Page 33 of The Duke’s Caught Bride

“As a duchess, I have certain responsibilities. One of them is overseeing the autumn fair for the tenant families. I’m told there are games, food, and a small market where the tenants sell their crafts and produce.” She reached into the pocket of her gown and withdrew a folded paper. “Cook has provided a list of the food required. The head gardener has notes on the games and the layout. What I lack is someone to help me sort the invitations. There are thirty families on the estate, each with children of various ages, and the invitations need to be tailored accordingly. Some families have infants who will require seating near the shade. Others have older children who might enjoy the archery contest. It’s… rather a lot of detail to go over alone.”

She unfolded the paper and spread it on the low table. The list was extensive: names, ages, dietary preferences noted in Cook’s cramped handwriting, preferences for games or quiet activities annotated in the margin by the head gardener, who apparently knew every child on the estate by name and temperament.

Freddie glanced at the paper. His expression suggested he had been offered administrative duty as a consolation prize and found the offering underwhelming.

“Invitations,” he said flatly. “You want us to help with invitations?”

“I want you to help me ensure that every child at the fair has something to enjoy,” Alice corrected. “That requires knowing who they are. What they like. Whether they prefer lemon cakes to gingerbread, or whether the archery contest will terrify the younger ones. It’s not just paper and ink. It’s making certain that thirty families feel welcome on your father’s land. That matters.”

Charlie had left his desk. He stood beside the low table now, his eyes moving down the list.

“I could help,” he said. The offer was quiet, almost reluctant. “I know some of the tenant children. The Miller boys. Eliza from the north farm. They come to the kitchen sometimes when their mothers deliver eggs.”

Freddie looked at his brother. Then he sighed.

“Fine,” he relented, dropping onto the floor beside the table and reaching for the paper. “But I’m categorizing by mischief potential. The Miller boys are definitely to be kept away from archery; they tried to build a catapult last Michaelmas and nearly took out the dairy window. They should be nowhere near the infants.”

Alice smiled. “An excellent system. Mischief potential it is.”

She pulled the second chair from the desk and positioned it at the table.

For the next hour, the nursery was filled with the sound of pencils on paper, of Freddie’s voice rising and falling as he elaborated on the relative menace of various tenant children, of Charlie’s quieter interjections that invariably contained some detail about a child’s favorite sweet or fear of dogs that refined Freddie’s more theatrical assessments.

Alice watched them work.

They were so different, these two boys. So unmistakably themselves. And in this moment, bent over a task she had invented for no reason other than the need to give them something to hold onto, they were undeniably hers.

Not by blood. Not by law, not really. But by the quieter, more durable bond of a woman who had chosen to see them, and two children who had, against all odds, chosen to let her.

She picked up a pencil and began to write.

Chapter Ten

Kenneth paused at the turn of the east corridor, one hand resting on the carved newel post where the banister curved toward the landing.

The sound had drawn him: laughter, unmistakable and unfettered, carrying from the nursery with a brightness that belonged to no adult in his household.

He moved toward the nursery door. It stood ajar, the gap wide enough to admit a sliver of afternoon light and the full spectrum of the scene within.

He did not push it wider. He stood in the shadow of the corridor and observed.

The nursery table had been cleared of its usual detritus. In their place lay papers, dozens of them, spread across the polished surface in a pattern that suggested categories rather than chaos.

Alice sat at the head of the table, a pencil in her right hand, her left resting on an open ledger whose pages he could not read from this angle. The boys flanked her, both leaning forward slightly.

Afternoon light fell through the tall windows in a long golden bar that cut the room diagonally. It caught Alice’s hair and turned the copper strands to fire, illuminating the curve of her cheek and the soft line of her throat where her collar parted.

She laughed again. The sound traveled through the open door and struck him in the chest before sending warmth to the pit of his stomach.

She was beautiful.

Not beautiful like her sister, whose loveliness had been a public commodity discussed and assessed in drawing rooms with the casual authority of men ranking racehorses. Her beauty was quieter. It resided in the warmth of her expression when she looked at his children, in the fullness of her lower lip when she smiled.

His hand tightened on the doorframe.

He wanted her. The want was not abstract. It lived in the tightening of his groin when she laughed, in the memory of her mouth against his, in the way his body responded to the mere sight of her.

He had never felt this way for a woman before. Certainly not for Theresa, who had been kind. There had been nothing more than duty between them. But Alice… Alice was an entirely different subject.