Chapter Three
The walk back to Grosvenor Square should have steadied him. Instead, it left Marcus unsettled in a way he could not name. London pressed close as it always had, familiar and insistent, yet it no longer met him where he stood. It was as if the city had shifted its weight and he had not followed.
Shopfronts were shuttering for the afternoon, their signs creaking softly in a restless wind. Children darted beneath the lampposts, shrieking, heedless that two horses shied and tossed their heads. One reared suddenly, hooves striking stone.
Marcus stopped.
For an instant, he was no longer on the street but trapped inside the echo of splintering wood and screaming metal, the sickening lurch of a carriage breaking apart. The moment suspended itself, sound without shape, terror without time.
He drew a breath, and the street returned, whole and solid beneath his feet.
London had never frightened him. Not even now. What unsettled him was that the noise no longer numbed him either.
Life pressed in, loud, careless, insistent, and he had forgotten how to stand inside it without bracing for impact. And yet, beneath that unease, something smaller stirred. Something that had taken root while Henry sat listening to music, his shoulders easing, his breath slowing.
Marcus mounted the steps of Number Fifty-Nine with Henry beside him, the boy’s weight leaning heavier with each step. Jameson opened the door at once and inclined his head.
“My lord.”
Henry stifled a yawn that became something wide and unstoppable. Marcus felt the moment turn in his arms before Henry even reached for him.
“All right,” Marcus murmured, bending easily. “Up you come.”
Henry went willingly, arms slipping around Marcus’s neck, his cheek settling against his father’s shoulder with a small sigh of surrender. The blanket dragged behind them like a tired flag.
Marcus carried him through the hall, the house quiet in that careful way it adopted when something fragile moved through it. The scent of beeswax and stone followed them up the stairs. Henry shifted once, then again, his fingers curling into Marcus’s coat.
“You stayed awake bravely,” Marcus said softly.
Henry gave a drowsy hum that might have been agreement. As Marcus reached the bed, the boy stirred just enough to press a kiss against his father’s jaw, quick, unthinking, absolute.
Marcus smiled before he could stop himself.
“There you are,” he murmured.
He settled Henry gently onto the mattress, drew the blanket up, and smoothed the hair back from his forehead. Henry’s eyes fluttered, opened once more.
“Papa?”
“I’m here.”
“Will London… know we came back?”
“London doesn’t need to remember,” Marcus said quietly. “Only we do.”
“Will Mama know?”
“She would want you to feel safe,” he said. “And brave again, when you’re ready.”
“Papa… can I hear music again?”
“Yes.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes. Tomorrow.”
Satisfied, Henry drifted under, breath evening out almost at once.
Marcus lingered a moment longer than necessary, his hand resting at the edge of the bed, the quiet weight of that kiss still warm against his skin. The softness it left behind surprised him. He did not push it away.
When he turned back into the corridor, he found Richard waiting near the stair rail.
Richard’s gaze flicked from Marcus’s face to the closed door and back again. His voice stayed low. “Asleep?”
“Yes.”
“And how did he fare?”
Marcus exhaled slowly. “Better than I dared hope.”
Richard nodded, understanding passing between them without elaboration. “Perhaps there is room for more than one forward step today.”
Marcus folded his gloves in his hands. “Perhaps.”
Richard rested a brief, steadying hand on his shoulder. “I’ll let the house settle around you both.”
He withdrew without ceremony, leaving Marcus alone with the hush of the upper floor.
Marcus returned to Henry’s room and crossed to the window.
Grosvenor Square lay washed in early lamplight, silver and subdued. Branches cast thin shadows across the pavement. A solitary rider passed along the far edge of the square, the horse’s steps softened by damp stone.
Marcus rested his hand on the sill. The echo of Miss Edgewood’s playing lingered faintly in his mind. It was measured, unfamiliar, and persistent. It had reached something he had kept sealed for years.
He stood there as the light began to thin.
He turned back toward the small sleeping figure in Henry’s bed.
And for the first time in two years, the thought of morning did not tighten his chest.
It simply waited.