not?”
“They are children,” Catherine said softly, rising to her feet. Her eyes still shone, her lips curved in a smile she could not quite restrain. “You must forgive them.”
He did not answer.
Nevertheless, in that moment, with her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright, her mouth soft with laughter, Catherine looked most becoming. Had she been a lady he’d met at a ball he would have taken her hand and planted a bold kiss across her knuckles. He would’ve allowed his lips to linger and hoped to tempt her into following him so that they might explore what came next.
But this was Catherine, his wife, and he could not forget what he owed her.
I will have her participate in this dance heartily or not at all.
“Your Grace!” Helen’s maid blinked at the doorway, then dropped into a hasty curtsy.
Catherine laughed softly, lifting her skirts as she stepped inside. “Do not look so stricken, Martha. You have known me since I was fourteen. If you bow any lower, you will fall through the floorboards.”
The maid flushed, straightening with a sheepish smile. “Forgive me, Your Grace, it is different now.”
Catherine lifted her chin as Helen’s maid blinked in surprise at the threshold. Her pulse still drummed uncomfortably, a remnant of the morning, the Duke’s presence at Brightwater, his cold formality even as he yielded to her suggestions, and the unbearable way children had circled him with curiosity.
