SWNOVELS A Vixen for the Duke: Chapter 12
Daphne sat on the stone bench, her head hanging down and her palms flat against the seat. Her mouth was drawn into a thin line. She distantly looked at the grass beneath her feet. She had gotten tall so quickly. Just months ago, she would have been swinging her legs back and forth as she sat, but now, her legs had crossed the distance, and the tips of her toes were grazing the grass.
She hadn’t said a word yet. Morgan sighed, running a hand through his damp hair. “Why are you doing this?” he asked.
She shrugged lightly, still looking at the ground.
“You must have some reason,” he said. “Or you wouldn’t keep doing it.”
Daphne shrugged again.
He sighed. After each of her mischievous endeavours, she would have one of two reactions. Sometimes she would laugh, red-faced, teary-eyed, overjoyed by whatever mischief she had caused, and other times she would act sullen as if her own actions were an injustice to herself instead of others.
Perhaps pouring salt in his tea when he was distracted wasn’t the most egregious prank, but sometimes, the things she did could be cruel. Daphne had always been a troublemaker, but for almost two months now, the frequency of her misdemeanours had put everyone on edge. Her governess had only agreed to stay when Morgan increased her pay, and the maids had seemed frustrated by the frequent messes. He and Oliver were walking on eggshells just to avoid misfortune.
The night before, Oliver had come to Morgan distraught that his attempts to talk to her had ended without a resolution. Daphne had only grown angry at the interrogation.
“You know I have a sense of humour, yes?” Morgan asked.
Once again, Daphne answered with a shrug.
“I do,” he affirmed. “I think I can be quite funny, actually.”
Daphne glanced at him briefly before looking away.
“When I was your age, I loved to make people laugh, but I was not that good at it. I mistook humour for insult,” he continued. “And I don’t think your father remembers telling me this, but he sat me down one day and told me that a joke that is made at the expense of others is not funny.”
“I was not trying to make you laugh,” she muttered.
“Then, what were you trying to do?”
“I—I—I don’t know!” she groaned, tipping her head back and looking at the sky for just a moment.
Morgan paused and allowed her a moment to collect her thoughts. They sat in silence for a while. He watched the breeze ripple through the trees and dance along the surface of the pond. After such a long winter, he was enjoying these warm, sunny, springtime days.
“It is normal to be angry sometimes,” he allowed. “If you’re angry, then sometimes talking about the things that frustrate you might be beneficial.”
She stuttered on a word before clamping her mouth shut. “You would never understand.”
“Try me, Daphne, I am maybe not as old and wise as your father, but I have a good sixteen years on you. I have experienced many ups and downs.”
He wasn’t sure what it was. Maybe Daphne just assumed that it had been so many years since he was her age, that he didn’t remember how terrible it was to be an adolescent. Sometimes, he yearned to go back to the days when he was just a child because things were simpler back then in so many ways, and yet in other ways, things felt so much more difficult.
Morgan took a deep breath and continued, since Daphne had elected not to respond. “I remember how hard it was to be your age. Transitioning from childhood into adolescence is complicated. Doesn’t it just feel like everything is so heavy around you? You’re overthinking the past and avoiding the future, and most of all, you haven’t even discovered who you are,” he said. “I sympathise with that because, once upon a time, I was lost and confused just as much as you are now.”
Daphne turned and looked at him, her eyes glistening. She had hazel eyes, but it seemed like their colour changed depending on the light. Today, they looked greener than they usually did. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but green-eyed Daphne had always been much gentler and happier than her brown-eyed counterpart.
“Lost how?” she whispered.
Morgan leaned back on the bench, resting his arms on the back of the chair. “Well, when I was your age, I had so much dread for the inevitability of owning a dukedom. I didn’t know what I wanted, but I was so certain that it was more responsibility than I could handle,” he replied. “I wasted so much time worrying about how the future could never change that never did it cross my mind that maybe I would change too.”
Daphne lifted her leg and rested her head on her knee, her eyes glassy as if she was in a trance. “Did you change on purpose?”
Morgan smiled lightly, feeling like he had finally broken through to Daphne a little bit. “That’s an interesting question,” he said. “The things that happen to us are so often outside of our control. Perhaps if I…” He paused, thinking of an example. “I stub my toe, for example, I—”
Daphne giggled lightly. “That’s a stupid example.”
“Well, Daphne, if you’re smarter than I, then you already have an advantage over the eleven-year-old Morgan.” He reached out and pinched her cheek lightly. She yelped softly, swatting him away. “As I was saying, if I stub my toe, I have a choice of what my reaction will be. I could scream. I could give up on walking forever, couldn’t I?”
Daphne scowled.
“I could,” he said. “But you’re right. That would be an overreaction.”
Daphne sighed, turning her head and hiding it in her bent leg. After a moment, she turned her head just enough so that she could speak. “If it is that easy, then I must be bad at everything.”
“It is not easy, Daphne. It is only easy to say. I haven’t always reacted to strife in the right way.”
He took a deep breath. His chest felt like the hand he’d slept on top of for an hour, fuzzy yet numb. He didn’t think of his parents that often anymore. That was the choice he had made, whether it was the right one or not. When he was younger, he’d always attempted to hold his mother close to him. He had never met her. In fact, sometimes he worried that he was the one who had killed her. It was true, in a sense. If not for his birth, she might have lived much longer.
On the other hand, his father had passed away only five years earlier, making him a duke, when he didn’t even feel like an adult yet. For the longest time, Morgan had shut himself out, focusing on duty instead of his unresolved grief. Perhaps his father wasn’t as nurturing as he would have preferred. The former Duke was a busy man, nothing like his relaxed and optimistic brother. Morgan supposed that it was inevitable that one day he would grow up to channel one or the other.
He took a deep breath. “Who do you want to be? If you could do anything, if there was nothing stopping you.”
She shrugged. “A cat,” she replied without further thought.
Morgan laughed and ruffled her hair with his hand. It had gotten longer since she’d cut it so chaotically. It was golden and fine like the hairs on a baby’s head. “Okay, let us be a little more realistic.” He smiled. “What are you passionate about? What excites you right now?”
Daphne huffed before shaking her head sharply in refusal.
Morgan thought back to a few days ago when he had taken her to the modiste. She had been excited about her new dress, but it seemed she had enjoyed Lucy’s company even better. “Do you enjoy talking to Miss Lucy Hale?”
Daphne paused. After a moment of hesitation, she nodded.
“You are quite intelligent. Do you enjoy learning?”
“No,” she said. “I hate learning. I only like Lucy’s stories.”
“Maybe you just do not have the right teacher.”
“Even so,” she mumbled. “I do not think Papa would want me taking time away from learning all of the things I ought to learn just so I can learn things for boys.”
Morgan shrugged. “These lessons you take now will prove useful to you one day, yes,” he said. “But if you want to take some time out to learn other things, I will try my best to convince your father.”
For a long time, the word bluestocking had sounded like an insult. Morgan had heard so many men speaking of the wave of liberated women that lived in the city as if they were gorgons. And for some time, he had adopted the same way of thinking. He couldn’t understand why these women were writing their own books and speaking out of turn. He had done everything he was supposed to. Those women ought to do just as well.
Maybe Bridget was a bad influence on him. Her proximity had caused him to see her as perhaps a strange woman, but also one that was strong, capable and an intellectual equal to his uncle. If that was what made them happy, then it mattered not what anyone thought. Morgan wasn’t very bookish himself. It had seemed a lot of the knowledge he’d learned at university had stayed in his head for approximately as long as it took to get his diploma. “Who am I to tell you that you cannot learn? Knowledge is a right, not a privilege.”
Daphne smiled. “I do not think you will have any luck finding me a teacher that I like,” she said. “Miss Bell is so… dusty.”
“Save your grief until I prove you correct.”
She nodded, scooting over slightly on the bench and bringing her knees up to her chest. She leaned her head on Morgan’s side. They weren’t siblings, but they were the closest thing each other had. Daphne was a lot of things. She could be a troublemaker, and she could be rude, but she was also intelligent and talented. She was the little girl that joined his family when he was only sixteen. He remembered seeing her asleep in her crib, wondering what she would be like and how everything would change after she had come along. Things did change. They certainly did, but Morgan wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
“Daphne,” he whispered, squeezing her shoulder. “I may never be able to understand the things that you do, and I may never be able to understand what makes you all the great things you are, but know that there is nothing you could tell me that I wouldn’t endure thousands of salted teas just to empathise with.”
They sat there for a long time, enjoying the springtime in silence. And even though Daphne tried her best to wipe away a tear before he could see it rolling down her cheek, it was still clear that something bothered her.