Chapter Seven #2
“Because he was not afraid of dragons,” Lorraine said. “Everyone thought him very brave. In truth, he simply did not see what all the fuss was about. Dragons, he believed, were quite reasonable if approached politely.”
“What happened when he found it?”
“He invited it to tea.”
Thomas giggled. “You cannot have tea with a dragon.”
“Sir Reginald did not know that. So he set out a table before the cave, with his best china and a plate of cucumber sandwiches, and waited.”
“And the dragon came?”
“The dragon was deeply perplexed. No one had ever offered it tea before. Usually, people ran away.”
“What did it do?”
Lorraine drew breath—but another voice answered first, low and unexpectedly dry.
“It sat down,” Dominic said.
Both she and Thomas turned toward him. He was looking into the fire, but there was the faintest quirk at the corner of his mouth.
“It was a very large dragon,” he continued, “so it crushed the chair. Sir Reginald, being excessively polite, pretended not to notice.”
“Your Grace—” Lorraine began.
“The dragon’s name,” he went on, “was Gertrude.”
Thomas collapsed into laughter—real laughter, bright and unrestrained. He clutched his middle, rocking back, tears streaming down his face as he struggled to breathe.
“Gertrude!” he gasped. “Like the aunt!”
Lorraine pressed her hand to her mouth, laughing despite herself. When she looked at Dominic, she found him watching the boy with an expression she had never seen before—wondering, unguarded, as though he had forgotten such a thing was possible.
“I think,” she managed at last, “that Sir Reginald and Gertrude the dragon became excellent friends. And whenever Aunt Gertrude came to visit, Sir Reginald hid in the dragon’s cave, and the dragon informed the aunt he was away slaying monsters.”
“And she believed it?”
“Dragons are very persuasive. All those teeth.”
Thomas dissolved again into giggles.
Outside, the storm raged on. Inside, the fire burned warm and steady, and for a little while they were not what circumstance had made them. They were simply three people sharing a room, a story, and the shelter of one another’s company.
Inevitably, the laughter faded into yawns. The hour was late—far later than a six-year-old should be awake—and the warmth of the fire, coupled with the evening’s exertions, took its toll. Thomas curled upon his cushion, and within minutes his breathing had deepened into sleep.
Lorraine and Dominic sat in quiet, watching him.
“I did not know he could laugh so,” Dominic said finally, his voice barely above a whisper. “I did not know he had that in him.”
“He has everything in him. He just needed permission to let it out.”
“And you gave him that.”
“We both did.”
Silence settled again. The fire burned lower, shadows lengthening across the floor. Thomas stirred, murmuring faintly, and Lorraine rose to adjust the cushion beneath his head.
As she straightened, she reached for the candle—just as Dominic did.
Their hands met.
The contact was slight, no more than a brush of fingers, yet it sent a sudden, unwelcome warmth through her. She looked up—and found him watching her, his expression stripped bare of its usual reserve.
Neither moved.
She could hear his breathing. See the pulse at his throat. Feel the faint tremor in his hand where it touched hers.
“Lorraine.”
Her name in his mouth, low and unguarded, like a confession dragged out against his will.
“Dominic.”
The storm beat at the windows. The fire whispered. Thomas slept on, oblivious, while they stood suspended in a moment that felt perilously close to something irrevocable.
He withdrew first.
“I should—” His voice was rough. “I should take him to bed.”
“Yes.” She stepped back, steadying herself. “Yes, of course.”
She watched as he lifted Thomas with careful ease, holding him as though he were something fragile. The boy stirred but did not wake, his hand curling instinctively into the fabric of Dominic’s coat.
At the door, Dominic paused.
“Thank you,” he said quietly. “For tonight. For… all of it.”
Then he was gone.
Lorraine remained where she stood, the fire sinking to embers, her heart unsteady in her chest.
***
Later—much later—Lorraine lay in her narrow bed, staring up at the ceiling.
The storm had begun to ease. The wind still moved restlessly about the house, but the thunder had rolled on across the moors. She pressed a hand to her chest, feeling the quick, unsteady beat beneath her palm.
This is dangerous, she thought. This is foolish. This is precisely the sort of situation that ruins women like me.
She knew the risks well enough. A governess who formed an attachment to her employer was a commonplace warning, the subject of quiet scandal and social ruin.
She had forfeited her good name once already—given it up so her sister might keep hers.
She could not afford such a loss again. Could not risk the position, the income, the fragile stability she had built from what remained of her former life.
And yet—
His hand against hers. His voice speaking her name. The way he had looked at Thomas, as though he had witnessed something rare and astonishing. The way he had looked at her—
She turned onto her side, drawing the blanket close, as though it might contain the restless churn of her thoughts.
Three weeks. Only three weeks, and already she was too deeply involved.
With the boy. With the house. With the man who haunted it—restless, guarded, and, despite everything, capable of a gentleness that undid her.
This is dangerous, she thought again.
But the warmth of the fire still lingered in her memory. Thomas’s laughter echoed faintly in her mind. And the memory of Dominic’s touch—the light brush of his fingers, the quiet heat of it—seemed to remain against her skin.
I do not care, she realised at last, the thought both terrifying and strangely steadying. I simply do not care.
She closed her eyes, and at last sleep came, carrying her into dreams.