Valentine shot him a look and tossed his blade onto the rack with more force than necessary. “It’s not opinions I object to. It’s the attitude. She storms about the house like some crusadinggoverness, bending every rule that was carefully put in place for a reason.”
“She’s trying,” Norman said, leaning on his own sword. “I imagine it isn’t easy, coming into this house...into this family. You’re not exactly warm and open-armed, brother.”
Valentine exhaled through his nose. “It’s just not what I completely expected.”
“It’s her first time being a duchess, and technically, a mother,” Norman said. “Would you give her some space to figure it out? That’s the issue with you.”
Valentine arched his eyebrows. “What issue?”
Norman lowered his blade and gave him a dry look. “You don’t give room for error, brother. You assume everyone should know what you know, do what you do, and do it perfectly the first time.”
Valentine scoffed. “That’s not true.”
“It is. You’re reserved, calculating, always two moves ahead. You don’t let people close, and when they don’t behave according to your expectations, you grow cold.” Norman pointed his blade gently in Valentine’s direction. “You’re strong, yes. Smart, quick-witted, self-assured, no one doubts that. But you’re also stubborn. Overprotective to a fault. Intimidating without tryingto be, and half the time, you don’t even realize when you’re being impossible.”
“Now you’re just spewing nonsense.” Valentine advanced with his blade raised, but Norman didn’t move. He just looked at him. “Watch it.”
“You know what the real issue is?” Norman asked. “You grew up idolizing Father.”
Valentine paused, his grip tightening around the hilt.
Norman pressed on. “The rest of us loved him, but we knew who he was. He was cold sometimes, and a bit too controlling. Impossible to please. Yet,you modeled yourself after him. Every edge. Every rule. You didn’t just carry the Price name, you wore it like armor.”
Valentine turned away, stepping back into the rhythm of the exercise, but his blade didn’t rise again.
“I’m not saying it is a terrible thing, Val. Father was a wonderful man,” Norman added, more gently now. “I’m just saying, since you know who made you this way, maybe you can start choosing who you want to be...you can be better than him. We have been sparring for over an hour, and you have been talking nonstop about how impossible your wife is. However, what I can hear is that Cecilia might not be perfect, but she’s trying. You should try, too.”
“Trying?” he asked with raised eyebrows. “A week ago, she was rummaging through the library, looking for a book to read to Abigail. Want to guess which one?”
Norman tilted his head, wiping sweat from his brow. “I have no clue, brother. Which one?”
Valentine drew back, letting his sword fall to his side. “Goody Two-Shoes.”
Norman blinked. “You’re joking.”
“I wish I were.”
Norman gave a short chuckle. “Goody Two-Shoes? Didn’t know we kept that in the library.”
“We do not,” Valentine muttered. “Which is precisely the point. She thought she’d find it there. Thought it fitting for Abigail.”
He had tried, at first, to keep his tone neutral during the encounter that day. But the irritation crept in unbidden, not because of the book...not really. Not even because she’d disobeyed some imagined rule of conduct, but because he hadn’t known what to do with the sight of her perched halfway up a ladder, absolutely sure of her purpose.
It was the way she had looked down at him, sure of her purpose, at ease in a house that had never known ease. That was what unsettled him. Then she had fallen, as expected.
Thinking back to it, Valentine surprised himself by catching her. For that one breathless second they shared, she had stared up at him, winded, blinking in surprise. Her hand had landed against his chest, and his was wrapped around her. They touched.
He had felt something then. A low, curling heat in his chest that made no sense and had no place. That was the moment that everything started to unravel. He hadn’t known what to do with the feeling. He still didn’t. So, as always, he had hidden behind the comfort of coldness. Behind the shield of sharp words and studied indifference.
Because if he didn’t, if he let himself look too long, or think too deeply, he was afraid he might begin to enjoy her presence. Worse still, he might want it.
Norman leaned back against the wall, arms crossed. “So? You’re angry because she wanted to read Abigail a children’s book?”
“I’m frustrated because she chooses sentiment over sense. It’s not a book I want my daughter exposed to. It teaches the wrong values.”
“How would you know, you’ve never read it?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Valentine pulled off his gloves. “She argued about it. Told me it didn’t matter where a book came from, only what it taught. That obedience and kindness and thrift are virtues, no matter who writes about them.”
