Page 58 of The Duchess Trap
In the classroom, sunlight pooled over rows of benches where children bent over their slates. The moment Catherine entered, heads lifted at once.
A chorus of delighted cries erupted,and in seconds, she was surrounded. Their little hands reached for her, their voices overlapping in a rush of questions and laughter.
Catherine knelt instinctively, skirts fanning around her.
“Goodness,” she laughed softly. “If I had known I’d cause such commotion, I might have sent word first.”
A freckled boy thrust a slate toward her, words scrawled in uneven chalk:Welcome home, Duchess!
Her throat tightened. She smiled through it. “That is the finest handwriting I have ever seen, Thomas.”
He grinned, proud as a prince. “I practiced for you.”
“I can tell.” She brushed a stray lock from his forehead, the gesture instinctive. “And have you all been good to Mrs. Simms in my absence?”
A collective murmur rose, and Catherine’s laugh, real and unguarded, filled the room. For a little while, she let herself be theirs again, the lady who listened and remembered the names of the children most others forgot.
Then a small boy near the front tugged at her sleeve. “Where’s your husband, Your Grace?” he asked solemnly. “Is he at home?”
The question was so innocent, so guileless, it nearly undid her.
She forced a light tone. “He is attending to business, Henry.”
“What kind of business?” another child piped up.
Catherine hesitated. Whatkind, indeed? Affairs of property? Negotiations? Or the sort of distant, private endeavors that left her staring at cold plates in empty rooms?
She smiled faintly. “Important business, I’m told. A duke’s duties never rest.”
They accepted this with varying degrees of satisfaction, some nodding as if it made perfect sense, others frowning as though it did not.
But the boldest of them all, Rosie, a dark-haired girl with sharp green eyes, tilted her head and said, “Is he kind?”
Catherine blinked. “Kind?”
Rosie nodded gravely. “My brother says dukes aren’t kind. He says they’re too busy telling people what to do.”
Catherine bit back a smile. “Your brother sounds very wise.”
“He’s ten,” the girl said proudly.
“Then wiser than most men twice his age.”
The laughter that followed was warm, genuine, rippling through the room like sunlight across water. But as it faded, the same girl asked softly, “Is the Duke a wise man? Do you love him dearly?”
Catherine hesitated. Around her, curious faces waited, eyes wide and expectant.
Did she love him? The question was too simple for the truth. She thought of Duncan’s voice in the dark, his hand braced against the wall beside her head, the way he had pleasured her in the garden, the burn of his nearness and the chill of his retreat. She thought of every time he had left without a word and every time she had hoped he might stay.
Her throat ached. “The Duke,” she began carefully, “is a good man.”
They groaned at once, disappointed.
“That isn’t what we asked,” one boy complained. “We asked if youthought him the smartest man in the world.”
Catherine laughed despite herself, covering her mouth. “That is not precisely what was asked, my young friend, but I can appreciate the way you twisted the words. You are far too clever.”
“But do you admire the Duke? Do you think of him all the time when he’s not around?” the girl pressed again, her voice smaller this time.
