Chapter 16 #2
The breakfast continued with a civility that should have made her feel safe, but it did not.
Safety, she was discovering, could be as unsettling as danger when one had not expected to find it in a particular man.
After his business trip, Hector seemed to have a better temper than usual.
He seemed less barricaded, and his replies came without sharp edges.
Poppy was grateful that he also did not appear eager to flee anymore.
So, she took a chance to ask him another burning question.
“Is this breakfast a singular event,” she asked slowly, “or the beginning of a routine?”
His head turned slightly toward her, and a rogue curl fell across his strong jawline. “Would you object to a routine?”
A few weeks ago, she would have. The answer came so quickly inside her that she nearly smiled at her own discomfort. A few weeks ago, the idea of facing him at every meal would have tightened her stomach. She would have counted the minutes, measured every word, and feared every silence.
Now the thought sent a bright, foolish warmth through her. She scolded herself at once.
It is only breakfast. Bread, butter, tea, and conversation. The ordinary machinery of a household. Nothing in it warranted excitement.
“No, I would not object,” she finally said.
Hector smiled at her, and she was taken aback by how kind his face seemed.
He placed his cutlery down and gave her his full attention. Poppy squirmed in her chair, unsure how to react.
“Then we shall share every meal from now on,” he said firmly.
Poppy’s hand tightened around her napkin beneath the table.
Every meal.
The words opened something in her she had no wish to examine in daylight. She felt both nervous and excited to spend that time with him.
“That seems…sensible,” she struggled to contain her excitement. “For the household, I suppose,” she added quickly.
“I suppose so, too.”
There was no mistaking the moment they shared when they looked into each other’s eyes.
“I think that Aurora should join us as well.” She was unsure whether she was pushing her boundaries with him, but his gaze said otherwise.
Hector did not answer at once, but that was one of the things Poppy had learned about him; all his silences were not alike. Some were refusals, and some were retreats, but this one was consideration.
“Do you truly believe that is wise?” he asked.
The sincerity of the question caught her attention. He was not challenging her. He truly wanted to know.
“I believe so, yes.”
“She may not like that.” He raised his brow.
Poppy shook her head slowly as she thought about it. “Maybe not at first, but it will help create a sense of family and stability that Aurora needs.”
“I will not have her frightened. Nor forced to sit through some ceremony she does not understand because adults have decided it will improve her.”
Poppy’s heart softened. He was just an uncle frightened of becoming one more terror in his niece’s life.
“I would not ask that of her,” she said.
“But meals are not only ceremony. Not if we make them otherwise. Aurora needs to feel she belongs somewhere that does not vanish when she closes her eyes. She needs the same faces. The same table. The same voices. She needs to learn that we will still be here at breakfast, and dinner, and the next day.”
His jaw worked once, as though he had bitten down on words.
Poppy continued more gently. “Family is not only affection. Sometimes it is repetition until the heart believes what the mind has been told.”
He sat very still.
Then, more quietly than before, he asked, “Do you think she would enjoy spending time with me?”
Poppy did not answer immediately. His question revealed more than he likely meant to show, and there was no vanity in it. She sensed no expectations either. Perhaps he feared being disliked by a four-year-old girl whose whole world had already been broken.
“I think,” Poppy said carefully, “that she does not know you yet.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the truest one I have.”
His hand moved toward his cane as if readying himself to leave.
“I do not wish to force her into my company if she finds it unpleasant.” Poppy looked at him kindly, and he seemed to remember his coldness as he allowed it to take over his features.
“I only meant that upset children at the table would be noisy and disruptive, which I would prefer to avoid.”
Poppy pursed her lips, hiding the smile that threatened to emerge. “She may find it unfamiliar at first, but not unpleasant. That is different.”
He raised a dark brow at her, and a faint flush warmed her throat.
“I believe that the more Aurora sees you in an ordinary setting, the less alarming you will seem, and eventually you will grow on her.”
His mouth tightened disapprovingly. “Like mold.”
Poppy let out a soft laugh. “More like ivy.”
For one suspended moment, something almost like amusement crossed his face as he watched her, and she felt absurdly victorious.
Then she added, without thinking about it, “You have even begun to grow on me.”
The words landed between them with far more weight than she had intended. Hector coughed suddenly and got up.
Poppy looked down at her plate, mortified. “I did not—I only meant—”
“That will be all,” Hector said coldly, but his reddened skin gave his true feelings away.
He tapped his cane with perhaps more force than necessary.
Poppy rose as well, though she did not know why. “Of course, Your—Hector.”
He took two steps, then stopped near the door. For a moment she thought he would leave without another word. Instead, he turned his head toward her.
“I will ensure Aurora joins us for meals,” he said slowly. “But if she makes too much of a fuss, we shall stop.”
Poppy’s embarrassment eased into compassion. “Thank you, Hector.”
“Are you excited for dinner, Aurora?” Poppy’s voice had a way of wrapping around someone like the warmest blanket, and it was beginning to unsettle Hector.
He turned his attention to the little shape beside her, who simply nodded her head. By dinner, Hector had begun to regret the entire deal he had made with Poppy.
Aurora sat at the table, small and oddly quiet. She was close enough to Poppy to take comfort and far enough from Hector not to feel trapped. Poppy had arranged that.
Of course she had.
Hector sat at the head of the table and felt like an intruder in his own dining room.
The room had always suited him before. Its formality, its measured sounds, the predictable placement of chair and plate, and glass.
He could navigate it easily, and meals had been quiet affairs.
He had preferred them that way because the quietness did not demand anything from him.
Now there was a child breathing carefully into her napkin as though determined not to offend anyone by existing. And there was Poppy, attempting small talk with the delicate patience of someone coaxing a bird to an open palm.
“The cook said the jam was made from the last of the summer fruit,” Poppy continued. “Do you remember summer fruit, Aurora?”
“R-raspberries,” Aurora said softly.
Hector did not move, though the stutter struck him with peculiar force.
He understood that she was nervous, and he hated that.
Her stuttering was less pronounced than it had been in the first days after she arrived.
Then, fear had broken every sentence into pieces.
Now the word only caught once before it freed itself.
“Raspberries,” Poppy repeated warmly. “An excellent choice. Hector, do you like raspberries?”
He had not expected to be included in this conversation.
“I have no objection to them,” he said gruffly.
Poppy made a small sound that might have been laughter if she had not been restraining it. “A ringing endorsement.”
Aurora’s head turned, and Hector saw the motion as a soft blur.
“What is en-dorse-ment?” she asked.
“It means your uncle likes raspberries too,” Poppy replied simply, and Hector decided to observe her and silently take notes.
Aurora considered this. “That is nice.”
“I am known for my generosity,” Hector said bravely.
Poppy laughed lightly at his words, and the sound moved through the room and stayed locked within him.
His fingers tightened around his fork. He had heard laughter before, but Poppy’s laughter had a way of disturbing the air.
The meals arrived, and Hector felt that perhaps the night may go well after all.
That was until Aurora began to cry. It happened so quickly that Hector first thought she had hurt herself.
A small sound caught in her throat before her breath stuttered and tears came with the helpless immediacy of a child.
He set down his fork loudly. His mind, accustomed to estates, accounts, physicians, legal matters, and all the manageable disasters of adult life, found itself useless before a weeping girl.
“What is it?” he asked too sharply.
Poppy’s voice came at once, so sweet and steady that even he felt instantly calmed by it. “Aurora, darling, tell us.”
“It’s n-not fair,” Aurora said.
Hector froze.
Fair? What had I done?
Had the chair been wrong, the food wrong, his voice wrong?
“What is not fair, my dear?” Poppy cooed.
“We are here,” Aurora sobbed, “and Princess is all alone.”
The answer was so simple, and so devastatingly loyal, that Hector had no defense against it.
Poppy rose at once. “Then Princess shall join us.”
“Is that—” Hector began.
But Poppy was already moving, issuing soft instructions.
A servant departed, and Aurora wiped her cheeks, still trembling.
Hector sat uselessly with both hands on the table and understood that his carefully structured meal had been defeated by the moral clarity of a four-year-old.
Princess arrived soon after, and with her came the end of the dining room as Hector had known it.
“Princess!” Aurora’s voice immediately changed and lit up the entire room while the baby gurgled happily.