Chapter 15 #2
Tommy’s eyes closed. His breathing evened out, each exhale a warm flutter against Evander’s neck. His fingers uncurled from the lapel, one by one, and his body surrendered entirely to sleep.
Evander stood in the corridor outside the nursery and finished the story in a whisper.
“So the fox turned around. He passed the pond and the toad and the meadow and the rabbits and the brook and the prickly hedgehog on his log. And when he reached the hollow oak, his supper was waiting, just as it always was. And he curled up inside, and he slept, and the wood was quiet all around him.”
By the time the fox was home, Tommy had been asleep for a full minute, and Evander had been telling the rest of the story to himself.
Evander stood in the corridor, holding his nephew, and felt the baby’s breathing settle into the deep, steady rhythm of a child who trusted the arms around him completely.
The weight of Tommy against his chest was different from what he had expected.
Lighter and heavier at once. Light because the child was small.
Heavy because of everything the child carried with him, every question and complication that had arrived on the doorstep alongside the basket.
He walked to the nursery and lowered Tommy into the crib carefully. He arranged the blanket across Tommy’s chest and tucked the edges around his shoulders, and when Tommy stirred, Evander rested his hand against the baby’s stomach until the stirring stopped.
Tommy slept. His face was smooth and untroubled, his fists curled loosely on either side of his head, his breathing steady.
Evander looked at him for a long time. The single candle on the side table cast a warm circle of light around the crib, and inside that circle, the baby looked impossibly small and impossibly important, and a smile tugged at the corner of Evander’s mouth before he could prevent it.
A real smile. Not the guarded twitch Quentin teased him about. Something that came from a deeper place and settled across his face with an ease that startled him.
He turned to leave.
Mary stood in the doorway.
She leaned against the frame in her rumpled dress, her hair loose from its pins, her shoes still on, and she was smiling at him with an expression that made his stomach drop. Warm. Knowing. Thoroughly delighted.
Evander’s smile vanished. He felt the heat climb up the back of his neck, a sensation so unfamiliar it took him a moment to identify it.
Embarrassment. He was embarrassed, caught telling a bedtime story about a fox to a baby in a dark nursery at midnight.
He walked past her without a word. Mary fell into step beside him.
“That was very sweet,” she said.
“It was practical. The child was crying. I employed a solution.”
“A solution involving a brave little fox.”
“Narrative distraction. It is a well-documented technique for managing distressed infants.” He turned the corner toward the staircase and increased his pace.
Mary matched it. “And the part where you tucked him in and stood there smiling at him? Was that also a well-documented technique?”
“I was assessing his breathing. A precautionary measure.”
“You were smiling, Evander. It was lovely.”
“I was performing a necessary task.” He reached the ground floor and strode down the corridor toward his study.
Mary’s footsteps followed, light and relentless.
“The nursemaid was asleep, you were asleep, and my nephew required attention. I provided it. There is nothing sweet or lovely about basic competence.”
“You told him a story your mother used to tell you.”
Evander stopped walking. He had not realized she had heard that part.
He stood in the corridor outside his study with his hand on the door handle and the back of his neck still burning.
His wife was standing three feet behind him, and somehow, she was also seeing every part of him he had spent a lifetime keeping hidden.
“I didn’t want to wake you,” he said. “That is all.”
He turned around.
Mary was closer than three feet. She had moved while he was speaking, and now she stood within arm’s reach, her face tilted up toward his, the candlelight from the wall sconce catching the loose strands of hair at her temple and the curve of her lower lip.
Her eyes were soft, and her smile had gentled into something quieter, and she looked at him as though she could see every part of him.
Especially the boy who had carried his father to bed and the man who had just told a fox story to a baby.
And somehow, she looked like she understood that they were the same person.
Mary’s breath caught.
The corridor contracted. The space between them hummed with the same electricity that had filled the kitchen nine nights ago, the same pull, the same impossible gravity.
Evander could see the pulse in her throat, quick and unsteady, and he could smell lavender in her hair, and his hand released the door handle without his permission.
“Thank you,” Mary whispered. “For taking care of him.”
She was inches away. If he leaned forward, if he let himself close the distance, he would be kissing her again, and this time there was no kettle to intervene and no excuse large enough to cover what it would mean.
Evander stepped back.
The corridor expanded. The electricity dimmed. Mary’s eyes flickered, something passing through them, disappointment or understanding or both, but she held her ground.
“You’re welcome,” he said. His voice came out rougher than he intended. “Though my plan was to move him without waking anyone, I would not call it a success.”
He opened the study door, stepped inside, and closed it behind him before she could respond. He stood in the dark with his back against the door and his heart beating in his throat and the ghost of lavender in his nose.
On the other side of the door, Mary’s footsteps paused. One breath. Two. Then they retreated down the corridor, up the stairs, and away.
Evander pressed his palms against the door and let out a breath he did not realize he had been holding. The study was dark and quiet, and his pulse was too fast, and the smile, the real one, the one he had worn in the nursery while Tommy slept beneath his hand, was trying to come back.
He let it.
Just for a moment. Just in the dark, where no one could see. And then he straightened, crossed to his desk, and lit the lamp, and the smile retreated, and the Duke of Blackholm sat down to work.
But the fox story lingered. And the weight of Tommy in his arms. And the way Mary had whispered thank you from inches away with her pulse jumping in her throat.
All of it lingered, long after the lamp burned low.