Chapter 1
Six weeks. Possibly longer.
Dominic set the letter aside and stared at the wall opposite his desk. He ought to feel something—frustration at the delay, concern for Mrs Harding’s health, perhaps even relief at the reprieve. More time before he must watch William’s son leave his house forever.
He felt nothing.
That, perhaps, was the true difficulty. Four years spent mastering the art of feeling nothing—and he had succeeded so completely that even those emotions which might have rendered him human seemed frozen beyond recall.
“Your Grace?” Graves had not yet withdrawn. “Is everything in order?”
“The Hardings are delayed.” Dominic’s voice was flat. “Mrs Harding is unwell. Their arrival will be delayed by at least six weeks.”
“I see.” A pause. “Shall I inform Miss Weston?”
Miss Weston. The governess who had drawn speech from a silent child, and had regarded Dominic himself as though she perceived rather more than was convenient.
“I shall inform her myself.” The words came unbidden. “At a suitable time.”
Graves inclined his head and withdrew.
Dominic remained where he was, the letter before him, the ledgers untouched, the silence pressing in about him.
Six more weeks with Thomas beneath his roof. Six more weeks of avoiding the nursery wing, of glimpsing a fair head in passing, of knowing that William’s son slept within those walls—frightened and alone.
Six more weeks of Miss Weston.
He pushed the thought aside and returned his attention to the ledgers. Numbers, at least, made no demands of him.
***
It was the laughter that undid him.
Three days had passed since the letter from India.
Three days of rigid routine: breakfast alone at six, estate business until noon, a solitary ride across the moors in the afternoon, dinner in the vast and echoing dining room, whisky in the study until exhaustion at last forced him toward a sleep that offered no rest.
He had not seen Thomas. He had not seen Miss Weston. This was by design.
But on the fourth morning, returning from the stables with mud upon his boots and rain clinging to his coat, he heard it.
Laughter.
High and bright, drifting down from above. A child’s laughter.
Dominic stopped in the centre of the entrance hall as though struck.
He could not recall the last time he had heard such a sound within these walls. Could not recall hearing Thomas make any sound beyond the stifled sobs of his first days here—sobs that had, in time, ceased altogether, replaced by a silence that was somehow worse.
But this—this was unmistakable.
This was joy.
He ought to turn away. Go to his study, pour a drink, bury himself in correspondence until the sound faded from memory. That would be the sensible course.
Instead, he found himself mounting the stairs.
The laughter grew clearer as he approached the nursery wing. There were voices now—Miss Weston’s, warm with amusement, saying something he could not quite distinguish. And then Thomas again, that unexpected burst of sound, followed by something perilously close to delight.
Dominic halted outside the nursery door. It stood slightly ajar, and through the narrow opening he saw—
Everything.
Miss Weston was upon her hands and knees in the centre of the carpet, her hair escaping its pins in unruly auburn curls.
Opposite her crouched Thomas, his face flushed, his eyes alight.
Between them lay a scattering of toy soldiers—the very set that had once been Dominic’s own, resurrected from some forgotten corner—arrayed across a battlefield of cushions and books.
“The cavalry advances from the east!” Miss Weston declared, with mock solemnity. “General Thomas, what are your orders?”
“Flank them!” Thomas swept a cluster of soldiers about a cushion. “We shall cut off their retreat!”
“A daring manoeuvre. But what of your infantry reserves?”
“They are concealed in the forest.” He indicated a potted plant pressed into service. “They will strike when the cavalry passes.”
“Formidable,” she returned. “I see I must take care in dealing with you, General.”
Thomas smiled.
Not merely a passing expression, but a true smile—bright, unguarded, transforming his entire face in a way Dominic had never witnessed, because to witness it would require presence, attention, a willingness to see.
Something shifted in Dominic’s chest—sharp and sudden, like a fracture reopening.
He looks like William.
When William smiled thus—before everything had been reduced to blood and darkness and regret—
Dominic must have made some sound. Or perhaps Miss Weston simply sensed him. Her head turned, and her gaze met his through the narrow gap in the door.
For a moment, neither moved.
Then she rose, smoothing her skirts, her expression settling into composure. “Your Grace. We were not aware of your presence.”
Thomas froze. The light drained from his face, replaced at once by that familiar, guarded blankness. He scrambled to his feet, standing stiffly, hands at his sides—a child braced for inspection.
The change was immediate. Absolute.
This is what I do, Dominic thought. I enter a room, and the light is extinguished.
“I heard—” His voice was rough; he cleared it. “I was passing. There was… noise.”
“We were engaged in a game of soldiers.” Miss Weston’s tone remained polite, though cooler now. “I discovered the set in one of the storerooms. I trust there is no objection.”
“They were mine.” The words escaped him. “When I was young.”
Something flickered in her expression. “Then Thomas is fortunate indeed to make use of them. Are you not, Thomas?”
The boy nodded, though his gaze remained fixed upon the floor.
Dominic ought to leave. To retreat, to resume the careful distance that had sustained him thus far. Instead, to his own astonishment, he heard himself ask:
“Who is winning?”
Silence fell. Thomas lifted his head slowly, uncertainty written plainly upon his face. Miss Weston’s eyes widened, though only slightly.
“General Thomas has the advantage,” she said after a moment. “His flanking manoeuvre was most effective.”
Dominic’s breath caught.
For an instant, the room seemed to waver. He turned to the boy.
“Your father,” Dominic said, more quietly than before, “was an excellent tactician as well.”
Thomas’s gaze lifted—still wary, but now threaded with something else. Something fragile.
“Will you…” His voice was scarcely audible. “Will you play with us?”
The question lingered in the air.
Dominic was aware of Miss Weston watching him, her gaze steady. Of Thomas, braced for refusal. Of the soldiers scattered across the carpet, awaiting command.
He thought of William. Of blood and darkness and the echo of a promise he had never truly known how to keep.
“I cannot,” he said at last. “I have estate business that requires my attention.”
The hope in Thomas’s eyes flickered and went out. He nodded once—too quickly—and turned back to the soldiers with the mechanical precision of a child who had long since ceased to expect anything.
Miss Weston’s expression did not alter, yet something shifted behind her eyes. Disappointment, perhaps. Or anger. Or something more disquieting—understanding.
“Of course, Your Grace,” she said evenly. “We shall not detain you.”
Dominic turned to leave. He had taken no more than three steps down the corridor when her voice halted him.
“Your Grace.”
He stopped, though he did not turn.
There was the faint sound of movement behind him—soft, deliberate. When she spoke again, her voice was lower.
“The boy believes you dislike him.”
Dominic’s hand came to rest against the wall.
“He does not understand absence,” she continued quietly. “He only knows that you are never there, and he has concluded that the fault must lie with him.”
The words struck deep. Dominic stood motionless, unable to move forward or back.
“I do not—” His voice faltered. “I do not dislike him.”
“Then perhaps,” she said, still in that same calm, unwavering tone, “you might consider allowing him to see that. Before it is too late.”
He did not answer. Could not. He walked away instead, his footsteps echoing down the empty corridor, and did not stop until he was safely enclosed within his study.
The whisky decanter stood where he had left it. He poured himself a glass, his hand unsteady.
He believes you dislike him.
He does not understand absence.
Before it is too late.
He drank. The burn did nothing to thaw the cold that gripped his chest.
***
That night, Dominic found himself standing outside Thomas’s room.
He could not have said how he came there. One moment, he had been in his study, watching the fire sink into embers; the next, he was climbing the stairs in darkness, drawn by some impulse he neither trusted nor understood toward the very wing he had avoided for months.
The door to the boy’s room was closed. No light showed beneath it. Thomas would be asleep—ought to be asleep—unaware of the man lingering beyond the threshold, unable to summon the courage to cross it.
Dominic raised his hand. Let it hover there, suspended, without touching the wood.
Beyond that door lay a child who had lost everything. A child who believed himself unwanted. A child who bore William’s name, William’s blood—the only remnant left of a life cut short—and Dominic could not bring himself to turn the handle.
Coward, he thought with sudden bitterness. Pathetic, broken coward.
He had stood in the breach at Badajoz. Had fought in close quarters, steel against steel. Had carried wounded men through fire and smoke and chaos.
And he could not open a door.
His hand fell to his side.
He remained where he was for some time, listening to the quiet, imagining the small figure within—curled beneath the covers, perhaps dreaming of faces that would never return.
I am sorry, he thought. William—I am sorry. I am trying. I do not know how to do this.
There was no answer.
There never was.
At length, Dominic turned away. He retreated to his chambers and did not sleep until the first light of dawn.