Page 27 of The Duke's Unclaimed Bride
“Only a little one,” Tilly mumbled, swallowing the candy.
“Well, a little one is enough for me.” Edith chuckled. “Lesson two,” she added as she took out another sweet. “We do not speak with a mouth full of food.”
“Why?” Tilly asked, watching the candy in Edith’s hand.
“Imagine we are having beef with the Duke, and you start talking. Would you not spray it all over him?” Edith asked.
Tilly grimaced at the mental picture. “Yuck…”
“Indeed. So, no matter what is in your mouth, you don’t speak while eating,” Edith said, handing her the candy.
Tilly nodded and sucked on it happily.
The little girl was much like Edith was as a child: bubbly, warm, and with a fondness for sweets. She finished the candy and sipped her drink to wash it down.
“What other rules do I need to learn?” she asked.
“I have an eager pupil now, do I?” Edith laughed. “Come, I’ll show you the different kinds of cutlery and what they are used for.”
From the depths of his study, Laurence could hear the laughter drifting up from the dining room. He sighed, his breath disturbing dust on some of the ledgers. Some had not been opened in quite a while.
Reading through them now, the numbers told a bleak story.
Debts, missed payments, families going hungry. The church had done its duty and fed the poor. He should be grateful, but he hated that they needed its help.
His jaw clenched. He despised his father for putting him in this position.
No matter. Now, I can finally make it right.
Taking a deep breath, he dipped his quill in the ink, the dark liquid climbing up the shaft, and quickly began allocating funds to wherever the need was greatest. Construction work, especially. The houses on the land he managed hadn’t been repaired since the fire.
Thinking of that day brought a flash of pain down his side, but he pushed through. He could not let that day stop him from fixing his father’s mistakes.
A knock at the door snapped him out of his feverish scribbling and calculating. He had not noticed how much time had passed, and the sun was now descending in the west. If Edith did not pester him again to join them for dinner, she could come in and have a word.
“Enter,” he called, still scribbling.
“What are you doing?” Tilly asked.
Upon hearing her small voice, Laurence’s head shot up, and his hand clenched reflexively, crushing the quill. Ink seeped into the page he had been writing on. He cursed under his breath and attempted to contain the damage with a blotter.
“I am working,” he replied.
“Can I see what you’re doing?” she asked, walking up to his desk.
“Not now, there’s ink all over it,” he murmured.
“That was very clumsy of you,” Tilly remarked innocently.
He looked down at her. This girl still confounded him. She was so small, and yet she treated him with more curiosity and grace than others had given him in some time.
“Is that a map?” she asked, pointing to a map of the duchy.
“Yes,” he replied curtly as he tried to clean the page.
“Of the place you look after?”
“Of the duchy, yes.”
