Chapter 17 #2
Poppy was too close to him inside the fort, and every touch, graze, and eye contact seared her mind.
“You helped, I assume?” he asked.
“And Mrs. Patterson.” She shrugged.
At that, Hector turned his head and raised his brow. Poppy heard the faint change in his voice and frowned. “That little traitor.”
Aurora looked at him, troubled. “Mrs. P…Patterson is not l…l…little.”
“No,” Hector murmured. “But a traitor all the same.”
Poppy narrowed her eyes. “And who did she betray?”
There was a brief moment of silence. Hector had the look of a man who had stepped where he had not intended to step and heard the floorboard creak beneath him. Poppy’s suspicion, which had been living quietly in a corner of her mind for days, stood up and stretched.
“Hector,” she said softly.
He adjusted himself in the small space. “I assumed Mrs. Patterson told you.”
“Told me what?” she frowned.
Aurora, bored or frustrated by their conversation, began rearranging her treasures into a stricter line.
Hector sighed through his nose. “About the closet.”
Poppy stared at him.
She knew that the closet was his idea all along. It had been altered without fuss, without announcement, and without any demand for gratitude. The space was made for small dresses, folded blankets, and all the things Aurora had loved which only he and Poppy knew about.
Aurora turned back. “Is Uncle H…Hector in t…t…trouble?”
“No, not at all,” Poppy said kindly.
Poppy looked at him then, and his pale eyes dropped somewhere near her mouth. She wondered whether he could see that she was smiling.
“Thank you,” she whispered to him.
His fingers moved once against the cane. “You are welcome.”
A silent understanding passed between them as Aurora resumed the tour.
“This is from my s…s…second home.” She handed Hector a little stone, but he outstretched his hand in the wrong direction, and Aurora frowned at him before plopping it onto his palm.
Poppy whispered, “Her second home is the orphanage.”
“Ah.” Hector rolled the stone through his fingers.
As the minutes went on, Poppy noticed a change in Aurora.
The first delight of being hostess gave way to a furrowed brow.
She watched Hector more and how his hand searched before he set anything down.
She watched how, when she asked for the moon book, he reached toward the wrong shape and paused.
She watched how he kept the cane with him even in that tiny, soft-walled space where there was nowhere, apparently, to go.
Then his foot came down on a toy half-hidden beneath a fold of blanket, and it gave a small wooden clack.
Hector stopped at once. “Forgive me.”
Aurora’s face clouded with pain. “You s…s…stepped on it.”
Poppy’s hand tightened in the blanket.
Hector was silent for a moment while Aurora looked at his cane. “Why can you not leave that s…s…stick outside?”
“Aurora,” Poppy warned her.
But Hector lifted one hand a fraction.
Aurora pressed on, the questions coming now that the first had escaped. “And w…w…why could you not find the moon book? It was just there.” She pointed at it, but Hector kept his eyes on her. “And w…why did you step on the toy if it was right in front of you?”
Poppy watched him, fearing the shutter would fall.
She had seen men grow cruel when children noticed what adults politely ignored.
But Hector did not seem upset. Instead, he shifted until he was seated more securely, his long legs awkward in the confined space, and his cane resting beside him where his hand could find it easily.
“Because I cannot see as well as you can,” he said truthfully.
Aurora tilted her little head and frowned.
“I can see the shape of you, but without a candle, I cannot see all of you.” Poppy was surprised that he was confessing the truth.
“But… y…y…you have eyes.” She pointed at his eyes.
“Yes, I do.”
“And t…t…they are open.”
“They usually are.” He smiled at her, and Poppy almost protested against her asking more questions, but Aurora continued.
“What d…d…do you see?”
Hector considered her question before answering. Poppy leaned closer because she was just as interested in his answer as Aurora was.
“I can see shape, movement, some colors, light. Sometimes all the details are exposed clearly to me, but I do not know when or how that will be. I know where the window is more easily than I know what is on the floor because of the light. I know that you are small and that Poppy is beside the entrance, and that Princess is on the bed. But if you hold up one book and ask me which it is, I may not know it.”
Aurora absorbed this with the full seriousness of a four-year-old. Her stutter, Poppy noticed, had disappeared completely.
“Was it always l…l…like that?” she cocked her head, completely forgetting about her treasures and tour.
Hector seemed to have disappeared in thought. “No. Once upon a time I used to see as you do.”
Poppy did not realize how close she had leaned until their shoulders brushed and Hector’s gaze drifted toward hers. For one unsettling moment, he seemed to be lost in a painful thought.
“But… I had an accident, and over the years, it changed,” he continued.
“Slowly at first. I missed things that other people saw. Faces from across a room. Writing. Steps in poor light. Then it became worse. The world lost its edges. So, I learned other ways. The cane tells me what the floor will not, and sound tells me where people are, while touch tells me what my eyes cannot. I eventually began to see the outline, then the shape, and now I am blessed with glimpses of the world when I least expect it.”
His attention turned toward Poppy again, and though he said nothing more, she felt the unfinished sentence between them.
“Often, I understand a thing better if I touch it.” Poppy felt heat spread across her cheeks.
Her pulse answered before her mind could discipline it.
Aurora nodded as if this was sensible. “D…do you get lost in the house?”
Hector looked at Aurora’s earnest face.
“Occasionally, I do get lost,” he said.
Poppy glanced at him sharply. She thought he would say, of course not.
He was the Duke of Sterling after all, and he knew every corridor, every stair, every silence within the walls.
But he answered honestly, and that took her by surprise.
Aurora sat back on her heels, thinking. Poppy saw the precise moment the child’s fear dispersed.
Hector was no longer merely a large, stern, and difficult man.
He was someone who sometimes needed help, and that made him more relatable to the child.
“I can be your guide whenever you get lost,” Aurora eventually said.
Hector went very still beside Poppy.
“When you get lost,” she added as she smiled at him. “I know this room. And the hall. And the way to Poppy.”
“The way to Poppy?” he repeated.
“Yes.” She shook her head vigorously.
His hand closed around the cane. “That would be useful.”
Poppy looked away, but not before she saw that he had noticed what she had noticed. Aurora had not stumbled over a single word.
The room felt smaller and warmer. Princess stirred on the bed and made a soft, sleepy sound. Poppy knew the hour had grown late. She also knew she would remember this dim tent of blankets long after the pillows collapsed and the girls outgrew it.
“It is time for bed,” she said quietly.
Aurora’s disappointment was immediate. She began gathering treasures with the weary obedience of a child who wished to be praised for surrendering.
Poppy lifted the blanket entrance higher, and Hector maneuvered himself toward it, but before he could leave, Aurora caught his sleeve.
“Will you stay too?”
The question held him there more effectively than her small hand could have.
Poppy turned toward him expectingly as Aurora added, “Tiny spaces always have room for one more person.”
Hector looked torn, but at last he freed his sleeve with care.
“I think,” he said, “it is best if I go.”