[……Would it be all right if I took my leave now? There is somewhere I need to be.] (Chloe)
—
It has been so long since the two of them were last in the same room, and his daughter has not thawed by so much as a word — and now, rather than stay, she is rising to go. The Duke is left deeply at a loss.
[Somewhere to be…… Where?] (Duke)
[Into the city, only briefly. I shall be home by evening. It has been so long since you were last under this roof yourself, Father — please, spend the day at your leisure.] (C)
He scrapes the question out with difficulty. The answer comes back cool, and that one phrase — it has been so long — lands like a barb. She is up and out of her chair without ceremony, and he cannot find a single word to put in her way. All he can do is sit there, stunned.
[……Why would she take that tone with me……]
The murmur is swallowed by the silence of the reception room. The Duke turns to the steward standing quietly at his side and asks, his face gone pale.
[What am I to make of my daughter’s manner? We have not met in so long, and still she is this cold……] (Duke)
[Natural enough, my lord, if you consider how the young mistress must feel. Leave a person alone long enough and they stop expecting anything of you.] (Steward)
The steward answers evenly, without a flicker of expression. The words go into the Duke’s chest like an arrow of ice.
‘Neglect. That is all it was — and all that time has built a cold wall inside my daughter. However I try to take it back now, that warmth will not come back easily.’
Without warning, a scene out of the far past surfaces in him. His daughter, small, flying across the hall towards him with both arms flung wide.
[Father!] (young Chloe)
The light that came into her eyes every time he came home. The way she used to bounce on her toes with sheer delight. That artless smile, that unfeigned joy — remembering them closes a hand around his chest.
His fingers tighten on the carved edge of the chair, and even the faint warmth still caught in his palm is hollow now, the last residue of a memory too far off to reach. Somewhere underneath, he is mourning years he cannot have back.
‘So this is what it comes to. This is what happens when you never once stand beside your own daughter’s feelings.’
[I have only ever thrown myself into my work so that I might discharge my duty as head of this house……] (Duke)
The excuse comes out of him all the same, a way of looking away from the guilt of having used the work to push aside his household and his child.
[Yes, of course. I have no doubt the young mistress knows perfectly well how creditably you have discharged your duty as head of the house. But were I asked whether you stood beside her as a father, my lord, I could only answer no. The years in which a child reaches for a parent are very short ones, and whether the bond and the trust take root depends entirely on whether you met the child in them. If that is so, then the young mistress’s manner towards you today ought to make perfect sense.] (Steward)
The steward’s words land like a blow to the head.
Almost nothing remains of his memories with his daughter past her earliest childhood. This is the price of the work, come due all at once, in this room — and though he tries to accept it, something in him refuses.
‘I took it for granted that a child loves a parent unconditionally, and always will.’
He was wrong. The proof has just walked out of the room.
[I see…… You are quite right. I can discharge the duties of the head of this house. As a father I have discharged nothing at all.] (Duke)
The Duke drops his head into his hands. Beside him, the steward stands in silence, close enough to be company.
[……Does Chloe find the engagement with Leonardo painful, do you think?] (Duke)
[I have not heard it from the young mistress herself, my lord, so this is only my own view — but I believe she does. Of late she has been passing her betrothed’s gifts straight on to the maids. I should think that is proof enough.] (Steward)
[To the maids…… She cannot even bear to wear them, then.] (Duke)
[No, my lord. The gifts are largely perishable. Flowers and sweets, for the most part.] (Steward)
[What? Flowers and sweets……? He sends her nothing but childish trifles?] (Duke)
[So it would seem…… At the very least, there is no record of anything in the way of jewellery.] (Steward)
[Good grief…… Chloe told me as much. So it was true.] (Duke)
It is not that he doubted his daughter. It is that in the world as the Duke understands it, a nobleman — the son of a high house, no less — does not simply fail to give his betrothed anything of value. It cannot happen. He had been certain Leonardo was a man who would respect her and hold her precious, and he has never misjudged anything so badly in his life.
[……It is shameful. I have far less eye for a man than I believed I had. I chose a penny-pinching creature who sends his betrothed nothing but cheap goods……] (Duke)
He presses a hand to his forehead, and the regret goes all the way down.
‘He was supposed to be exemplary. Able, of good conduct, of a rank that raised no objections. A man who would stand behind my daughter when she takes the house, hold her precious, build the family up with her. We were the higher house and his owed us everything — a son raised under that debt would deal honestly with her. I was sure of it.’
Because it is exactly what the Duke would have done, in Leonardo’s place. Marry into the house that saved your own, and you repay that debt with the rest of your life. That is simply how it goes.
His daughter’s betrothed, apparently, does not think that way.
Far from returning the favour to the house he owes everything to, he has returned it with injury — a shameless piece of scum, and nothing more.
And now that the Duke knows it, he cannot leave things where they lie. Leonardo has made a fool of his daughter and dragged the Calendula name through the mud, and the Duke is neither soft enough nor kind enough to let a man walk away from that.
[……Bring me paper and a pen. I shall write to House Linden.] (Duke)
His daughter told him he needed to do nothing. That is not an option. He chose Leonardo; the responsibility is his and no one else’s.
[I will not let this stand……]
In his hand, the quill snaps with a crack.
Simplyrical 