Chapter 10 #2
He remained in the doorway and let his cane rest lightly against the floor.
He had learned that entering too quickly sent her away or made her nervous.
Speaking too loudly did the same thing. Sometimes, even smiling, according to one disastrous attempt, made matters worse.
He suspected his smile did not look as he expected it to.
“I have come to ask whether you require anything?” he pretended not to notice that she was hidden under a table. He tried again. “Have you eaten?”
No answer.
The child moved suddenly. Her steps pattered, then stopped.
Hector kept himself motionless. “You need not speak if you do not wish to. I only wished to say good afternoon.”
When she did not respond, he could have retreated then and counted it as restraint.
Instead, driven by a stubbornness that had served him well in Parliament and poorly with every wounded thing, he lowered himself carefully to one knee.
The movement was awkward with the cane, and he felt the old pull through his body from compensations learned too young.
He did not mind discomfort. He minded the sharp little gasp from the corner.
“I am not coming nearer,” he said.
Aurora’s voice emerged after a long wait, so soft that he almost missed it. “Wh-where is P-Poppy?”
“She is getting ready to sleep, as should you, I believe.” He kept his tone even, though the stutter made him feel guilty. “Would you like me to send for her?”
He thought she nodded, but he could not be certain.
“I will send for her,” he said.
The small shape held itself ready to vanish.
He rose slowly. “Good afternoon, Aurora.”
He had nearly reached the door when she whispered, “G-good af-afternoon.”
He stopped himself from turning too quickly. The words had cost her. If he made too much of them, she might never offer any again.
“Thank you,” he said, and left.
In the corridor, he exhaled. It was not victory, but it was progress, perhaps. He had frightened her merely by existing. Still, she had answered him. The answer had not been a smile, and certainly not trust, but it had been given.
He found Mrs. Patterson near the nursery room.
The housekeeper had been with his family long enough to have seen every version of him.
The half-blind boy who refused help, the young man who made pride from pain because pride was cleaner, and eventually the duke who had inherited a house full of ghosts and dismissed most of them by refusing to look backward.
She was forty now, steady in voice and step, and one of the few servants who did not treat his sight as either a tragedy or an inconvenience.
She placed things where he expected them, told him when rooms changed, and like his footman, she never took his arm unless he asked.
Mrs. Patterson was more of a mother to him than his own ever was.
“Your Grace,” she said. “Is all well?”
“No.”
Her pause was brief. “Is anyone ill?”
“No.” He almost smiled. “Send someone to the duchess. Aurora wants her. At once. And Mrs. Patterson.”
“Yes, Your Grace?”
“Where is the baby?”
“In the small sitting room adjoining the nursery and their chamber. She has been fed and is nearly asleep, though she appears undecided on the matter.” Mrs. Patterson’s eyes lit up like a proud mother’s.
Hector understood that state. “Is the duchess with her?”
“Not at present, Your Grace.” She raised a concerned brow but did not ask any questions.
“Take me to the baby,” he ordered.
Mrs. Patterson turned, and he followed the sound of her steps as the cane marked the corridor in quiet intervals.
The house had become less predictable since the children arrived.
A stool left where none had been. A shawl dropped over a chair.
There were small signs of life interrupting the order in his house.
He should have found it irritating, as he often did, but it felt right.
“Thank you, Mrs. Patterson.”
His housekeeper curtsied and walked toward the crib. The baby was in a cradle when he entered, making small experimental sounds as she began to fall asleep. Mrs. Patterson moved with practiced efficiency, and the soft creak told him she had bent over the cradle.
“Would Your Grace like—”
“Yes,” Hector said before she finished.
She lifted the baby and placed her small, fragile body into his waiting arms. Hector had held her twice before.
The first time she had been thrust toward him while the nuns adjusted Aurora’s torn ribbon in her hair.
The second time Mrs. Patterson had asked whether he wished to learn how to support the child’s head when they had first arrived, and he had heard too much knowledge in the question to refuse.
Now he held her because he wanted to.
She weighed almost nothing and yet altered the balance of his whole body. He stood very still until Mrs. Patterson said, “The chair is to your left, Your Grace.”
He found it with the back of his leg and sat carefully, cane hooked against the arm.
The baby shifted, her head turning toward his chest. Her tiny body held warmth with astonishing determination.
He could not make out her features beyond soft roundness and pale movement.
Her hand opened and closed against his coat.
Mrs. Patterson’s mouth curved. “She has not cried.”
“No. I have chosen to regard that as affection.” He lifted a finger that was held tightly by the baby, as if to prove his point.
“That is a sensible interpretation, Your Grace,” Mrs. Patterson let out a soft laugh.
The baby’s fist bumped his waistcoat, then slid away.
He adjusted his arm as Mrs. Patterson had taught him, supporting her small head with care.
He had held fragile things before, but this was different.
This child had no awareness of his strength.
No fear of his name. No judgment for his failures.
She merely existed against him, warm and nameless, wrapped in an innocent trust in him. He thought of Jasper’s question.
“What do they call her?”
The baby blinked up at him, and Hector held back the wave of emotions that washed over him as he saw the color of her eyes. Green. Soft and trusting.
“I can see it in your eyes that you are not impressed by me,” he murmured.
The baby waved one hand.
“No? I am a duke. Some people find that sufficient.”
Another tiny sound.
“Yes, I agree. A poor misjudgment on their side.”
Mrs. Patterson walked toward the door but remained there. Hector knew she was the only one who had noticed these stolen minutes. He suspected she understood that he came here because the baby demanded nothing from him and therefore made it possible to give.
“At least you do not cry or hide when I approach you,” he told the child.
Her mouth moved. But the baby waited with grave, infant disinterest.
“Princess,” he whispered her name very quietly.
Even with his poor sight, he saw that she offered him a wide, bright smile.
It was absurdly generous, as though he had performed some feat worthy of reward.
Hector went still, and Mrs. Patterson said nothing if she realized what had happened.
The baby smiled again, or perhaps the first smile lingered; he could not tell where one miracle ended and another began.
“Well,” he said, after his throat allowed it. “You truly are a little princess.”
She stared in his general direction, smiling at whatever combination of sound and warmth pleased her. It was not him, he told himself. Not truly. Babies smiled at shadows, at gas, at the shapes of voices. Yet the small curve of her mouth entered him with unwelcome force and stayed.
“What does Miss Aurora favor?” he asked.
Mrs. Patterson answered as if she had expected the question. “The duchess would know best, Your Grace.”
“Yes, but I am asking you.” He avoided looking at her because she read him like an open book ever since he was a boy.