Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Iam not brave enough.” Aurora reached toward the smallest pony, then drew her hand back.
Poppy rose and crossed to her. “For what?”
Aurora looked at the pony, then at the ground. “To sit on him.”
“You need not sit on him today.”
“But I should.”
“Who told you that?”
Aurora considered this gravely. “No one.”
“Then no one is disappointed.”
The child’s brow pinched, as if disappointment might still be hiding somewhere nearby, waiting to spring out. Poppy crouched beside her and kept her voice even.
“You are the bravest little girl I know.”
Aurora gave her a doubtful look. “No.”
“Yes.”
“I was scared.”
“Brave people often are.”
Aurora’s fingers curled into the fabric of Poppy’s sleeve. “I was scared all the time.”
Poppy covered the small hand with her own. “And still you kept Princess safe. You made her laugh. You helped her sleep. You held on until someone came. That is not a small kind of bravery, Aurora.”
The child looked back at the pony. It breathed through its nose, warm and patient.
“I like him better when I am not on him,” Aurora said.
“Then we shall like him from the ground.”
A small smile appeared, quick and shy. Aurora touched the pony’s neck again. This time she did not pull away.
On the blanket, Princess made a noise of protest at being left out of the conversation. Poppy turned her head and found the baby rolling to one side, reaching for a corner of the blanket with intense determination.
“You see?” Poppy said. “Your sister thinks you are brave, too.”
“She thinks the blanket tastes good.”
“That may also be true.”
Aurora laughed. The sound was still new enough to make Poppy’s chest tighten.
A few days had passed since the household had begun to feel less like a collection of rooms and more like a life.
There had been no formal declaration of peace, no sudden ease, no simple answer to all that had come before.
But the girls had slept better. Hector had come to breakfast. Poppy had stopped listening for the closing of doors as if each one were a verdict.
Aurora moved back toward Princess and kneeled with great importance beside the blanket. “There is a tiny insect.”
“Is there?”
“It wants to climb on her.”
“Then you must defend her.”
Aurora bent close, her face solemn. “Go away, tiny insect. She is too little for you.”
Princess waved one hand in the air, untroubled by the threat.
Poppy sat again, smoothing her skirts beneath her. The day was mild, the air carrying the warm animal scent of the stables and the cut grass beyond. She could hear the soft flick of tails, the occasional stamp of a hoof, the faint creak of leather from within the stable yard.
Aurora watched the insect depart, then said without looking up, “I am not scared of him anymore.”
Poppy stilled. “Of whom?”
“Uncle Hector.”
The name landed gently and deeply at once.
“No?” Poppy asked.
Aurora shook her head. “He is not as frightening when he is quiet.”
Poppy pressed her lips together to keep from smiling. “He is quiet a great deal.”
“Yes. But before, it was a large quiet.” Aurora spread her hands as if measuring an enormous object. “Now it is only quiet.”
“I see.”
“And he never found out.”
Poppy tilted her head. “Found out what?”
Aurora glanced at her, lowering her voice. “About my words.”
Poppy’s throat softened. “Your words?”
“When they get stuck.” Aurora touched two fingers to her mouth. “He never knew.”
Poppy looked toward the stables, where a groom passed through the wide doorway, then back at Aurora. “No,” she said gently. “He never figured it out.”
Aurora nodded, satisfied. “That is good.”
“Very good.”
Poppy bent over Princess under the pretense of adjusting the baby’s blanket.
She needed the moment. Hector had known, of course.
He noticed far more than people believed, perhaps because the world denied him detail, and so he had learned to read weight, pause, breath, silence.
He had never once cornered Aurora with that knowledge. He had let the child keep her dignity.
That was the sort of kindness that did not announce itself.
It troubled Poppy more than grand gestures might have.
She had expected the one-month deadline to remain between them like a candle burning down.
Hector had spoken of it before their marriage with such hard certainty, as if time could be measured, tested, and judged.
Yet he had not mentioned it again. Not at breakfast. Not in the corridor.
Not during the careful conversations in which they stood too close and said too little.
And if that agreement had begun to fade, what of the other?
Separate bedrooms.
The phrase had once sounded practical. Sensible. Safe.
Now it felt like a door left closed after the room behind it had changed.
Poppy looked toward the house without meaning to. She thought of the quiet hall between their chambers, of the nights when she lay awake and knew he was awake too. She thought of the kiss they had shared, and of his restraint afterward, which had wounded and reassured her in equal measure.
A familiar tap reached her before his voice did.
Hector came from the direction of the stable path, tall and dark-haired, his cane moving ahead of him with practiced precision.
He did not hurry, but he never appeared hesitant.
His pale gray eyes were turned toward them, though Poppy knew he would make out shapes and movement more readily than faces. Still, she felt seen.
Aurora sprang to her feet, then checked herself. She looked at Poppy as if requesting permission to be brave.
Poppy smiled. “Go on.”
Aurora approached him with a careful dignity that lasted three steps before she ran the rest of the way. Hector stopped at once. His free hand came down, ready before she reached him.
“Uncle Hector,” Aurora said.
“Aurora.”
“There are ponies.”
“So I gathered.”
“I am not riding them.”
“A wise decision, if you do not wish to.”
Aurora looked pleased. “Poppy says I am brave from the ground.”
“Poppy is often right.”
His gaze shifted toward Poppy. She felt the words more than she should have.
“And Princess?” he asked.
“On the blanket,” Aurora said. “But there are tiny insects, so I am guarding her.”
“Then I shall not distract you from such serious work.”
Aurora hurried back to the blanket and kneeled beside Princess again, scanning the fabric for invaders.
Hector came closer to Poppy. The space between them seemed at once public and private, open to the stable yard and yet narrowed by all that had been left unsaid.
“Are you well?” he asked.
“Yes. We have had no disasters. Unless one counts Aurora’s refusal to mount a pony.”
“I would not.”
“She was afraid you might.”
His mouth changed almost imperceptibly. “Then I am glad she did not ask me.”
Poppy looked down at her hands. “She says she is no longer afraid of you.”
There was a pause.
“That is no small thing,” Hector said.
“No.”
He stood beside her rather than sit. His cane pressed lightly into the ground. From the blanket, Aurora murmured firm warnings to another insect. Princess answered with a delighted squeal.
Hector’s voice lowered. “There is something I have not asked you.”
Poppy’s fingers tightened in her lap. “Is there?”
“Yes.”
She looked up. His eyes were fixed near her face, not exactly on her eyes, but close enough that her breath altered.
“We never spoke of the kiss,” he said.
The stable sounds seemed to draw back.
“No,” Poppy said.
“I should have asked before now.”
“You did not have to.”
“I think I did.” His jaw worked once, then settled. “Did you regret it?”
The question was plain. That made it harder to answer. She had braced for indirection, for reserve, for some careful arrangement of words that protected them both from embarrassment. Not this.
“No,” she said.
He did not move.
Poppy made herself continue. “I do not regret it.”
A groom laughed somewhere within the stable, quickly hushed. Aurora gasped and announced, “I saved her,” presumably from an insect too small for anyone else to see.
Hector exhaled. It was not relief, exactly. Or perhaps it was relief held under discipline.
“I am trying,” he said, “not to mistake silence for consent. Or fear of refusal. Or my own conclusions for your wishes.”
Poppy’s pulse became unsteady. “That sounds difficult for you.”
“It is proving intolerable.”
A laugh escaped her before she could stop it. His expression eased.
“Before the wedding,” he said, “we made certain agreements.”
“Yes.”
“One of them concerned time.”
“The month.”
“I have not forgotten it.”
“No,” she said. “I know.”
“But I find I no longer trust the man who made that bargain.”
Poppy stared at him.
He turned the handle of his cane under his palm. “There was another agreement.”
She knew. Of course, she knew.
“Our rooms,” he said.
Princess squealed again. Aurora leaned over her. “No, Princess, that is not for eating.”
Poppy looked toward them, buying a heartbeat. “What about them?”
“I had thought—”
A crack split the air.
It was not a sound that belonged to the gentle morning. It struck hard against the stable walls, sharp enough that every animal seemed to answer at once. A horse screamed inside the stable. Hooves slammed against the wood. A groom shouted.
Poppy rose.
“Hector—”
The stable door burst open.
A large horse bolted through, wild-eyed and uncontrolled, tearing free of the men who lunged after it.
Its body filled the doorway, dark and massive, muscles bunched in panic.
For one suspended instant Poppy saw only movement: the toss of its head, the violent lift of its forelegs, the churn of hooves finding open ground.
Then it came toward her.
She did not move quickly enough.
Someone shouted her name. Perhaps it was Hector. Perhaps it was herself. She saw Aurora clutch Princess against the blanket. Saw the horse bearing down—not malicious, only terrified, which made no difference at all.
A hard force struck Poppy from the side.