Page 28 of How Not to Marry a Duke

He examined the drawing with grave attention. "This is either a very abstract horse or a very detailed potato."

A laugh escaped her—watery, embarrassing, but genuine. "Charlotte's assessment exactly."

"They miss you." He set the drawing down gently. "The children."

"They do." She dabbed at her eyes again, mortified. "They are growing so fast. Charlotte's handwriting has improved dramatically in just a month. James can spell his name. Charles has apparently developed artistic ambitions. And I am here, missing all of it."

"You care for them deeply."

"They are—" She stopped, struggling to find words that did not sound pathetic. "They are not mine. I know that. They are Ella's, and Edward's, and I am merely the aunt who visits and plays games and will eventually fade into the background as they grow older and need me less. But for four years, they have been⁠—"

She could not finish. Could not admit how much of her heart she had poured into those children who belonged to someone else.

"They have been yours," Frederick said, his voice low. "In every way that matters."

The gentleness in his voice undid her.

"I always thought I would have my own." She had not meant to say it. "Children. A house full of them, noisy and wonderful. I had such plans, when I was younger. Names picked out. Nursery colours chosen." She laughed, but there was no humour in it. "And then Edwin happened, and then the years happened, and now I am six and twenty and past my prime, and I spend my days playing pretend with other people's children and telling myself it is enough."

She stopped, horrified at herself. She had not meant to say any of that. She had not meant to reveal the tender, foolish center of her disappointment to this man who was engaged to someone else and had absolutely no business knowing her secrets.

"Forgive me." She straightened, reaching for composure like a drowning woman reaching for driftwood. "That was maudlin. The invalid life makes one prone to self-pity. I am sure my leg shall heal and I shall return to the palace and everything shall be perfectly⁠—"

"You are not past your prime."

She blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

Frederick was looking at her with an intensity that made her throat tight. "You said you were past your prime. You are not. You are—" He stopped, jaw working. "You are extraordinary. You read Clausewitz for entertainment and beat me at chess and manage the Dowager with more grace than anyone I have ever seen. You are kind to children and sharp with idiots and you see things—you see people—in ways that⁠—"

He stopped again, looking almost angry with himself.

"What I mean to say," he continued, more controlled now, "is that any man who considers you past anything is a fool. And you should not speak of yourself as though his opinion matters."

Florinda's heart was doing complicated things. Several of them, actually, most of them inadvisable.

"Your Grace⁠—"

"I should—" He stood abruptly, nearly knocking his chair backwards. "I came to inform you that luncheon shall be served in the small dining room today, as the Ashworths have gone to the village. I shall—someone shall come to carry you down when it is time."

"Someone?"

"I have—there are matters requiring my attention. Estate business." He was already moving toward the door. "I trust you will be comfortable until then."

He was gone before she could respond.

Florinda sat in the quiet morning room, the children's letters scattered around her, and tried to understand what had just happened.

He had called her extraordinary.

He had looked at her as though⁠—

No. She would not finish that thought. She would not let herself imagine what his face might have meant, what his abrupt retreat might signify, what any of this might indicate about feelings that neither of them had any right to have.

He was engaged. She was a houseguest with a broken leg. This was proximity and boredom and the strange intimacy of being carried up and down staircases, nothing more.

She gathered the letters carefully, pressing them flat, tucking them into the novel she was reading as bookmarks.

Charles's potato-horse stared up at her from the table.