Oliver’s smile faltered, his small hands tightening around the frog. “I—we were just—Thomas showed me?—”
“Upstairs.” Thaddeus’s voice allowed no argument. “Now.”
“But I need to return him—the frog—Thomas said?—”
“Now, Oliver.”
The boy flinched. The frog, sensing freedom, launched itself from his hands and disappeared into the shrubbery beyond the door. Oliver stared after it with an expression of such profound loss that Maribel felt her own chest constrict.
“I’ll take him up,” she said quietly. “Come, sweetheart.”
She reached for Oliver’s muddy hand, but Thaddeus stepped forward.
“Mrs. Allen will see to his bath.” His jaw was tight enough to crack stone. “You and I, madam, require a conversation. In my study. Immediately.”
It was not a request.
Maribel met his eyes and saw cold fury there—but beneath it, something else. Something that looked almost like fear.
“Oliver,” she said, keeping her voice gentle, “go with Mrs. Allen. I’ll come read to you after your bath.”
“Am I in terrible trouble?” His voice wavered.
“No, sweetheart. You were just being a child. There’s no crime in that.”
She watched Mrs. Allen lead him away, his small shoulders hunched, mud trailing across the pristine floors. Then she turned to face her husband.
“Your study, then.”
They walked in silence through corridors that seemed to have grown longer, colder. Every footstep echoed. Every breath felt too loud.
Thaddeus held the study door for her with rigid courtesy, then closed it behind them with a click that sounded horribly final.
“Forty-five minutes.”
Maribel turned. “I beg your pardon?”
“Forty-five minutes that child was out of sight. Forty-five minutes unsupervised, playing with a servant’s son, near a pond deep enough to drown in.” His hands were shaking—she could see them trembling before he clasped them behind his back. “Forty-five minutes during which anything might have happened.”
“Nothing happened. He was with Thomas?—”
“A five-year-old boy who knows as little of proper supervision as Oliver himself.” Thaddeus’s voice rose despite his obvious efforts to control it. “Do you have any notion of the dangers? The pond. The grounds. The—” He stopped, his throat working.“What if he had fallen? What if something had happened and no one was there to?—”
He couldn’t finish. Couldn’t voice whatever nightmare was playing behind his eyes.
Maribel felt her anger drain away, replaced by something uncomfortably close to understanding.
“He was safe,” she said quietly. “I was watching. And he needed?—”
“What he needs is discipline. Structure. Not to be encouraged in unsuitable attachments and reckless behaviour.”
“He’s four years old. He caught a frog. That’s not reckless—it’s normal.”
“There is nothing normal about being raised in a duke’s household.” The words came out harsh, scraped raw. “He must learn the difference between what is appropriate and what is?—”
“What is what? Joyful? Spontaneous? Everything you’ve spent your life avoiding?”
The accusation hung between them.
