Page 73 of Yours Truly, the Duke
Wyatt chuckled. “Sounds like a clever thing to do, but let Elise tell us her story, Bella. You can be next.”
“That means I have to listen to two stories about f-flowers and fairies?”
Charles was definitely getting better with his stuttering. “Men have to be patient and wait for ladies to go first, Charles. It’s the right thing to do.”
“If I have to.”
“Go ahead with your story, Elise.” Wyatt shifted his weight again, trying to get comfortable on the hard floor.
“Delfina was looking for a certain flower. It was her mother’s favorite color. She couldn’t find it, so she kept wandering farther away from home.”
“Was she frightened?” he asked.
“She—” Bella started answering, but Wyatt looked at her and put his finger to his lips. She smiled and put her finger to her lips too.
Elise nodded. “Delfina was afraid her mother wouldn’t find her before darkness covered the garden. Big dragonflies would get close to fairies and knock them with their long wings. She didn’t want to meet any of them. She flew to the top of the tallest flower she could find.”
“Were you lost in the woods one time?” Wyatt asked softly.
Reluctantly, the young girl nodded. “For a little while. A long time ago when I was little. I thought Mama had left me.”
He kept his voice low and tender. “But she hadn’t.”
Elise shook her head. “She found me before it was too dark to see. But she left again and didn’t return.”
Wyatt’s throat felt tight as he looked at her pretty little face filled with sadness. He wanted to comfort her and say something. But what? He was always saying things the wrong way to Fredericka. What could he say to offer solace to a sad girl?
Suddenly Wyatt remembered his father and smiled. He liked to think his father never left him and was always with him.
“Maybe she does return.” He said the first thing that came to his mind.
Elise lifted inquisitive eyes to him. So did Bella and Charles. Wyatt had gotten himself into a pinch here. He had to add something.
“Every time you see a flower in bloom, or maybe her favorite color of dress, I think it’s your mother’s way of letting you know she’s watching over you, and there’s no reason to feel you’re alone.”
A smile like he’d never seen started breaking across Elise’s face. Hope surged inside Wyatt’s chest. He was getting through to her.
The table linen whipped back and pillows toppled over. Fredericka stared down at Wyatt and the children with her golden-brown eyes.
Everyone jumped as if they’d just seen a ghost.
CHAPTER 20
COWSLIP—ATTRACTIVE GRACE
—L. H.
I would bring to thee a cowslip,
My beautiful, my own,
Such a fair and modest flower
Is like to thee alone.
“What’s going on under here?”
The children scrambled out from under the table, scattering pillows everywhere as they scampered to their feet. It took Wyatt longer to uncross his feet and crawl his large frame from the fort to rise. The three siblings stood in a row, straight as boards with their arms held tightly by their sides.
