Chapter Seven #3
"I've been teaching you that feelings are weakness.
That crying is shameful. That you must always be controlled and composed and...
" He shook his head. "I was wrong. Feelings aren't a weakness.
They're what make us human. And you are allowed to feel them, Henry.
All of them. The good ones, the bad ones and the frightening ones in between. "
"Even if I'm going to be a duke?"
"Especially if you're going to be a duke. Dukes who don't feel anything become…" He glanced at Eliza, something flickering in his expression. "They become cold and distant. And they hurt the people they love without meaning to."
Henry was very still. "Like you hurt me?"
The words were not accusing—just curious, the honest observation of a child who was still young enough to speak truth without softening it.
Alistair flinched, but he didn't look away. "Yes. Like I hurt you. I've been hurting you for a long time, I think, without realising it. And I'm going to try to do better."
"Miss Harrow says trying is what matters. That everyone makes mistakes, and the important thing is that you keep trying anyway."
"Miss Harrow is very wise." Alistair's eyes met Eliza's across the room. "I'm beginning to understand just how wise."
The moment stretched between them, and Eliza felt her cheeks warm and forced herself to look away.
"Henry," Alistair continued, returning his attention to his brother, "I know I've been distant. I know I haven't been…" He struggled for the word. "Present. The way a brother should be. The way a guardian should be. But I want to change that, if you'll let me."
"How?"
"I thought perhaps we might spend some time together. Just the two of us. You could show me Perseus, if you like. Tell me about his adventures."
Henry's face transformed. The careful blankness dissolved into something bright and hopeful, the face of a child who had just been offered everything he'd ever wanted.
"Really? You want to hear about Perseus?"
"I want to hear about everything." Alistair's voice was rough with emotion; he was clearly struggling to contain himself.
"I've missed so much, Henry. Six years of you growing up, and I know almost nothing about who you are.
Your favourite stories. Your favourite foods.
What makes you laugh…. What makes you scared… ."
"Dragons make me scared. And thunder. And…" Henry hesitated. "And thinking that people might leave."
Alistair closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they were bright with something that looked suspiciously like unshed tears.
"I'm not going to leave," he said. "I know I've been absent, even when I was here.
But I'm going to try, I'm going to try very hard, to be present from now on.
Really present. Not just in the same house, but…
" He reached out, his hand hovering uncertainly near Henry's shoulder. "Here. With you. If you'll have me."
Henry looked at the hovering hand and then up at his brother's face. Then, very slowly, he stood up from his chair and walked into Alistair's arms.
It was awkward at first. Alistair clearly had no idea what to do with his hands—they hovered uncertainly over Henry's back, patting in an uncoordinated rhythm that suggested he hadn't hugged anyone in years.
But then Henry's small arms wrapped around his neck, and something in Alistair seemed to break.
He pulled his brother close and held him tight, his eyes squeezed shut, his face buried in Henry's dark hair. His shoulders shook once, then went still—control reasserting itself, but only just.
"I'm sorry," he murmured into Henry's hair. "I'm so sorry, little one. I should have been there. I should have…"
"It's alright." Henry's voice was muffled against his shoulder. "You're here now."
They stayed like that for a long moment; the tall, rigid duke and the small boy who had been waiting six years for exactly this.
Eliza watched them with tears streaming freely down her face, not caring if they saw, not caring about propriety or dignity or any of the walls she was supposed to maintain.
This was real. This was what she had come here for, even if she hadn't known it when she arrived. Not just to educate a child, but to heal a family. To remind a frozen man that warmth was still possible and to show a lonely boy that he was worth loving.
Finally, Alistair pulled back, though he kept his hands on Henry's shoulders, as if afraid to lose contact entirely. His eyes were red-rimmed, his composure in tatters, but he had never looked more human.
"I don't know how to do this," he admitted, his voice rough. "Being a brother. Being present. I've spent so long behind walls that I don't know how to exist without them."
"We can figure it out together," Henry said. The simple confidence of it, the way he said ‘together’ as if it were the most natural thing in the world, made Eliza's heart ache.
"Yes." Alistair's voice cracked on the word. "Yes, I'd like that."
"And Miss Harrow can help." Henry looked over at her, his face bright with joy. "She's very good at figuring things out. She found a way to make Sovereign like her, and nobody else has ever done that."
Alistair followed his brother's gaze to where Eliza stood in the doorway. Something passed between them—something charged and complicated that had nothing to do with Henry and everything to do with the conversation on the moors, the first names exchanged, and the walls coming down between them.
"Yes," Alistair said quietly. "Miss Harrow is rather good at that, isn't she?"
"She says she's 'persistent,'" Henry offered helpfully. "That's like demanding, but more dignified."
A sound escaped Alistair; something that might have been a laugh, rusty and surprised. "Did she tell you that?"
"She says lots of interesting things. She told Sovereign he was a shameless flirt. And she told me that dukes can be wrong. And she told…"
"Perhaps," Eliza interrupted, feeling heat rise in her cheeks, "we might continue this conversation over breakfast? Lord Henry's toast soldiers are getting cold, and I believe His Grace hasn't eaten yet this morning."
"No," Alistair admitted. "I was rather... preoccupied."
"Then let us eat." She moved to the sideboard, busying herself with plates and dishes to hide the flutter in her chest. "Henry, tell your brother about Perseus's latest adventure. The one with the moon princess."
"The moon princess!" Henry's face lit up. "Oh, that is a good one. Perseus met her when he was flying through the clouds, and she was crying because…"
He launched into the tale with all the enthusiasm of a child who had been waiting years for someone to listen. And Alistair, the Duke of Northmere, the frozen guardian, the man who had built walls against the world, sat beside his brother and listened.
Eliza watched them from her place at the sideboard, her heart full to bursting.
She watched Henry's animated gestures and Alistair's cautious but genuine attention.
She watched the space between them narrow as Henry leaned closer to make a point, and Alistair's posture softened from rigid to merely tense to something approaching relaxed.
She watched, and she felt the dangerous flutter in her chest grow stronger.
This was what she had wanted. What she had fought for. What she had confronted the Duke of Northmere in his own garden to achieve.
But standing there, watching him learn to love his brother, she realized that somewhere along the way, her own walls had started to crumble too.
She was falling for him, and it was the most foolish, dangerous, impossible thing she had ever done.
And she couldn't bring herself to stop.