Chapter Thirty-One
Henry sat cross-legged on the nursery rug, the little woolen dog pressed to his knee, the pianoforte stool drawn close enough to suggest he might climb it again at any moment. Every few breaths, he glanced toward the door.
“Papa,” he called. “I’m ready.”
Marcus was already there, leaning against the doorframe with his coat undone and his sleeves pushed to his forearms. A softer outline tonight.
The version Henry recognized instinctively, even when Marcus did not.
Henry always noticed when his father looked less like a man carrying the weight of a house and more like someone simply present.
“All right,” Marcus said softly. “Begin when you’re ready.”
Henry set his fingers on the edge of the stool first, a nervous habit he had not yet shed, then slid them to the keys. A small breath. A pause. A hum beneath his breath to summon the memory.
Then the notes. Three only. Three small tones, placed with care.
They wavered on the first attempt, a slight tremor that once would have stopped him altogether, but Henry did not flinch. He pressed on and finished with a quiet exhale.
“It stayed,” he whispered.
Something tightened low in Marcus’s chest. “It did.”
Henry looked up, eyes bright, hopeful, carrying the fierce need for approval he rarely asked for outright.
“I want to play it for Miss Edgewood tomorrow,” he said. “But only if it stays overnight. Sometimes it leaves.”
“It won’t,” Marcus said. “Not tonight.”
Satisfied, Henry climbed onto his bed and pulled the blanket to his chin. Marcus dimmed the lamp but left the small night candle burning, the compromise they had reached weeks ago.
“Papa,” Henry said as Marcus turned away.
“Yes?”
“Miss Edgewood looked… different today.”
Marcus paused.
“She didn’t smile right.”
His breath stilled.
“Is it because of the man in the street?” Henry asked.
Marcus crossed the room again and sat on the edge of the bed. Henry watched him with that unnerving childhood perception that slipped past what adults tried to hide.
“Yes,” Marcus said quietly. “In part.”
Henry drew the woolen dog close. “You walked loud today,” he said. “The house heard you.”
Marcus swallowed.
Children named truths adults tried to avoid.
“I suppose,” Marcus said after a moment, “that I remembered something today.”
“What?” Henry whispered.
“That sometimes,” Marcus said, “when something is worth protecting, quiet is no longer enough.”
Henry nodded, the logic simple and solid to him.
“We keep Miss Edgewood safe,” he said. “Right?”
Marcus’s breath caught. The innocence. The certainty.
“Yes,” he said. “We do.”
Henry yawned, his eyes already drifting. “And she likes when you come,” he murmured into the woolen dog’s ear. “She smiled different.”
Heat rose in Marcus’s throat. Not desire. Not fear. Something older and deeper.
“I don’t know about that,” he said softly.
Henry was already half-asleep. “I saw it.”
Marcus stayed until the boy’s breathing evened, then extinguished the candle. He walked down the corridor as the house settled around him, not as an empty shell he had failed to fill, but as a place with a pulse again.
Halfway down the stairs, he stopped.
Henry’s simple certainty echoed in his mind. She likes you.
Marcus let out a breath, sharp and unsteady.
Because part of him knew the truth, he had not spoken. That he liked her too. Enough to step into danger. Enough to wake parts of himself he had believed buried with Grace. Enough to feel alive in a way he had not allowed for years.
His hand tightened on the banister.
Fenwick would make another move. Marcus felt it in his bones.
And when he did, Marcus would be ready. Not with noise or fury, but with the same deliberate strength Henry had already seen. The kind that leaves no doubt when someone he loves is threatened.
Marcus continued down the stairs.
Tomorrow, he would begin again.