Norman let out a soft sigh. “Val, it’s a children’s book. About virtue, I suppose. So what if Abigail reads it? It just makes her well-read.”
Valentine turned to Norman with squinted eyes. “Are you taking her side?”
“No, I am not,” Norman answered almost instantly. “I’m just trying to say that you married her, brought her into this family. You should let her be part of it. Does she not seem like someone who grew up in a loving home? Was she trained well?”
Valentine didn’t respond, but his brow creased slightly.
Norman crossed his arms and glanced off toward the far corner of the room. “I mean, yes, she seems a little...unconventional. Lively, certainly. But not uncouth. She’s mannered. Speaks well. Carries herself with dignity. You might complain that she’s playing in the mud with your daughter, but I don’t think that is something that should bother you.” He gave Valentine a sharp look at that, but it softened almost immediately. “She seems to me like someone raised with affection.”
Valentine tightened his grip on the hilt of his blade. He wanted to scoff. To dismiss the entire conversation. But instead, he found himself turning Norman’s words over in his mind.
In a way, Norman was right. Cecilia did laugh too freely, spoke without caution, and sometimes behaved in ways that left everyone startled, but she never said anything truly out of place—never crossed a boundary without knowing exactly where itstood. She was exuberant, yes, but never crude. Bold, but not disrespectful.
Valentine exhaled sharply, his jaw tensing as he forced the thoughts that were softening his resolve away so he could concentrate. “I’m not continuing this conversation,” he said to Norman. “If you’ve already chosen her side, then there’s nothing else to say.”
Norman raised both hands, still gripping the blade. “There are no sides, Val. We are having a logical conversation, and I am trying to see both sides of this, so I can speak objectively.”
But Valentine had already turned to leave the room. “We’re done for today.”
“Oh, come on. Your Grace!”
He didn’t wait for Norman’s response as he walked off the mat, leaving the room.
“But, Valentine!” Norman called after him, exasperation coloring his voice now. “Fine, at least come to the music room with me.”
Valentine halted just outside the threshold. He didn’t turn, but the pause was telling.
“Abigail’s practicing with her teacher,” Norman added. “Didn’t you say you wanted to drop by?”
A beat passed. Then Valentine gave a terse nod. “Yes. I did.”
Without another word, he adjusted the cuffs of his shirt and started down the corridor. Norman fell into step beside him, wisely saying nothing more. Valentine exhaled quietly, slowing his steps as they approached the music room. The sound of the piano coming from inside was oddly comforting to him, and it pushed against the harsh edges of his earlier mood.
As Valentine approached the music room door, a sound caught him mid-step. It was a soft, familiar laughter. It floated past the threshold like a breeze, catching him off guard. He stilled.
Norman, already opening the door, stepped aside to let him in. Valentine entered, his gaze sweeping the room.
Cecilia was perched lightly on the edge of the pianoforte bench beside Abigail. “No, no, no,” Cecilia was saying in a faux-authoritative tone to Abigail, tapping the keys dramatically with one finger as she giggled. “We have to be serious, Abigail. All right, no more teasing. Play the note again.”
Abigail collapsed in laughter again, her small frame shaking with mirth. “No, play it again. I want to hear it again.”
Valentine remained by the doorway, watching them.
He’d noticed it before, ever since the day in the garden, when Abigail and Cecilia were caught playing in the mud. It almostseemed like whenever he encountered them together, even in passing, they were always laughing.
Abigail laughed more now. Always, it seemed, with Cecilia.
He did not move, not yet. He just watched the strange new shape his household was beginning to take, wondering if he might have put up walls so rigid and tall that perhaps he’d blinded himself to what was happening right in front of him. Cecilia’s methods were unorthodox, to put it mildly. She chased the child through hedges, got leaves stuck in her hair from playing, and now sat beside her like a mischievous co-conspirator when Abigail was supposed to be learning. It was not the life he had imagined for his daughter, and certainly not the duchess he had intended for Abigail.
But Abigail was laughing. She hadn’t laughed like that in months. Years, perhaps.
Perhaps he had misjudged Cecilia. Perhaps he had underestimated the quiet, disarming power of kindness. Of attention. Of being seen and chosen again and again by someone who refused to walk away when things grew difficult.
If that was what it took to bring his daughter back to life…then maybe he needed to rethink everything he thought made a good home. Maybe, just maybe, Cecilia was what Abigail had needed all along.
Valentine blinked, snapping out of his thoughts as though caught trespassing in someone else’s dream. His brows drew together, and his posture straightened to its usual, guarded line.
“Why are you the one teaching her, Duchess?” he asked sharply, stepping further into the room. His voice cut through the warmth like a sudden chill. “Miss Flaxman is right there.”
