Chapter 8
“Mrs. Boldwood mentioned the eastern drawing room requires new draperies.”
Amelia looked up from the household ledger, startled to find Tobias standing in the doorway of the morning room.
This was the third time today he had sought her out—first about the kitchen accounts, then regarding staff schedules, and now draperies.
She set down her pen, studying him with carefully concealed curiosity.
Something had changed.
She was not certain what, precisely, but Tobias had become... different. The way he looked at her had softened somehow, as though he were handling something precious and easily broken. It was entirely… strange.
“The draperies,” she repeated, gathering her thoughts. “Yes, they have grown rather threadbare. I was planning to order new fabric from the mercer in Canterbury next week.”
“Might I accompany you?” He moved further into the room, his hands clasped behind his back. “I confess I know little of such matters, but I should like to learn how you manage these affairs. You have such an excellent eye for—” He gestured vaguely. “For everything, it seems.”
Amelia felt warmth creep up her neck and spread to her cheeks. She was not used to compliments. At all.
“You flatter me unnecessarily, my lord.”
“I merely speak the truth.” His eyes held hers with an intensity that made her pulse quicken. “The household runs more smoothly under your direction than it ever did when—” He stopped himself, clearing his throat. “That is, you possess a remarkable talent for management.”
When Edward was alive, she finished silently. That was what he had been about to say. She dropped her gaze to the ledger, uncomfortable with the comparison, though she could not articulate why.
“I should be pleased to have your company to Canterbury,” she said, her voice carefully neutral. “Though I warn you, selecting drapery fabric is perhaps the dullest occupation imaginable.”
“I doubt anything could be dull in your company.”
The words hung between them, weighted with something she dared not examine too closely. Before she could formulate a response, Henry’s excited squeal carried from the nursery above, and they both looked up.
“He sounds in fine spirits this morning,” Tobias observed, looking up. “I have been hoping that you would not object… if I wanted to spend more time with him. I would very much like to get to know… my nephew.”
My nephew.
She looked up at him, and her heart suddenly started beating with a strange warmth. Since Henry’s birth,
“Of course,” she managed. “Henry would enjoy that immensely. He… I believe he quite likes you.”
“He does? I mean…” Tobias grinned. “That is good to hear,” he settled.
An awkward silence settled between them, neither quite meeting the other’s gaze.
Amelia found herself acutely aware of every detail—the way his cravat sat slightly askew, as though he had tied it himself without his valet’s assistance.
The faint shadow along his jaw suggested he had risen early.
The particular shade of grey his eyes became when. ..
She forced her attention back to the ledger. “Was there anything else you required, my lord?”
“No. That is, yes. Perhaps.” He ran a hand through his hair.
“I thought that perhaps, if you have time later, I thought we might review the estate accounts together? Pemberton believes I should understand the household expenses as well as the agricultural matters, and I believe that you are far more knowledgeable about such things than I.”
He waited almost hopefully, and she took a few seconds to think before nodding.
“This afternoon?” she suggested. “After Henry’s nap?”
“Perfect. Thank you, Amelia.”
He had let her name slip through his lips without the accompanying ‘lady’ more and more over the last few days.
Not that it meant anything, of course. It was just…
something she’d noticed. He nodded now and walked off without another word, though she was certain that he had muttered something under his breath.
Only when his footsteps had faded did she sink down into a seat.
What had brought about this transformation? There was almost a gentleness to him suddenly, and she was not quite sure what to make of it. How to handle it.
No, she decided firmly. She would not ponder it too much. There were things to be done.
She managed to keep herself busy, the morning passing in its usual rhythm of domestic obligations. Still, Amelia found her mind wandering repeatedly to Tobias and how… odd… he had been acting.
She’d never experienced such warmth before. It… frightened her.
By early afternoon, she desperately needed air.
“Come, darling,” she told Henry, lifting him from his play with the wooden horse. “Let us visit the garden, shall we? The roses are blooming beautifully.”
The child clapped his hands with enthusiasm. “Pretty flowers!”
His vocabulary had expanded considerably over the past few weeks, with new words tumbling out of him daily. She settled him on her hip and made her way through the French doors opening onto the garden.
The afternoon had turned gloriously warm, a mere light breeze dancing on the leaves—though not one that cooled the air significantly. Henry seemed to be in his element, here outside between the flowers. He reached for one clumsily, and she caught his hand.
“Gentle, now,” she called as he reached toward a particularly spectacular pink bloom. “We look with our eyes, not our hands.”
Henry looked back at her with a serious expression, one that almost reminded her of Edward.
She merely smiled at him, and he waddled forth, examining nearly every flower with attention.
She followed at a leisurely pace, allowing him the freedom to discover whilst remaining close enough to prevent disaster.
“Bee!” he announced suddenly, pointing at a fat bumblebee working its way through the lavender. “Big bee, Mama!”
“It is a big bee, good boy!” she announced. “He’s collecting pollen. Do you think you can say that?”
“Pollen,” he repeated carefully, testing the word. Then, without warning, he set off at an unsteady run after the bee, his small legs pumping with comic determination.
She could not help it—she laughed, the sound bubbling from her stomach, through her throat as she watched her son’s unsteady chase.
Henry’s pursuit of the bee was utterly futile, of course, but his enthusiasm knew no bounds.
He chased it from the lavender to the roses, from the roses to the herb garden, giggling wildly each time it buzzed just beyond his reaching fingers.
She had not noticed Tobias until Henry suddenly changed direction, abandoning his pursuit of the bee entirely. She followed the child’s gaze and found Tobias standing at the edge of the garden, perfectly still, watching them with a curious expression.
Henry made a beeline for his uncle, his face alight with joy.
“Up! Up!” Henry demanded, toddling toward him with arms raised and complete confidence in his reception.
Tobias dropped to one knee immediately, opening his arms as Henry barrelled into them. He lifted the boy with careful strength, settling him against his chest, and Henry immediately patted his face with both small hands.
“Papa,” the child said clearly, then seemed to realize what he had said. His little brow furrowed in confusion even as his hands continued their exploration of Tobias’s features. “Papa?”
Amelia tensed, waiting. Expecting Tobias to correct him gently but firmly. No, lad, I am your uncle. Your papa is gone.
Instead, a smile broke out across Tobias’s lips, and he seemed to press his hands to Henry’s back a little tighter. “Lad. Perhaps we ought not to chase bees. But look… do you see the butterfly? Let’s try to catch that!”
In one fluid movement, Tobias was up—Henry on his hip.
He did not correct him.
Amelia’s heart performed some complicated manoevres in her chest. He had not broken her boy’s heart by explaining to him that he was not his father. He had let it go. Edward would have lectured the boy about maintaining appropriate boundaries and not giving him false impressions.
But Tobias simply adjusted Henry’s weight and pointed toward a cabbage white butterfly dancing among the delphiniums. “There. Do you see it? With the white wings?”
“Butterfly!” Henry cried. He reached a chubby arm towards it, then looked up at Tobias with his lower lip stuck out just a bit. “Catch it, Papa!”
“I shall catch it,” Tobias said in a mock-whisper. “But we have to be very… very quiet. Butterflies… are clever creatures. They hear everything!”
Amelia stood frozen, watching as Tobias crept through the garden with her son, both of them utterly absorbed in their impossible quest. The butterfly, of course, remained perpetually just beyond reach, but Henry’s laughter rang out each time they drew near, and it fluttered away.
Would Edward ever have played with Henry like that? Chasing butterflies, laughing, being… being carefree?
Never. The answer came swift and painful. Edward had viewed Henry as the heir, a responsibility to be properly raised according to strict principles. He had held him occasionally, always with careful formality, and had spoken frequently of the boy’s future education and responsibilities.
But he had never had a chance to play with him, and she was certain that had there been one, he would not have taken it.
“Mama! Mama, look!” Henry called, pulling her from these uncomfortable thoughts. “Flying! Like butterfly!”
Tobias had hoisted the boy above his head, making swooping motions whilst Henry spread his arms wide and shrieked with delight. Then Tobias brought him down gently, pressing a kiss to the child’s dark curls with such natural tenderness that Amelia felt her eyes sting treacherously.
“Your son,” Tobias said, turning toward her with Henry still in his arms, “is remarkably determined. A trait he inherits from his mother, I suspect.”
She moved closer, drawn by forces beyond her understanding. “He can be rather single-minded when he sets his heart upon something.”
“An admirable quality.” Tobias’s gaze held hers. “To know what one wants and pursue it without wavering, despite all obstacles.”
There seemed to be a deeper meaning to his wordsm and her heart skipped a beat. But before she could say anything, Henry yawned and stretched—breaking the loaded moment like a butterfly’s fragile wings.
“Someone is in need of a nap,” she observed, reaching for her son. But Henry tightened his grip on Tobias’s coat, pressing his head against the man’s shoulder stubbornly.
“Stay Papa,” he murmured, his eyelids already drooping. “Stay.”
“I could carry him up,” Tobias offered quietly. “If you do not object?”
It would be prudent, Amelia knew, to object. To tell him thank you, but no—to carry her own son upstairs and not see more of her brother-in-law in this manner.
“Yes,” she heard herself say. “Thank you.”
They walked back to the house in companionable silence, Henry’s breathing already settling into the rhythm of sleep. Amelia watched silently as he lay her son down before he turned to her.
“Some… tea perhaps?” He sounded almost like an uncertain little boy, and she could not help but smile.
“Of course, my lord.”
They descended to the drawing room in silence. Amelia could not help but glance at him. A speck of dust sat upon his cheek, no doubt from playing in the garden, and his clothes were wrinkled.
In all her years of being married to Edward, she had never seen him looking anything but pristine, and she looked down at once. She had to stop comparing them. It would not do.
They sat down silently, and she rang the bell for tea, more to do something than out of a need for it. When the tea arrived, he prepared her cup without asking—somehow knowing she preferred it without sugar, with just a splash of milk.
“How did you know?” she asked before she could stop herself.
“Know what?”
“How I take my tea. I never told you.”
He tilted his head a bit and grinned at her, looking quite boyish as he did so. “I have been paying attention. You take it the same way every morning at breakfast, though you likely do not realize I notice such things.”
He had been watching her. The realization made her heart skip a beat. She inwardly shook her head at herself, attempting to calm herself with deep breaths. Her brother-in-law had no business affecting her heart in any manner.
“You are good with him,” she said after several moments of sipping in silence. “With Henry. He has taken to you remarkably.”
“He is easy to love.” Tobias set down his cup. “He is… a lot like you.”
Once again, the effect on her heart was dangerous, and she looked desperately for something, anything to say.
“Henry called you Papa,” she said at last, steering toward safer waters. “And you did not correct him.”
“Should I have?” Tobias leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
“He is one year old, Amelia. He will not remember Edward. I… believe it is unnecessarily cruel to insist he call me uncle, maintaining a distance that serves no purpose save propriety. He is to be my heir. Is it not better to allow him the comfort of believing he has a father who loves him?”
She avoided his gaze by looking intently at the cup of tea, trembling in her hand. “Edward would have insisted on the proper designation.”
“I am not Edward.” He spoke quietly, though with a strange determination.
“I will never be Edward, and I believe you know this. Your son deserves warmth, Amelia. He deserves laughter and play and someone who sees him as more than an obligation. If he wishes to call me Papa, I shall answer to it gladly.”
Tears pricked her eyes, though she blinked them back furiously. “I say again,” she said, thinking back to the other time she had done this. “You are a kind man, Tobias Grant.”
He flashed her a smile that seemed almost sad before taking a sip of his tea. She looked at him anxiously, waiting for him to answer her, say something—anything.
He never did.