She did not answer, returning his steady regard. What could she say? She had once thought him the cool, forbidding duke. She had thought him the man George had persuaded her he was. But he had shown her, time and again, that he was not that man. That he never had been.
But she remained hesitant to delve too deeply into the realizations swirling through her now, lest they ruin this moment of easy innocence.
“You cannot deny that relations between us have been complicated,” she said instead of answering his question. “I will admit that I did not know what to expect when I married you.”
She still did not know, not entirely.
But what she had seen thus far was a comfort. More than a comfort.
“Your daughter is an innocent, and she had nothing to do with the sins of her father,” he said. “I find her delightful. As a bachelor, I had not often spent time in the company of children until recent years. But as many of my friends have been marrying and having progeny of their own, I have found myself appreciating the unique exuberance with which children view the world.”
Charlotte skipped through the wildflowers with her bouquet thrust out in offering. Most of the blooms were desperately mangled. “For you, Mama.”
Pippa accepted them as best she could, trying to keep any from falling. “Thank you, poppet. They are lovely.”
With a pleased grin, her daughter offered the lone yellow blossom to Roland. “For you.”
“What an excellent gift, Char-char,” he said with perfect gravity, as if Charlotte had just presented him with a priceless gem. He took it and stuffed it into his buttonhole.
Charlotte clapped with happy approval. “Perfect! More fwowers!”
“You must sayflowers,” Pippa felt compelled to correct, adding emphasis to thel.
But her daughter had already spun away and was racing back through the field in an eager bid to add to her collection. At her side, Roland let out a low chuckle.
“She has your smile and your fierce determination,” he said.
Pippa glanced back at him, charmed at the sight of that golden bloom, half-crushed and already wilted, drooping from his buttonhole. “She is a true blessing to me. With each day that passes, I am surprised at how much she has learned. It is always something new, it seems.”
“You are a good mother,” he observed quietly, his gaze, like his voice, warm.
“I am not certain I am,” she admitted, giving voice to the uncertainties which often plagued her. “I worry that I do not spend enough time with her, or that I spend too much. Croydon is forever warning me that I shall spoil her, that I am not preparing her for the role she will one day play in her own home.”
“Ah yes, Croydon.” The warmth left his tone at the mentioning of Charlotte’s nurse.
“You do not care for her,” Pippa guessed.
“She is harsh and severe,” he said. “The woman has the personality of a thundercloud.”
“Croydon is joyless, yes,” she agreed. “However, she has been with Charlotte from the time of her birth. To remove her now…I fear the upheaval will affect her. There has already been so much change in her little world. We have been torn from London, her mother has remarried a stranger…”
“Come now, am I so strange?” he asked, a teasing smile flitting over his sculpted lips.
Not so very strange. She thought about the way those lips had felt upon hers this morning, and yearning coursed through her, sharp and acute.
“You most certainly look strange, with that poor smashed flower hanging from your coat,” she said instead of answering his question directly.
Keeping the lightness between them felt somehow right.
Ever since she had risen that morning in a large, fluffy bed and wandered to the light filtering through the windows overlooking the glorious park below, she had felt more at peace than she had in as long as she could recall. It was not, she realized now, merely that she was no longer in London. Rather, it was something far more.
“I wear this flower with great pride,” he said, puffing out his chest to comic effect.
Pippa laughed, the sound echoing off the hill at the end of the field and bouncing back to them. Charlotte turned toward her, pausing in her efforts and waving.
“Mama happy!” she said, grinning.
“What a glorious sound,” Roland said softly, for only her to hear. “I missed your laughter.”
