Chapter Five
“Mama! Mama, please—!”
Lorraine was out of bed before she was fully awake, her feet finding the cold floor, her body moving toward the sound before her mind had quite caught up. The cry came again—high, terrified, the raw edge of a child’s nightmare cutting through the silence of the sleeping house.
She did not stop for a wrapper. Did not think of a candle. She knew the path to Thomas’s room by now, had walked it often enough in the week since her arrival—checking on him before retiring, pausing at his door to listen for the steady rhythm of sleep, reassuring herself that he was safe.
The corridor lay in darkness, touched only by the faint grey wash of moonlight at either end. Lorraine moved quickly, her bare feet silent upon the carpet, and pushed open Thomas’s door without knocking.
“Thomas. Thomas, my dear—wake up.”
He was tangled in the sheets, thrashing, his small face contorted with terror. Tears streamed down his cheeks. His eyes were open, yet unseeing—fixed upon some horror visible only to him.
“Mama,” he sobbed. “Don’t go. Please don’t go. Don’t leave me—”
Lorraine crossed to the bed and gathered him into her arms without hesitation. He was burning with heat, damp with sweat, his heart beating wildly against her chest. She held him close, rocking him gently, her voice low and steady.
“You are safe. I am here. You are safe, Thomas. I shall not leave you.”
Slowly—very slowly—the rigid fear in his body began to ease. His breathing, which had come in sharp, uneven gasps, steadied. His hands, which had pushed blindly against her, found the fabric of her nightgown and clung to it.
“Miss Weston?” His voice was small, uncertain, still thick with sleep and tears.
“Yes, my dear. I am here.”
“I had a dream.” He shuddered. “Mama was there, and then she was gone, and I could not find her. Everyone kept saying she had gone away, but I knew—I knew she would not leave me. She promised—”
His voice broke. Lorraine felt the sting of tears she would not permit to fall.
“I know,” she said softly. “I know. Dreams can be very cruel. They bring back what we have lost, and make us lose it all over again.”
Thomas drew back a little, looking up at her with tear-bright eyes. In the dim light, he seemed impossibly young—not the guarded, watchful child she had first met, but simply a little boy who had lost so much and could not understand why.
“Do you have bad dreams too?” he whispered.
Lorraine thought of her own—of loss, of doors closing, of a life that could not be reclaimed.
“Sometimes,” she said. “I think everyone does. Even grown people.”
“Even His Grace?”
The question gave her pause. She thought of the shadows beneath the Duke’s eyes, the faint scent of whisky at odd hours, the restless energy that seemed never to settle.
“I expect so,” she said carefully. “His Grace has seen a great deal that would trouble anyone’s sleep.”
Thomas was quiet for a moment. Then, very softly, “Is that why he does not like me? Because I give him bad dreams?”
“Oh, Thomas.” Lorraine gathered him close again, her heart aching. “You do not trouble anyone’s sleep. And His Grace does not dislike you. He is… very sad, I think. And sometimes, when people are sad, they do not know how to show that they care.”
“Mama was sad sometimes,” Thomas murmured against her shoulder. “But she still held me.”
Lorraine’s throat tightened.
“People are not all alike,” she said gently. “Some show what they feel easily. Others… require more time.”
Then, all at once, she felt it—a subtle shift, as though the air itself had altered.
She was being watched.
There had been no sound. The house lay quiet around them, save for the wind at the windows and the occasional settling of old timbers. Yet the sensation persisted—a prickle at the nape of her neck, a presence just beyond sight.
She turned her head, slightly, toward the door she had left ajar.
The corridor beyond was dark. Empty.
Then a floorboard creaked—a soft, betraying sound—and she caught the faintest suggestion of movement. Someone withdrawing. Someone who had stood there, unseen, listening.
The Duke.
Lorraine stilled, Thomas warm and drowsing in her arms, and listened as the silence deepened. Footsteps—barely perceptible—receding along the corridor. A distant door closing.
He had been there. Had heard the boy’s cries. Had watched—had listened—as she soothed him.
Had he meant to enter? Had he lingered, uncertain, held back by whatever it was that bound him so tightly within himself? Or had he merely passed and paused, drawn by the sound, only to retreat again?
She could not know.
But something in the house felt altered, as though a door—however slight—had shifted upon its hinges.
“Miss Weston?” Thomas’s voice was drowsy now, the terror fading into weariness. “Will you stay? Just until I fall asleep?”
“Of course, my dear.” She eased him back against the pillows, drawing the covers about him. “I shall remain as long as you wish.”
She sat upon the edge of the bed, one hand resting lightly upon his chest, and watched as his eyes drifted closed. His breathing deepened. The traces of fear smoothed from his face, replaced by the quiet stillness of sleep.
Lorraine remained there until the moon had set and the first pale light of dawn crept through the windows. Then she bent and pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead—a liberty she had not taken before, but which felt, in that moment, entirely right—and slipped from the room to prepare for the day.
She did not sleep again.
***
Breakfast in the nursery was a quiet affair. Jenny had brought up a tray—tea, toast, soft-boiled eggs, and a small pot of jam—and Lorraine was helping Thomas spread butter upon his bread when the door opened.
She looked up, expecting Mrs Potter—or Jenny returning for the tray.
The Duke of Ravenswood stood in the doorway.
Thomas went rigid. His knife slipped from his fingers and struck the plate with a small, betraying clatter. His face, which had been soft with the remnants of sleep, closed at once into that careful, guarded blankness.
Lorraine set down her teacup with deliberate composure. “Your Grace. Good morning.”
“Miss Weston.” His voice was rough, as though unused—or overused, in the long hours before dawn. “Thomas.”
The boy did not reply. His gaze remained fixed upon his plate.
An uncomfortable silence settled. Lorraine watched the Duke hesitate upon the threshold, plainly uncertain whether to advance or withdraw. He looked, she thought, like a man approaching something untamed—or perhaps like the untamed creature himself, wary of being caught.
“Will you join us?” she asked. “There is more than enough tea.”
He paused. His hand rose briefly toward his hair—that unconscious gesture she had already learned to recognise—then fell again.
“I would not intrude.”
“You are the master of this house, Your Grace. You cannot intrude upon your own nursery.”
It was a challenge. They both knew it.
Lorraine’s tone remained light, her expression composed, but her gaze held his steadily. You came here for a reason. Either commit to it or leave, but stop hovering like a ghost in your own doorway.
Something shifted in his face. Then, with the air of a man committing himself to something unavoidable, he stepped inside.
Jenny had left an extra chair by the window—her usual place when Lorraine conducted lessons. The Duke drew it to the table and sat, his presence at once too large for the space, ill at ease amid the small scale of the nursery.
“Tea, Your Grace?” Lorraine poured without waiting for a reply, setting a cup before him. “Thomas, would you pass His Grace the jam?”
Thomas’s hand trembled as he reached for it. He held it out without looking up, his shoulders drawn tight with tension.
The Duke accepted it. “Thank you, Thomas.”
His voice was gentler than Lorraine had yet heard it. Still uneven, still uncertain, but softened by something like effort.
Thomas glanced up, startled. “You are welcome, Your Grace.”
Another silence followed. Lorraine took a measured sip of tea and waited.
“I understand,” the Duke said at length, “that you have been studying birds.”
Thomas’s eyes widened. He looked to Lorraine, then back again, as though uncertain whether this was some sort of test.
“Miss Weston found a book,” he said cautiously. “With pictures.”
“Bewick’s.” The Duke inclined his head. “I had the same volume when I was young. I spent a great many hours with it.”
“You did?” The question escaped Thomas before he could check himself. He looked immediately dismayed by his own boldness.
But the Duke did not take offence. If anything, something like the ghost of a smile touched his mouth. “I was particularly fond of kestrels. There was a pair that nested near the old folly. I used to watch them hunt.”
“I have seen a kestrel.” Thomas’s voice was barely audible, yet something had awakened within it—a faint spark. “It hovered in the air. As though it were not moving at all.”
“They do that. It is called wind-hovering. They hold themselves steady upon the current while they search for prey.”
“How do they manage it?”
“The tail acts as a rudder. And their sight is remarkable—a kestrel may spot a beetle from a considerable distance.”
Thomas leaned forward, his caution momentarily forgotten. “May we go to the folly? To see them?”
The Duke’s expression altered—something passing across it too swiftly to name. For a moment, Lorraine thought he might withdraw again into that habitual reserve.
“Perhaps,” he said at last. “When the weather clears.”
It was not a promise. Barely even an undertaking. Yet Thomas’s face lit as though he had been granted a treasure.
“Thank you, Your Grace!”
The Duke looked away, his jaw tightening. Beneath the table, his hands had curled into fists.
The remainder of the meal passed in cautious conversation.
The Duke asked after Thomas’s lessons; Thomas answered in short, careful sentences that gradually lengthened as his confidence grew.
Lorraine observed them both—the hesitant circling, the instinctive retreat, the quiet hunger for something neither quite knew how to claim.
When breakfast was concluded, and the Duke rose to depart, Lorraine followed him to the door.
“Your Grace,” she said softly, lowering her voice so it would not carry, “thank you. It meant a great deal to him.”
He stood very still. At such proximity, she could see the strain etched into his features—the weariness, the restraint, the faint lines that spoke of sleepless nights.
“I heard him,” he said, equally low. “Last night. The nightmare.”
So he had been watching.
Lorraine felt a flicker of something sharp—frustration, perhaps—but it was tempered by something else. Something more hopeful.
“He has them often, I think. Though he does his best to conceal it.”
“You comforted him.” It was not phrased as a question.
“Someone had to.”
The words were sharper than she intended. She saw the effect of them—the faint recoil, quickly mastered—and felt a brief, unwelcome pang.
“He needs—” she began, then paused. Drew a breath. “He needs more than instruction, Your Grace. He needs a family.”
The Duke’s expression hardened at once, whatever warmth had briefly surfaced retreating behind a familiar barrier.
“The Hardings will provide that,” he said. “When they arrive.”
“The Hardings are strangers to him. You are not.”
A flash of something dangerous crossed his face. “You presume too much, Miss Weston.”
“Perhaps.” She lifted her chin. “But someone must, if he is to have what he needs.”
They stood there, the distance between them charged with something neither acknowledged. Lorraine became suddenly aware of his nearness—the breadth of him, the contained force—and of the fact that she had not stepped back.
She did not step back.
“Good day, Your Grace,” she said, evenly. “We shall expect you at dinner, perhaps.”
She closed the door before he could reply, and remained where she was, her back against it, her pulse unsteady, until his footsteps receded along the corridor.
This is dangerous, she thought. Dangerous indeed.
But when she turned, Thomas was watching her, a small, genuine smile upon his face.
And she found she did not regret a word.