Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
“Your Grace,” Mrs. Patterson said from the doorway of his study.
Hector lifted his head.
“Mrs. Patterson,” he said. “Please bring Miss Aurora here and the Duchess as well.”
“At once, Your Grace.” Her skirts withdrew with a soft, efficient rustle.
When she left, Hector remained standing behind his desk, one hand resting on the head of his cane as he faced the closet. He could make out little more than a vertical darkness set into the wall. It had been finished that morning.
The carpenter had been instructed to work quietly, to ask no questions, and to be gone before the nursery hours shifted.
Mrs. Patterson had supervised the cleaning afterward, and Jonathan had reported that the hinges made no sound and that the interior was safe for a child inclined to crawl into places adults did not expect her to fit.
He heard them before Mrs. Patterson announced them.
Aurora’s steps were quick and uneven, a small patter interrupted by little skips of impatience.
The duchesses’s were slower and graceful.
She had a way of entering a room without claiming it, and yet changing its balance the moment she crossed the threshold.
Mrs. Patterson appeared first, thankfully directing his thoughts to reality.
“Miss Aurora and Her Grace.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Patterson. Bring them in.”
Aurora came ahead of Her Grace, as Hector had expected. He admired her childish curiosity. Her small figure flashed brightly in his imperfect vision.
“Uncle Hector?” she asked without stuttering again.
The memories in the maze were still fresh in his mind and heart, and even then, as she began to speak more clearly around him, it tugged at his heartstrings.
He inclined his head. “Aurora.”
“Have I done s…s…something wrong?” She shied away.
“No,” he said quickly. “You have done nothing.”
Her Grace stood just behind the child. Hector could not see her expression clearly, but he felt the direction of her attention.
She was watching him, as she often did when she thought he might mishandle some tender matter.
She did not interfere, and that restraint was one of the things he respected about her. She was giving him a chance.
He turned slightly toward Mrs. Patterson.
“Mrs. Patterson has something to show you,” he motioned toward her.
Aurora pivoted at once. “For me?”
Mrs. Patterson’s expression softened. “Yes, Miss Aurora. His Grace wished you to be brought here so that you might see it properly.”
Hector followed them to the closet.
“There is,” she continued, “a new closet made especially for you.”
Aurora stood still, then looked toward Hector. “A new closet for me?”
The duchess turned to him too, questioningly.
He allowed the corner of his mouth to move. “Yes, all for you.”
Mrs. Patterson crossed to the closet door and opened it. Hector listened to her reaction. Aurora’s breath caught. Her shoes tapped twice as she ran to the closet, then stopped. A hand brushed the doorframe. The old wood, newly polished, answered faintly beneath her little fingers.
Then she gasped.
“Oh, Poppy, look!”
No one spoke. Even Her Grace seemed to understand that the first sight of a gift belonged to the child. Aurora took one step inside. Then another.
“This is all mine?” she asked excitedly.
“Yes,” Hector said as he smiled.
There was a rustle as she turned about within it. “It is just my size!”
The duchess moved closer to him. Hector could sense her nearness.
She smelled faintly of fresh air and jasmine.
He found nothing ordinary in his response to her presence.
His heart fluttered unexpectedly and an unwelcome warmth spread through his chest at her nearness.
It was as if her presence stirred something tender yet alive within him.
Aurora gave a squeal then, sudden and piercing with joy, pulling him back to reality. Hector’s slight smile broadened before he could prevent it.
“It has a little place here,” Aurora cried. “Poppy, look. Look, you must look. It is mine. It is my new closet.”
“I see it,” Her Grace said.
Her voice had changed, too. Hector kept his gaze toward the open door and did not turn to her.
“Did you plan this?” she demanded.
“No,” Hector said slowly. “I did not.”
“But Mrs. Patterson knew.”
“Mrs. Patterson knows a great many things in this house.”
Aurora shifted inside the closet.
“Did you make it?” the duchess continued to ask.
“No, I left it to my housekeeper, and she did a good job if I do say so myself. Why do you ask?” Hector did not want her to know the truth.
“The wood you were painting inside the maze—”
“A fairy made it!” Aurora shouted from the closet, cutting her off, and Hector was grateful for the distraction.
Mrs. Patterson’s composure faltered as she laughed. “A fairy, miss?”
“Yes. A house fairy. A very good one. She came when I was not looking and made me a new closet because I did not have one.”
Her Grace’s quiet laugh warmed the air around Hector. “A fairy seems possible.”
Hector turned his head a fraction toward her; he did not want to be distracted by her beauty and light again.
“It is big enough for me to sit in,” she announced. “And if I curl, I could sleep in it.”
“You are not required to sleep in it,” Hector said sternly, but Aurora laughed as though this were a splendid joke. The duchess said nothing, but he felt her looking at him again.
Aurora emerged from the closet and looked up at him.
“Uncle Hector, did you see? It is mine.”
He was in awe that she was even addressing him at all.
“I heard,” he said. “It seems to have met with approval.”
She giggled.
Aurora beamed. “May I keep it forever?”
“It was made for you.”
“Poppy, come inside.”
“I am not certain I will fit,” Her Grace said teasingly.
Hector lowered himself into the chair behind his desk. He set the cane beside him, its familiar weight against his knee. From there he listened while Aurora climbed in and out, naming possible uses.
It might hold dolls. It might be a hiding place. It might be a reading place if someone read to her from outside. It might be used when Princess was cross, though this suggestion was quickly revised because Princess would certainly discover it and claim half.
He had not known how much labor was required to raise children until he found himself measuring the height of a shelf for a four-year-old.
Her Grace drew a little nearer to his desk while Aurora questioned Mrs. Patterson about fairies.
“That was well done,” she said quietly.
Hector kept his face turned toward the child. “Mrs. Patterson arranged the presentation admirably.”
“I did not mean Mrs. Patterson.”
“Then you are mistaken.”
“Am I?” She tilted her head toward him, and he was tempted to move the rogue curl away from her face.
“Yes.”
“I have found,” she said slowly, “that you often deny things most firmly when they are true.”
He should have been irritated at her scrutiny. Instead, he was aware of an unwelcome warmth in his chest.
“I am afraid that you have not known me long enough, duchess.”
“No,” she said. “Only long enough to begin noticing.”
Aurora cried out in delight from within the closet. The sound saved him from answering. He folded both hands over the cane and allowed his mouth the smallest concession to pleasure.
On the third night after the closet’s unveiling, Hector remained in his study long after the house had settled. Midnight altered the room, and sleep eluded him. Whenever Hector closed his eyes, his mind did not darken. It brightened with thoughts of his wife.
He rubbed one hand across his brow to try to forget her.
“Will there be anything else, Your Grace?” Jonathan asked suddenly.
Hector straightened. “No. That will be all.”
Before the footman could withdraw, there was a light knock.
Hector turned his head. At such an hour, every sound arrived with consequence. Jonathan opened the door, and Her Grace stood beyond it.
“Forgive me,” she said. “I saw the light.”
“You are awake late, Your Grace.”
“So are you.”
It was not an accusation. She came in only after Jonathan stepped aside. Her gown moved softly; her voice carried the fatigue he had noticed earlier.
“Is something wrong?” Hector asked.
“No. I…” she stopped.
He waited. It was one of the few courtesies he could offer without risk.
“I was told that Aurora was not in bed again,” she said at last.
As if on cue, a sneeze came from the closet. It was small, muffled, and unmistakably human.
Hector went still.
Jonathan turned his head at once, and the duchess’s chair scraped softly as she shifted. For one suspended second, no one spoke. Then Hector looked toward his footman.
“Jonathan. Open the closet.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” the man said, already on his way to the closet.
Her Grace’s voice was low. “Not again.”
Hector rose. His cane tapped against the floor as he and the duchess approached the closet.
The route from desk to wall was familiar, but urgency altered the distance.
He crossed carefully, listening. There was a faint rustle from inside, then nothing.
No frightened cry. No movement of an intruder.
Only the soft, congested breath of a sleeping child.
Her Grace had followed closely. He sensed her behind him.
Jonathan found the handle and opened the closet.
The hinges, as promised, made no sound. At first, he saw only darkness within darkness.
Then the lamplight reached enough to shape the small form curled on the floor.
Aurora had tucked herself into the corner, knees drawn in, one cheek resting on her arm, and her hair had loosened.
A faint shiver passed through her, or perhaps it was only the remnant of the sneeze.
Hector’s breath left him slowly.
“Aurora,” Her Grace whispered.
The child did not wake.
Hector lowered himself with care. He set the cane within reach and extended a hand, confirming the rise and fall of her breathing. Then he brushed his fingers lightly over her sleeve. She was not cold, but neither was she warm enough for his liking.
“How long has she been here?” she asked.