Chapter Eleven
Henry, it turned out, was considerably more observant than anyone had given him credit for.
"My brother looks at you funny," he announced one morning, while Eliza was helping him practice his penmanship.
Eliza's hand jerked, sending a blot of ink across the page she was demonstrating on. "I beg your pardon?"
"Alistair... He looks at you funny." Henry frowned at his slate, carefully forming the letter 'Q' with the concentration of a master craftsman. "Not funny in a bad way. Good funny. Like you're made of stars or something."
Eliza's heart stuttered. "I'm sure you're imagining things, sweetheart."
"I'm not. I'm very observant." He said it with the matter-of-fact confidence of a child repeating something he'd been told. "Miss Worthington said I was 'unnervingly observant.' I think that means good at noticing things."
"It does mean that, indeed." Eliza set down her quill pen, trying to compose her features into something neutral. "But I think perhaps you've misinterpreted His Grace's expressions. He looks at everyone that way."
"No, he doesn't." Henry looked up from his slate, his gray eyes, so like his brother's, fixed on her with disconcerting directness.
"He looks at everyone else like they're furniture.
Useful furniture, but still furniture. He looks at you like you're..." He searched for the word. "Like you're magic."
Eliza didn't know what to say. Her cheeks were burning, and she was acutely aware that denying it too strenuously would only make things worse.
"His Grace and I are friends," she said carefully. "Sometimes friends look at each other with warmth. It doesn't mean anything special."
"But you're friends with Thomas, and you don't look at him like that."
"Thomas?"
"The groom. He's very nice. He let me feed Sovereign an apple yesterday.
" Henry's brow furrowed with the effort of explaining.
"You smile at Thomas, and you say please and thank you, but your face doesn't change.
When His Grace comes in, your whole face changes. Like someone lit a candle inside you."
Eliza opened her mouth to respond, then closed it again. She didn't have a response. The child was describing something she had been desperately trying not to see in herself.
"And His Grace is the same," Henry continued relentlessly.
"He used to look at everyone the same way: like they were very far away and he couldn't quite see them properly.
But he doesn't look at you like that. He looks at you like…
" He scrunched up his face, searching for words.
"…like he's finally woken up from a long sleep, and you're the first thing he sees. "
"Henry, that's very poetic, but I really don't think…"
"You look at him funny too," Henry continued, as if she hadn't spoken.
"You go all pink when he comes in the room.
And you watch him when he's not looking.
And sometimes, when you're both looking at each other but pretending that you're not, the air feels all…
" He waved his hand vaguely. "…sparkly."
"Sparkly."
"Like before a thunderstorm. But nice."
Eliza pressed her hand to her forehead. This child was going to be the death of her.
"Henry, I think perhaps we should return to our lesson…"
"Do you love him?"
The question hit her like a bucket of cold water. She stared at Henry, her mouth opening and closing without sound, utterly unable to formulate a response.
"Because I think he loves you," Henry continued, with the devastating matter-of-factness that only children could manage.
"He doesn't smile at anyone else the way he smiles at you.
And he's always finding reasons to be wherever you are.
And yesterday, when you were reading to me, I saw him standing in the doorway just watching you, and his face looked all soft and happy.
I had never seen him look happy before you came. "
"Henry…"
"I think it would be nice if you loved him back." The boy returned his attention to his slate, as if they were discussing something as mundane as the weather. "He's been sad for a very long time. I think you make him less sad."
Eliza sat in silence, her heart pounding, her thoughts in chaos. Out of the mouths of children, indeed. A six-year-old had just articulated what she had been desperately trying not to admit to herself for weeks.
Do you love him?
She didn't know. Or rather, she did know, but she wasn't ready to say it—not even to herself.
"His Grace is my employer," she said finally, her voice steadier than she felt. "And I care about him very much. But love is a complicated thing, sweetheart. It's not something that can be decided in a morning."
"Why not?"
"Because…" She searched for an explanation a child could understand. "Because love means making promises. Big promises, about forever. And before you make promises like that, you have to be very sure."
"Are you sure about me?"
The question caught her off guard. "What do you mean?"
"You love me. You said so. Were you sure before you said it?"
Eliza felt tears prick at her eyes. "Yes," she said softly. "I was sure."
"Then why can't you be sure about His Grace?"
Because it was different. Because loving a child was safe, simple and expected. Because loving a duke was dangerous, complicated and could end in nothing but heartbreak.
But she couldn't say any of that to a six-year-old who was looking at her with those earnest gray eyes, wanting nothing more than for the two people he loved most in the world to love each other.
"I need more time," she said. "Can you give me that? Can you let me figure things out without asking too many questions?"
Henry considered this with his characteristic gravity. "I suppose. But you shouldn't take too long. Lady Pufferton said you might leave in spring, and spring is only…" He counted on his fingers. "—three months away. That's not very much time for figuring things out."
"No," Eliza agreed, her heart sinking. "It's not."
***
Henry, having apparently decided that the adults in his life were incapable of sorting things out on their own, took matters into his own small hands.
It started subtly. He began requesting that His Grace join them for lessons more often—not just occasionally, but every day.
He developed a sudden, intense interest in topics that required two adults to properly demonstrate: dance steps, for instance, which necessitated Eliza and Alistair standing very close together.
At the same time, Henry provided what he called "musical accompaniment" by humming off-key.
Card games that required partners, putting them on the same team against Henry's stuffed bear.
Reading exercises where Henry insisted both adults take turns reading aloud, positioning them side by side on the nursery sofa with Henry sprawled across both their laps.
"I learn better when you're both here," he explained, with an innocence that Eliza was beginning to suspect was entirely feigned.
She couldn't prove anything, of course. Henry was six years old. He couldn't possibly be deliberately manipulating the situation to force Alistair and her into proximity.
Could he?
The schemes grew more elaborate as the days passed.
Henry developed a fascination with astronomy, which required nighttime observation sessions on the terrace—all three of them bundled in blankets, pressed close together for warmth, while Henry pointed out constellations and asked endless questions about the stars.
"Is that one named after a Greek hero?" he would ask, and when neither adult could answer, he would suggest they all go to the library to research it—together, of course, at a single table, their heads bent close as they pored over star maps.
He discovered a passion for nature sketching, which required long walks through the grounds in search of interesting subjects.
Somehow, these walks always led to the most secluded parts of the estate: the hidden garden, the old folly, the quiet spot by the ornamental pond where trailing willows created a curtain of green privacy.
"Isn't this a lovely place for sketching?" Henry would say, settling himself on a convenient rock. "You should both sit over there, where the light is better."
"Over there" was invariably a small bench or narrow ledge that required Eliza and Alistair to sit pressed together, shoulders touching, unable to move without brushing against each other.
"He's doing it on purpose," she muttered to herself one afternoon, after Henry had insisted they all three squeeze onto the window seat to watch a bird's nest outside.
The window seat was sized for perhaps two people.
With three, Eliza had ended up pressed against Alistair's side, acutely aware of every place their bodies touched.
"Doing what on purpose?" Alistair asked, his voice slightly strained.
"Nothing. Never mind."
But she caught Henry watching them with a satisfied expression that looked entirely too knowing for a child his age.
The worst part was that it was working.
Every forced proximity, every contrived moment of closeness, made it harder to maintain the professional distance she knew she should be keeping.
She was learning new things about Alistair now. She was learning that she liked him. Not just wanted him, not just found him attractive, but genuinely liked the person he was becoming as the ice continued to thaw.
And that made everything so much more complicated.
***
"Why did your father die?"
The question came during a quiet afternoon in the library, where they had retreated to escape a sudden rain shower.
Henry was curled up with a picture book, and Eliza had been reading poetry, the same volume Alistair had left on her nightstand, which she now carried with her everywhere, when the boy's voice broke the comfortable silence.
Alistair, who had been pretending to review estate papers while actually watching Eliza read, went rigid. "What?"