Chapter 18
“No, darling, not the roses. They have thorns.”
Amelia’s voice sounded far steadier than she felt, which was something of a miracle considering she’d spent the entire night replaying a moment that hadn’t even happened.
Stop thinking about it.
Henry, blissfully unaware of his mother’s torment, ignored her warning entirely and toddled toward the rose bushes with the single-minded determination of a general advancing on enemy territory.
She caught him just before small fingers could close around a thorny stem, redirecting him toward the wooden ball she’d brought from the nursery.
“No, my darling. Play with this instead.”
The ball rolled across the lawn, and Henry shrieked with delight—that pure, uncomplicated sound that only children could produce. He set off after it with his unsteady gait, arms windmilling for balance, and Amelia found herself smiling at the sight of her son.
When had she last laughed without effort? Without that hollow awareness that joy was something she was supposed to feel rather than something that simply… arrived?
Not for months, she realized. Not since… Not since she’d married.
“Mama, look! Look what I did!”
Henry had successfully captured the ball and was now holding it aloft like a trophy, his face split by a grin so wide it threatened to consume his entire countenance. Pride radiated from every inch of his small body.
“I see it, darling. Very clever indeed.” She moved to him, crouching so they were eye-level, and pressed a kiss to his forehead. He smelled of sunshine and innocence and everything good in a world that felt increasingly complicated. “Shall we build it even taller?”
But Henry’s attention had already shifted—the way it did with children, like butterflies alighting on one flower before immediately seeking another. He pointed toward something behind her, his eyes going wide.
“Papa!”
Oh no.
Amelia’s heart performed some complicated manoeuvre in her chest—part leap, part plummet, entirely unwelcome. She turned slowly, as though by moving with deliberate care she might somehow control what she would see.
It didn’t help.
Tobias stood at the garden’s edge. She took her time to study him, take in the sight of him—every last detail.
His jacket had been discarded somewhere.
His waistcoat hung open. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows, revealing forearms that had no business being so distracting.
Sunlight caught in his chestnut hair, turning it shades of gold and copper, and his usual careful composure—that practised charm he wore like armour—had softened into something more genuine.
He looked like a man rather than a viscount. Like someone who belonged in gardens and laughter rather than ballrooms and propriety.
He looked, Amelia realized with dawning horror, exactly like the sort of man she could grow to care for. Perhaps even... fall in love with.
No. Absolutely not. That is not what’s happening here.
But Henry had already broken free, charging toward Tobias with a squeal that probably disturbed every bird within a mile radius.
And Tobias—instead of maintaining appropriate distance, instead of preserving the careful boundaries they’d shattered and hastily reconstructed last night—simply grinned and dropped to one knee, opening his arms.
The boy barrelled into him with enough force to nearly topple them both. Tobias caught him easily, his laugh rich and unguarded, and lifted Henry into the air.
“Good morning, lad. Have you been terrorising your mother already?”
“We’re playing!” Henry announced, as though this were breaking news of national importance. “With the ball! I caught it!”
“Did you now?” Tobias tossed him higher—not dangerously so, but high enough to make Henry shriek with glee. “That’s very impressive. Soon you’ll be better at sport than me.”
“I’m the best!”
“Cheeky creature.” Tobias caught him on the descent, settling the boy against his hip easily. It looked right in a way she could not explain. His eyes found Amelia’s across the sun-drenched lawn, and something flickered in their grey depths. “I hope I’m not intruding. I thought perhaps…”
He trailed off, and she watched him search for words. Watched the careful control he usually wielded so effortlessly falter slightly in the morning light.
“You’re not intruding,” she heard herself say, though every instinct screamed that he absolutely was—or rather, that his presence disrupted the careful equilibrium she’d been attempting to restore since fleeing the drawing room. “Henry is always delighted to see you.”
Henry. Only Henry. No one else is delighted. Certainly not you, with your racing pulse and your inability to stop noticing how the sunlight makes his eyes look like molten silver.
“You’re quite good with him,” she added, because silence felt dangerous and words—even meaningless ones—might build some barrier between them. She managed something approximating a smile. “Natural, even.”
“I’ve had excellent instruction.” Tobias shifted Henry’s weight, his grin turning slightly sheepish. “He only cries when I try to teach him cards.”
The image was so absurd—so perfectly Tobias—that laughter bubbled up before she could suppress it. Real laughter, the kind that came from somewhere deep and genuine rather than the practised sounds she’d perfected for society.
And just like that, the distance she’d been trying to maintain crumbled like a sugar sculpture in the rain.
Henry wriggled free, announcing he wanted to play “the throwing game,” which apparently involved Tobias tossing the wooden ball across the lawn whilst Henry gave chase. It was remarkably simple entertainment, yet it produced gales of laughter that echoed across the estate.
Amelia found herself drawn into their orbit, despite every intention to maintain a proper distance.
Henry insisted she judge his catches. Tobias enlisted her help in making the game “more challenging,” which seemed to involve increasingly ridiculous throws that Henry had no hope of catching but found endlessly amusing anyway.
The morning dissolved into something timeless.
Sunlight painted everything in shades of gold.
Grass stained the hem of her morning dress—she’d stopped caring somewhere around the third time Henry had tugged her down to demonstrate his tumbling skills.
Tobias had abandoned all pretence of noble dignity, sprawled on the lawn whilst Henry used him as a climbing apparatus.
“Mama, look! I’m tall!”
Henry stood atop Tobias’s chest, arms spread wide, face tilted toward the sky with an expression of such pure triumph that Amelia’s heart constricted painfully.
This, she thought. This is what childhood is supposed to look like. What it should feel like.
Not the rigid formality Edward had insisted upon. Not the constant corrections and reminders about proper behaviour for the future viscount. Just… joy. Pure, uncomplicated, sun-soaked joy.
“Very tall indeed,” she managed, though her voice had gone slightly rough. “The tallest boy in all of Kent, I’d wager.”
“In all of England!” Henry declared, because children knew no moderation.
“In all the world,” Tobias added solemnly, though his eyes danced with amusement. “Perhaps we should measure you against the sky to be certain.”
He sat up carefully, keeping Henry balanced, and the boy immediately transferred his climbing efforts to Tobias’s shoulders. Within moments, he was perched there like some small, giggling emperor surveying his domain.
The sight made something in Amelia’s chest twist almost painfully. Had she not dreamt of this? Dreamt that Edward would one day play with their son in this manner, only to be cruelly awoken to the realisation that the boy was naught more than an heir to him.
But here was Tobias, who had no obligation whatsoever, treating Henry not as a future heir to be shaped but as a child to be cherished.
“You’re going to spoil him terribly,” she said, attempting levity though her throat felt tight.
“Excellent.” Tobias reached up to steady Henry’s small legs. “Every child deserves to be spoiled by someone. Besides, I’m making up for lost time.”
The words landed between them with more weight than perhaps he’d intended. Six months. He’d been gone six months, missing this precious time when Henry had transformed from infant to small person.
“He missed you,” she said quietly. “He asked for you constantly those first few weeks.”
Tobias’s expression shifted—something flickering across his features that looked almost like pain. “I missed him too. More than I…” He stopped, seeming to realize he’d ventured into dangerous territory. “What I mean to say is that I thought of him often. Wondered how he was growing.”
Only him? Only Henry?
The question burned on her tongue, but she couldn’t ask it. Wouldn’t. Because if the answer was yes—that he’d thought only of his nephew and not at all of her—it would hurt far more than she could afford to acknowledge. And if the answer was no…
Well. That might be worse.
A butterfly chose that moment to drift past—one of those small white ones that seemed to populate every English garden. Henry spotted it immediately and demanded to be set down so he could give chase.
“Catch it, Papa! We catch it together!”
Tobias obliged, and Amelia found herself following at a slower pace, watching them stalk the butterfly with exaggerated stealth.
Tobias crouched beside Henry, his voice dropping to a theatrical whisper as he explained proper butterfly-catching technique—which, she suspected, he was inventing entirely as he went along.
The butterfly, of course, remained perpetually just out of reach. But Henry’s delighted frustration and Tobias’s mock-serious concentration created a scene so perfect, so achingly domestic, that Amelia had to press a hand against her chest to contain the feeling swelling there.
This is what we could be, a traitorous part of her mind whispered. The three of us. A family.
She shut down the thought immediately. Ruthlessly.