Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Hector stood with his cane planted against the worn wooden boards, its polished handle fitted beneath his palm as if it had been made from the shape of his endurance.
The room around him held the sounds by which he had come to know it: the low complaint of old timber under small feet, the softened scrape of a chair near the desk, the uneven breath of a child deciding whether to cry or argue, and Poppy’s quieter stillness, which had never been empty.
Princess had taken possession of two of his fingers and seemed determined to test their loyalty.
She tugged once, released him, shifted her weight, then tugged again with solemn force.
Her tiny fingers were warm and damp, and she murmured to herself in a language composed of insistence and triumph.
From her cot, where she had lately been set and from which she had immediately escaped into half-standing indignation, she behaved as though every soul in Saint Catherine’s Haven had gathered for no purpose but to observe her judgment upon the day.
Her birthday was still half a year away. She could not have understood the nature of age, ceremony, or time’s private thefts, but she understood attention. She lifted her chin toward it. She accepted it as her due.
Hector bent his head a fraction, listening as she made another determined sound and patted his knuckles with her free hand.
“Yes,” he said gravely. “I understand you object to being overlooked.”
Princess answered with a bubbling noise that might have been agreement.
Across the room, Aurora drew in a breath large enough for a declaration.
“She refused to return my ribbon,” she said.
Hector turned his face toward the voice.
He could make out her small, upright, vibrating shape with importance.
Her color was a soft blur against the steadier tones of the room, and he knew from her tone that her brows were likely drawn together with the same severity she had once reserved for strangers and now spent on injustices of the household.
She is just like me.
“Was she expected to return it?” he asked.
Aurora hesitated. “I let her glimpse it.”
“That was generous.”
“But I did not say she can chew it.”
Poppy’s laughter answered before Hector could restrain his own.
It moved softly through the room, bright with affection.
He felt it before he fully heard it, the way he had learned to feel Poppy’s nearness in the slight change of the air, the pause that came before she spoke, and the whisper of her skirts when she shifted her stance.
There had been a time when he had mistaken sight for certainty.
He knew better now. Sight had never told him what a person was.
It had only offered surfaces and dared him to be satisfied with them.
Poppy had taught him a slower grammar. The small intake of breath when she was moved.
The touch of her fingers on his sleeve before she asked something difficult.
The warmth of her skin when she came near enough to be found without reaching.
A faint brightness hovered where she stood near the window, some mingling of morning light and the pale color of her gown, and when the air stirred, it lifted strands of her dark blonde hair.
He could not see them as another man might.
He could not count them, nor name the exact shade of gold or brown where light met them.
But the blur about her head softened, trembled, and his mind made reverence of what his eyes could not finish.
“Perhaps your ribbon can serve as an early birthday present,” Poppy suggested. “She already cherishes it.”
Aurora’s indignation sharpened at once. “That is not fair.”
Princess chuckled from the cot with brutal timing.
“It is not a laughing matter,” Aurora told her.
The baby laughed again.
Hector lowered his chin to hide the smile threatening the order of his face. “Aurora, come here.”
There had once been a delay after such an invitation.
A little pause in which Aurora weighed the safety of obedience against the risk of nearness.
Now her steps came readily, though not without drama.
She crossed the boards with a child’s uneven haste, and the floor announced each footfall.
He saw her as a moving shape, then felt the light pressure of her small body, stopping near his knee.
“I am here,” she said.
Hector smiled. “So I gathered.”
“You cannot know unless I tell you.”
“I know more than you suspect.”
She considered that.
He eased his fingers from Princess’s grasp only long enough to set his hand where Aurora could choose to take it if she wished.
After a moment, she did. Her fingers curled around his thumb.
She was less hesitant than before, but still careful in ways that told him too much about the past. He closed his hand gently over hers.
“Would it truly be so terrible to share with your sister?” he asked her gently.
“Yes,” she answered too quickly.
Poppy made a small sound, but Hector kept his attention on Aurora. “Then it is acceptable if you have prepared another gift for her.”
Aurora went still.
He knew that stillness. It was the pause before a child discovered the consequences of her own argument.
“I did not get her anything else,” she said slowly.
“No?”
“No.” A faint worry entered her voice. “Was I meant to?”
“A birthday generally benefits from a gift.”
“It is not her birthday yet.”
“You have made that point well.”
“Then—”
“But if the ribbon is not to be considered an early gift,” he said, “you may need another.”
Aurora released his hand and, from the rustle of fabric and the air displaced near his knee, flailed both arms in the manner of one conducting a furious orchestra of thought.
“I cannot make a present now,” she said. “She is watching me.”
Princess gurgled obliviously.
“She does not know what we are saying,” Hector said drily.
“She knows everything,” Aurora whispered.
That time, even he could not stop the smile.
Poppy crossed nearer. He knew because Princess immediately reached toward her and made a pleading sound.
“Then you know what needs to be done,” Hector said.
Aurora sighed. It was the sigh of a person betrayed by law, kinship, and the poor planning of adults.
“Fine,” she said. “She can have it.”
Princess giggled once.
“But,” Aurora added sharply, “if she eats it, I shall not be blamed.”
“I will bear witness to your warning,” Hector said.
Poppy bent, and Princess’s laughter changed direction, rising toward her.
Hector heard the soft brush of Poppy’s hand over the baby’s hair, then the little squeak of delight that followed.
Aurora did not retreat at once. Her breathing settled.
She remained near him as if his verdict, unfavorable though it had been, had not expelled her from affection.
He turned his head toward Poppy again.
There were papers on the desk. Their edges gave off a dry whisper whenever the draft reached them.
He had placed them there earlier with more care than necessary, aligning what he could not clearly see by touch, by the straightness of the stack against the desk’s edge.
Official papers. Formal language. Ink and seal.
He looked toward his wife and wanted, with a force that startled him, to see her clearly.
Not as motion. Not as warmth. Not as the pale oval his damaged sight allowed him when the light was kind.
He wanted the precise line of her mouth before she smiled, the blue of her eyes when she was holding back tears, the true arrangement of her face when she believed herself unobserved.
He wanted a single, unbroken moment to gather her into memory properly.
It was a selfish wish, and he let it pass through him without apology.
How profoundly precious that would be.
Princess tugged again at his fingers, and Aurora leaned against his knee while Poppy stood near enough that he could feel her attention, though she said nothing.
He had been given more than he deserved. That did not prevent him from wanting.
“Mrs. Patterson?” he said.
The housekeeper answered promptly from the side of the room. “Yes, Your Grace.”
“Please escort the children to their chambers. I must speak in private with my wife.”
“Of course, Your Grace.”
Mrs. Patterson moved at once, but Aurora did not move.
“Must we go?” she pouted.
“For a little while,” Hector said.
“Is it about the ribbon?”
“No.”
“Is Princess in trouble?”
“No.”
“Am I?”
He reached out, found her shoulder, and rested his hand there. “No.”
Her body eased beneath his palm, but only slightly. “Then why?”
“Because grown people sometimes have matters to discuss that would bore you terribly.”
Aurora sniffed. “I like being bored if it means staying.”
Poppy’s voice came gently. “We will come to you afterward.”
Aurora accepted this from Poppy with a silence that was not agreement but was close enough for obedience.
Mrs. Patterson guided her toward the door.
Halfway across the boards, Aurora glanced back; Hector saw only the turn of her small shape, but it pierced him nonetheless.
Her crestfallen pauses always did. Every dismissal, however temporary, carried an echo neither of them named.
“I will ask about the ribbon later,” he told her.
“You must,” she said, recovering a little. “It is important.”
“I understand.”
Mrs. Patterson led them out. Princess’s babble faded first into the corridor, then into the distance. Aurora’s steps lingered longer, as if she were dragging indignation on her by the heel.
When the door closed, the room changed and became more intimate. Poppy did not speak immediately. He heard her move toward the desk, then stop. She knew something waited there. She had known from the moment she entered, perhaps. Poppy noticed what people attempted to hide.
Hector drew one breath.
“I have something for you.” His fingers found the stack of papers.
He lifted the documents and turned.
“Come nearer,” he said, and though the words were practical, something in him had meant them more deeply.
Poppy did as she was told. He held the papers out, and she took them with both hands. Their fingers touched only briefly, but he felt the tremor in hers.
“Hector,” she said, and then stopped.
“Read the first page.”
He listened to the soft shift of paper. Her breathing changed before her voice did. That was how he knew she had understood.
“These are…” Her words thinned. She turned another page, though there was no need. “Saint Catherine’s Haven.”
“Yes.”
She drew in a breath. “You have established it formally?”
“As a private orphanage under the care of the dukedom.”
The papers rustled again. “And this…this names me.”
“It entrusts the oversight of the operations to you.”
Her silence deepened until he could hear the old boards settle beneath them.
“I thought,” he said, when she did not answer, “that it ought not depend on my intention alone. Intentions can be misremembered. They can be softened by convenience after a man is gone. But this cannot.”
Poppy lowered the papers slightly. “Do not speak of being gone.”
“I speak of provision.”
“You speak as though duty must always prepare for your absence.”
His hand tightened on the cane. She knew him well.
Too well.
“The children here will be supported. Properly. Not through favors, not through occasional generosity when it flatters some conscience. The dukedom will provide for them. Staff, food, repairs, medical care when needed, instruction. All of it will be recorded.”
“And you trust me with it.” Her voice broke.
“I do.”
The answer came too quickly to be ceremonial. It stood between them, bare and complete.
Poppy’s fingers moved over the deed. “You know what people will say.”
“I am rarely guided by people.”
“They will say I have been given too much authority.”
“Then they will be correct.”
A faint, unsteady laugh escaped her.
He continued because the practical details were easier than what lay beneath them.
“There will be accounts to review. Mrs. Patterson can assist with household matters here, and the steward will present quarterly figures. You may dismiss any person who treats the children as obligations rather than souls. You may appoint those you trust. If there are improvements to be made, you need not ask permission for every nail and blanket.”
“Hector.”
He stopped.
Her voice had lost its composure, but he waited.
She set the papers on the desk with care. He heard the flat, final sound of them against the wood. Then she came to him, and her hands found his forearms, light at first, then holding him with a firmness that made something in his chest give way.
“This is not only paper,” she said. “It is the future. For the children and for us as well.”
He could not answer at once.
She moved one hand to his chest, over the place where his heart had become unruly. “You have given them safety without making them feel like charity. Do you understand what that means?”
“I only understand what neglect means.”
Her hand stilled.
The words had come with less guard than he intended. He regretted them until her touch softened.
“Yes,” she said. “I know.”
He bowed his head. There were things a man could not mend.
Childhood terror. Empty rooms. A child’s learned silence.
The thousand private economies by which the vulnerable made themselves less troublesome.
He could not undo them for Aurora or Princess or any child who had already learned too much.
But he could put walls around the future and stand watch.
“I should have done it sooner,” he said.
Poppy’s reply was quiet. “You did it now.”
“That is not the same.”
“It is the only time any of us can act.”
He closed his eyes, though it changed little. “You will take the responsibility then?”
She did not pretend to consider. “Yes.”
Poppy’s hand rose to his face. She touched his jaw as though asking permission and giving it at the same time. “Thank you.”
He turned his cheek into her palm. “Do not thank me for what was owed. Saint Catherine’s Haven had once depended too much on the endurance of women with tired hands and the charity of those who liked charity best when it remained convenient.
That would not be its future. Not while I hold the dukedom.
Not while there are children sleeping under its roof. ”
She said nothing, but her thumb moved once along his skin.
Outside the room, a child’s laugh traveled faintly from the direction of the chambers.
Poppy turned her face toward the sound. “Our girls will ask for us soon.”
“Our girls,” he repeated.
Her hand trembled against his cheek.
He had used the phrase before in thought, less often aloud. It settled differently this time.
“Yes,” she said. “Our girls.”
He covered her hand with his. “Then we had best make ourselves worthy of them.”