Cecilia let out a breath. “So, you haven’t read it.”
“I’ve heard enough,” he replied crisply.
“That’s not the same,” she countered. “You dismiss it because it was written for the poor, as though that invalidates every lesson between its pages.”
He opened his mouth, but she wasn’t finished.
“I suppose you’d prefer I read Abigail a treatise on Roman agriculture or the economic implications of the Corn Laws,” she said, chin tilting ever so slightly. “But Goody Two-Shoes teaches a young girl to work hard, to care for others, to find joy in simplicity. I cannot see how that could ever be harmful.”
“This is my household, Duchess. The values taught here must be carefully chosen. Not plucked from a dusty shelf in the name of whimsy. Are you claiming you read the book growing up?”
Cecilia lifted her chin. “I did not grow up with it, no. As you know, my father is a viscount. Books like Goody Two-Shoes did not line our nursery shelves.”
Valentine arched a brow, as though that settled it.
“But,” she continued. “I remember finding it once. A battered old copy, left behind by one of the maids. I must have been eight, perhaps nine. I read it in secret, cover to cover, and I remember thinking about how kind the story was. How simple. How it made me feel as though the world could still be good.”
She folded her arms, steadying her breath.
“I didn’t understand half of the sermons my governess read aloud. But I understood Goody Two-Shoes. I understood Margery, and I remember wishing I knew her.”
Valentine said nothing for a beat, and the stillness stretched.
“I want Abigail to feel that too,” she continued. “If there’s a story that might interest her and teach her valuable life lessons, should it matter where it came from?”
“There are hundreds of books in this house, Duchess. All of them are more carefully chosen, more suitable. If lessons are what you’re after, surely something with more intellectual merit would serve her better.”
Cecilia turned fully to face him. “What would that be? Latin primers? A dusty sermon on the necessity of propriety?”
“She’s a duke’s daughter,” he said sharply. “She must learn what is expected of her. She cannot afford to fill her head with peasant fables about barefoot girls who rise to comfort and importance simply because they are good.”
Cecilia’s eyes narrowed. “So you would rather she read things that tell her what not to be? That she behave correctly and never question why? That she aspire to coldness, as long as it’s well-mannered?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“It’s precisely what you implied.”
“I am not raising a sentimental fool, Duchess.”
Cecilia stood frozen for a breath, her pulse quick with disbelief.
Sentimental fool?
The words clanged inside her head, heavy and unkind. She could feel the heat of fury rush to her cheeks, and before she could talk herself out of it, before reason or grace could still her step, she turned on her heel and stormed out of the library.
She didn’t glance back. She kept walking until she reached her room and crashed on the bed, panting.
Never in her twenty-two years in this world had she met someone utterly impossible.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Iam telling you, Norman, she is impossible.”
The clatter of steel rang through the chamber, followed by a grunt as Valentine drove forward in another strike. Norman parried deftly, boots scraping over the polished oak floor as they moved in rhythm. Fencing had become one of Valentine’s favorite activities to do with Norman whenever he was on the estate. It cleared his head. Or at least, it was meant to.
“She’s determined to argue over everything. Over books. Over Abigail. Over...” He shook his head as his blade lowered with exasperation. “Over a children’s story, no less.”
“Goodness,” Norman said dryly. “A woman with opinions. However, will you survive?”
