Page 84 of The Duke Who Loved Me (The Duke's Estates 1)

Aunt Valeria did as she pleased. So had her mother, Cecelia remembered, on at least one important occasion. She had not sat waiting with folded hands for her fate to find her. The seed of a radical idea took root in Cecelia’s mind. “Aunt Valeria, do you think my mother was happy?” she asked.

“What?” Annoyance at being interrupted filled the word.

“You told me that Mama chose her own future like the queen bee.”

“That isnotwhat I said. I told you that the queen flies high and fast to test her suitors and find the strongest.”

“Is that not a choice?”

“Not as I understand the word,” replied her aunt.

Cecelia waved the distinction aside. “You said that Mama decided she wanted Papa and went and got him.”

Aunt Valeria nodded, her eyes straying to her notebook.

“Do you think she was happy with her choice?”

“I really do not…”

“You knew her for more than fifteen years,” Cecelia said. “You stayed with us often during that time. You must have formed some conclusions.”

“I am not particularly adept at deciphering people, as I’m certain you have noticed.”

That was true.

“She loved you very much,” Aunt Valeria added. “She was delighted to have a daughter. She told me so.”

“I know.” Cecelia examined her memories. “I think shewashappy, mostly,” she said. “I don’t think she regretted her choice.”

Her aunt examined her, frowning as if Cecelia was a knotty conundrum. “From what I have heard, I do not think this prince would be open to the sort of arguments that…”

“Him!” Cecelia could imbue a single word with emotion also. In this case, contempt.

“We are not talking of…?”

“He is an irrelevant annoyance,” said Cecelia. “Like a wasp buzzing about one of your hives.”

“Wasps are not irrelevant. They can be quite dangerous.”

“Not a wasp then. Some inconsequential thing.” Cecelia’s brain was full of another topic entirely.

“Then I am not sure what we’re talking about right now.”

“There is no need for you to be.”

“I would so like to agree, Cecelia.” Her aunt’s gaze moved to her notebook again. She set a yearning hand upon it. “But I fear I cannot. I may be a poor excuse for a chaperone, as Lady Wilton said. Yet I can see that something has agitated you.”

She ought to know. Cecelia told her what had transpired at the play.

Aunt Valeria sighed when she finished. “No more than the fellow deserved, but it will raise the talk to an intolerable pitch. Humans are such exhausting creatures.”

“At least they don’t have stingers,” Cecelia joked.

Her aunt’s round face creased with rare concern. “But they do, Cecelia, and I do not wish you to be hurt.”

“I know.” Aunt Valeria did care, in her peculiar way, even if she was not very good at it. “Why don’t you go out to your hives? You will feel better there.”

“I wish to. Very much. I cannot help it. But I won’t abandon you. You know we will have a flood of morning callers after the events you have described to me.”

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