Page 63 of The Lion Duke's Proposal
"Fielding," she said, tilting the spine so he could see.
"Is it good?"
"Considerably."
Benjamin looked at the dense block of text she was on, then looked back up at her face with the frank, unblinking assessment of a child who had absolutely no use for polite conversation. "Do you want to play something?"
"Benjamin," Anthony called out from the bottom of the stone steps, his tone warning.
"I would, actually," Julia said.
Leander watched her close the leather-bound book with a soft, decisive snap. He watched Benjamin's face do that peculiar thing it always did when an adult saidyesafter he had fully prepared himself for ano- a brief, dazzling brightness that lit up his features.
Then Leander watched Julia stand. She surveyed the green lawn with a sharp, calculating expression, the exact look she wore when she was already working out how to win.
A cold prickle of awareness hit Leander’s chest. This was not going to end well for him.
It started with a simple game of hoops that Benjamin produced from his oversized coat pocket in wooden pieces, assembling them with a suspicious, well-rehearsed efficiency.
It started with a simple game of hoops that Benjamin produced from his oversized coat pocket in wooden pieces, assembling them with a suspicious, well-rehearsed efficiency. He drove the first stake into the grass with the flat of his palm and looked up at Julia with the expression of a general awaiting confirmation of his orders.
She accepted a hoop without question.
She looked up and found Leander watching from the edge of the path, his coat still on, his expression carrying the particular neutrality of a man who was pretending he had not already decided to join.
"Are you going to stand there," she said, "or are you going to play?"
"I am considering the strategic landscape," he said.
"There are three hoops and a stick in the ground," she said. "There is no strategic landscape."
He took off his coat and handed it to no one in particular. Benjamin caught it without being asked, which suggested this was not the first time Anthony's ward had served in this capacity.
"I am going to win," Leander said.
"You are going to try," Julia said.
Within ten minutes, the quiet garden was loud.
Julia threw her shoulders back, leveled a finger at Leander, and accused him of shifting the target stake two inches to the left. He had not touched it. Leander countered immediately, pointing out that her last three throws had benefited from a sudden gust of wind that had been entirely absent during his own attempts. She disputed the claim with a sharp tilt of her chin.
Benjamin referred the entire dispute.
Naturally, he sided with Julia.
"That is not," Leander said, his voice dropping into a low rumble, "a neutral judgment."
"I am neutral," Benjamin said, puffing out his small chest with immense seriousness.
"You are demonstrably not."
"I think His Grace is perhaps a poor loser," Julia said.
She held the wooden hoop loosely at her side, her knuckles brushing the pale blue silk of her skirt. She looked directly at him, a particular, sharp light dancing in her brown dove eyes. It was the first time that spark had returned in four long days, and though he had not admitted it to himself until this exact second, he had been agonizingly aware of its absence.
"I am not losing," he said, his jaw tightening.
"You are," Benjamin chimed in.
