Chapter Fifteen
The following morning, Marcus woke before dawn. Not from shadows. Not from dreams. From the faint sound of paper shifting near the hearth.
Henry sat cross-legged on the rug, firelight gilding his hair. He had dragged a blanket over his shoulders and bent low over a piece of parchment spread across his knees.
Marcus sat up slowly. “You are awake early.”
Henry startled and tried to hide the page, too late.
Marcus lowered his feet to the floor and crossed the room. “What are you working on?”
Henry hesitated. Then held out the paper.
Marcus knelt. Music.
Crooked bars. Notes hovering like birds, unsure where to land. Lines scratched through. One phrase circled again and again.
“Is this the piece Miss Edgewood taught you?” Marcus asked.
Henry shook his head. “It is the one I kept.”
There it was. The instinct that had surprised Marcus from the first lesson. Henry did not merely repeat sounds. He absorbed it, held it inward, then tried to give it back.
“It is good,” Marcus said.
Henry’s brows knit. “Miss Edgewood wrote it in her book yesterday. I saw. She changed the ending.”
Marcus studied him. “Did that upset you?”
Henry considered the question with care. “No,” he said at last. “She made it better.”
Marcus’s throat tightened.
Henry rolled the blanket more securely around his shoulders. “Will she teach me today?”
“She will.”
“And you will come with me?”
“Yes.”
Henry relaxed, not into dependence, but into certainty.
Marcus rose. “Come. We will eat. And no crumbs on your coat this time.”
Henry grinned and scrambled to his feet.
As they left the room, Marcus glanced once more at the childish music abandoned on the rug. A beginning. A reaching. Something inside Henry had begun to move again. And Marcus felt it, too.
By late morning, breakfast was finished, coats brushed, and the carriage set aside in favor of the walk to Cleveland Row.
The Lyon’s Den was unusually busy when they arrived. Not with players, Mrs. Dove-Lyon kept those to the main rooms, but with footmen bearing trunks, polished boots crossing the carpets, the crisp rustle of Bessie’s staff preparing for something Marcus could not yet name.
Henry stayed close to his side, not from fear, but from curiosity.
Theseus greeted them. “Good morning, my lord. Miss Edgewood is in the music room. Mrs. Dove-Lyon asked that you go there directly.”
Marcus thanked him and followed the familiar corridor. The music room door stood partly open.
He heard the first notes before he saw her. Not a scale. Not an exercise. A phrase, tentative and searching, as if it were not meant for any audience at all.
Henry paused, spellbound.
Marcus nudged the door.
Lila looked up.
Her hands stilled on the keys. For a heartbeat, something unguarded crossed her face, not surprise, not alarm. Warmth. Then it folded neatly away.
“Master Henry,” she said, smiling. “You are early.”
“It was my idea,” Henry said proudly.
Marcus did not correct the half-truth.
Lila’s gaze shifted to him. “Good morning, my lord.”
“Miss Edgewood.”
She rose, smoothing her sleeves in the familiar, collecting gesture. “Shall we begin?”
Henry climbed onto the bench at once.
Lila approached with the same poised attentiveness Marcus had noticed from the start. Neither indulgent nor distant. Fully present.
“What were you playing when we came in?” Henry asked.
She hesitated. “A small tune. The one you kept. I wondered how it might continue.”
Henry straightened. “You changed it again?”
“A little.”
“Is it better?” Henry asked.
She smiled, soft and real. “I hope so.”
Something in Marcus shifted. The exchange was simple. Honest. Henry had given her permission to shape what he carried inside him.
The lesson began.
Henry played his scales with new confidence, even adding a second pattern when she suggested it. Lila introduced a new bar to the tune, balanced, a shade stronger than the one he had brought her.
Marcus listened from his place near the window, hands clasped behind his back.
When Henry faltered, Lila’s finger hovered near the correct key. When he succeeded, she let the triumph ring without naming it.
The morning gathered in Marcus like both weight and promise.
Movement flickered at the doorway.
Fenwick.
He did not enter. He did not speak. One shoulder rested against the doorframe as he studied the scene with a satisfaction Marcus did not care to examine too closely.
Lila glanced up once. Long enough to see him. Then her attention returned to Henry, calm and intact.
Fenwick lingered. Too long. Too aware.
Marcus stepped away from the window.
Fenwick straightened, summoned a smile, and bowed. “My lord. I see the morning finds you well.”
“It does,” Marcus said.
Fenwick’s eyes slid to Lila. “Miss Edgewood. A pleasure.”
She inclined her head. Nothing more.
“Mrs. Dove-Lyon tells me there will be a small gathering this evening,” Fenwick said. “Music in the private rooms. It seems you may be called upon.”
Lila went still. Only an instant. Marcus saw it.
“That is for Mrs. Dove-Lyon to determine,” she replied.
“Indeed.” Fenwick tapped a gloved finger against the frame. “One likes to know where expectations should be placed.”
Marcus moved, blocking Fenwick’s view without ceremony.
“Do you require something?”
“I never require.” Fenwick’s smile widened slightly. “I only observe.”
“Then observe elsewhere.”
For a beat, Fenwick did not move. His gaze shifted between them, weighing, measuring, calculating how a moment might be turned.
Then he bowed again. “As you wish, my lord.”
He left.
Henry played on, unaware of the tension that had settled over the room like a held breath.
Marcus returned to the window.
Lila’s hands lowered to the keys. Her voice remained steady, but the care beneath it told Marcus all he needed to know.
Fenwick’s interest was sharpening. Interest of that kind was rarely harmless.
They finished the lesson quietly.
As Henry packed his portfolio, Lila approached Marcus.
“My lord,” she said softly. “Will your day allow you to return this afternoon?”
“Is something needed?”
“No.” She gathered herself. “Mrs. Dove-Lyon mentioned a musical gathering. I will be required to play. It would help if Henry heard the room beforehand. It may lessen the strain on him.”
Marcus studied her. This was not about strain. It was about shadows in hallways. Men who lingered. The quiet danger that followed women who lived alone and earned their bread.
“Yes,” he said. “We will return.”
Relief flickered through her eyes. “Thank you.”
When she turned back to Henry, warmth returned to her voice, but Marcus had seen what she had not meant him to see.
She trusted him. Carefully. Warily.
That trust carried weight. He had not borne such a thing in a long while.
They left the music room. Behind them, Lila remained at the pianoforte, hands resting lightly on the keys, as if the cool ivory steadied her.
The door closed and the room settled into quiet again.
Lila let out a breath she had not realized she was holding.
Lord Wolfton unsettled her more than Fenwick did, though for entirely different reasons. Fenwick watched as men often watched—calculating advantage. Marcus Wolfton watched as though he expected truth and nothing less.
A man who demanded honesty without asking for it was far more dangerous to her composure.