Chapter Ten
“Miss Weston, why does His Grace look at me like that?”
Lorraine’s hand stilled on the page she had been turning. They were in the nursery, working through a history lesson—though Thomas had been distracted all morning, his attention wandering far from Henry VIII and his six wives.
“Like what, sweetheart?”
Thomas chewed his lip, thinking. “Like he’s sad. But also, like he’s frightened. Like when he looks at me, he sees something that hurts.”
Lorraine felt something tighten in her chest. She had hoped—perhaps foolishly—that Dominic’s increased presence would ease Thomas’s uncertainty. And in many ways, it had. The boy laughed more easily now, sought him out rather than shrinking away. But children noticed what adults tried to conceal.
“His Grace cares for you very much,” she said carefully. “But he carries a great deal of grief, Thomas. For things that happened before you came here.”
“Because of the war?”
“Yes. Because of the war.”
Thomas was quiet for a moment, considering this.
“Jenny says he was different before,” he said at last. “That he used to laugh more. That the war changed him.”
Lorraine made a mental note to speak with Jenny. But she did not contradict it.
“War does change people,” she said gently. “It shows them things that are not easily forgotten.”
“My papa was there too,” Thomas said, his voice small. “With His Grace. That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? Because they were friends, and Papa died, and His Grace said he would take care of me.”
Lorraine’s chest ached. He was too young for this—too young to be fitting together the fragments of grief left by others.
“Yes,” she said softly. “They were close friends. And when your papa died, His Grace wished to make sure you were safe.”
“But he doesn’t—” Thomas faltered, his face tightening with effort. “Sometimes, when he looks at me… it’s like he wishes I wasn’t here. Not in a mean way. Just… like it would be easier.”
“Oh, Thomas.” She gathered him into her arms, and he came at once, pressing close. “That is not what he wishes. I promise you.”
“Then why?” he asked against her shoulder. “Why does he look at me like I hurt him?”
Lorraine held him, choosing her words with care.
“Because you have your father’s eyes,” she said at last. “And when he looks at you, he remembers his friend. He remembers how much he loved him—and how much it hurt to lose him. Sometimes that remembering is more than he knows what to do with.”
Thomas pulled back slightly. “He loved my papa?”
“Very much.”
“And seeing me makes him remember?”
“Yes.”
Thomas frowned, thinking. “So… it’s not that he doesn’t like me?”
“No, sweetheart.”
He hesitated. “It’s just… I remind him of something sad, and that scares him.”
Lorraine felt her throat tighten. “I think that is very nearly it.”
Thomas wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.
“I get scared too,” he admitted. “About liking people. Because if they go away, it hurts more.”
“I know.” She pressed a kiss to his forehead. “But that is the thing about loving people—it is always a risk. We must decide that the loving is worth the hurting. That having people in our lives is better than being safe and alone.”
Thomas was quiet for a moment.
“Is that what His Grace is doing?” he asked at last. “Trying to decide whether I’m worth the hurting?”
The question struck her silent.
Before she could answer, a floorboard creaked.
Lorraine turned instinctively. Through the narrow gap of the half-open door, she caught the movement of a dark coat, the line of a shoulder.
Dominic.
He had been standing there. Listening.
Their eyes met—only for a moment—but it was enough. His expression was raw, unguarded.
Then he was gone.
Thomas shifted in her arms. “Miss Weston? What is it?”
“Nothing, sweetheart.” She steadied her voice. “Nothing at all. Let us finish our lesson, and then you may go out with Jenny. I believe Cook has been at her baking.”
That was enough to turn his thoughts. They returned to the lesson—though Lorraine could not have said what she taught—and when Jenny came for him, she watched him go with a growing weight in her chest.
Dominic had heard everything.
She did not know what he would do with it.
She suspected she would soon find out.
***
The summons came that evening.
Lorraine was in her room, attempting to read, when a knock sounded. A housemaid stood outside with a note on a tray.
“From His Grace, miss. He asks that you attend him in the study.”
Lorraine took the note. The handwriting was unmistakable.
Miss Weston. My study. At your earliest convenience.
Not a request.
“Tell His Grace I will come directly.”
She changed her dress—dark, plain, proper—and arranged her hair with care. If this was to be her dismissal, she would meet it with composure.
The walk to the study seemed longer than usual. The house felt watchful, its silence thick with anticipation.
She knocked.
“Enter.”
Dominic stood by the window, his back to her, outlined against the dimming light.
“You wished to see me, Your Grace.”
“Close the door.”
She did so. The latch sounded loud in the quiet.
He did not turn at once.
“What did you tell him?” he said at last. “This afternoon. What did you tell Thomas about me?”
“The truth. As far as a child may understand it.”
He turned then. His expression was tightly held, emotion barely contained.
“You told him I was sad. Frightened. That looking at him causes me pain.”
“I told him you loved his father,” she said steadily. “That losing him wounded you. That seeing Thomas recalls that loss.” She held his gaze. “I told him the truth. Would you have preferred I lie?”
“I would have preferred—” He broke off, dragging a hand through his hair and turning away. “I do not know what I would have preferred. I do not seem to know anything at all.”
“He wondered if he was worth the hurting.” Lorraine’s voice softened, despite herself. “He is six years old, and he asked whether loving him was worth the pain it might bring. What was I to say?”
“I don’t know!” The words broke from him, raw and uncontrolled.
He turned back to her, and now she saw it—the fracture beneath the composure, the strain beneath the anger.
“I do not know what you should have said. I do not know what I ought to do. I do not know how to—” His voice faltered.
“Goodness, Lorraine. I heard him. I heard him ask if I wished he were not here. And the worst of it is that for a moment—only a moment—I thought that it might be easier if he were not. Easier if I did not have to see William’s eyes looking at me every day, asking what I did to him. ”
The words fell between them, stark and unguarded.
“You were not the one who let him die,” she said quietly.
“I hesitated. I froze. Three seconds that cost twenty-one lives.”
He stopped, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes. When he lowered them, his composure had gone.
“He was dying. In my arms. And he looked up at me—with those same eyes—and said, Take care of him. Promise me.” His voice roughened. “And I did. I swore I would see to his son—that he would be protected, that he would never want for anything.”
“And you have. Thomas wants for nothing—”
“Nothing except a father!” The word tore from him like a wound reopening.
“Nothing except someone who can look at him without flinching. Nothing except what I promised and cannot give. Because every time I try—every time I think perhaps I can do this—I see William’s face, and I feel his blood on my hands, and I am back in that ravine, listening to him die because I wasn’t fast enough, wasn’t strong enough, wasn’t enough. ”
He was shaking now, his whole body trembling with the force of emotions held too long in check. Lorraine crossed the room without thinking, without considering propriety or consequences or any of the reasons she should keep her distance.
She reached him and took his hands in hers.
He went rigid, his breath catching, but he did not pull away.
“Listen to me.” Her voice was steady now. “William Harding died because of a war. Because of confusion and violence and things no man could command. He did not die because you lost three seconds.”
“You cannot know that.”
“I know you.” She tightened her hold, compelling his attention.
“I know you would have given your life for his, had it been possible. I know you have spent four years carrying a burden that was never yours to bear alone. And I know—” Her voice softened.
“—that your friend would never have wished to see you destroyed by it.”
Something in his expression gave way.
“I do not know how to stop,” he said, barely above a whisper. “The guilt. The fear. I do not know how to set it aside.”
“You need not set it aside all at once. Only lessen it.” She released one of his hands and raised the other to his face, her touch light but certain. “You allow Thomas in a little. Then a little more. You make space for something that is not pain. In time, it will not be everything.”
He leaned into her hand, his eyes closing briefly.
“And if I fail?” he said. “If I cannot be what he needs?”
“Then you try again.” Her thumb brushed his cheek. “That is all anyone can do. Try, fail, and try again. Love is not perfection. It is constancy.”
His eyes opened. They were dark in the low light.
“And you?” he asked quietly. “If I… persist. If I continue to come to you—what then?”
The question stilled her.
She ought to step back. Ought to restore distance, to remember what stood between them.
She did not.
Instead, she rose slightly and pressed her lips to his forehead—brief, almost weightless, but unmistakably tender.
“Then we shall discover it,” she murmured. “A day at a time.”
She withdrew. His hands tightened around hers for a moment, reluctant.
“I should go,” she said at last. “There will be talk.”
“Let them talk.”
“You do not mean that.”
“No.” A faint, fleeting smile touched his mouth. “But I should like to.”
She slipped her hands from his. He let them go slowly, as though unwilling to do so too quickly.
At the door, she paused.
“Lorraine.”
She turned.
“Thank you,” he said. “For what you told him. For telling him the truth.”
“He deserved it.”
“Yes.” His voice had quieted again. “Yes. I believe he did.”
She inclined her head and left him.
The corridor felt colder after the warmth of the room. She leaned for a moment against the wall, her hand pressed to her chest.
A day at a time.
She had not meant to say it.
But she had.
And she knew, with a kind of quiet certainty, that she meant every word.