Chapter Seventeen
“Good morning, miss. You look well rested.”
Mrs Potter’s voice carried the faintest note of curiosity—the tone of a woman who had survived thirty years in service by knowing precisely when to observe and when to look away. Lorraine accepted the cup of tea the housekeeper offered and smiled with what she hoped was convincing composure.
“Thank you, Mrs Potter. I slept well.”
This was, technically, true. She had slept deeply and without dreams, cocooned in warmth, her head upon a pillow that smelled faintly of sandalwood, with the steady rhythm of a heartbeat beneath her ear.
She had slept as she imagined the fortunate slept—completely, peacefully, with no room for fear.
She had also slept in the wrong bed, in the wrong wing, under entirely improper circumstances.
And she had woken at dawn to birdsong beyond the window and the sensation of Dominic’s arm tightening about her waist in his sleep, drawing her closer with the unconscious possessiveness of a man long unaccustomed to holding anything at all.
Returning to her own room had required a careful, breathless sort of daring.
She had slipped from his bed while he still slept—pausing, helplessly, to look at him in the pale grey light: the softened lines of his face, the absence of strain about his mouth, the dark sweep of his lashes against his cheek—and then made her way, barefoot, through the corridors of Rovewood Hall in her nightgown with his dressing gown pulled over it, her heart beating too loudly, her ears straining for any sign of movement.
She had met no one. Had reached her room with mere minutes to spare before Jenny knocked, and dressed with trembling hands before descending to breakfast looking, apparently, ‘well rested.’
I have lost my mind, she thought, accepting a piece of toast. I have completely, irrevocably lost my mind, and I am not even sorry.
“Thomas is already in the nursery,” Mrs Potter continued, pouring her own tea and settling opposite Lorraine with the ease of long familiarity. “He was up at first light, drawing birds. I believe he means to catalogue every species on the estate.”
“He has been drawing them for a week now. I begin to think he may have exhausted the subject.”
“Children are persistent creatures. Much like their elders.” Mrs Potter’s gaze lingered—taking in the brightness in Lorraine’s eyes, the colour in her cheeks, whatever else might be read there by one accustomed to reading between silences. “You are happy here, Miss Weston.”
It was not a question.
Lorraine met her gaze and saw not suspicion, but understanding—a quiet recognition from a woman who had watched this house for decades and knew its undercurrents better than anyone.
“I am,” Lorraine said simply. “Very happy.”
Mrs Potter inclined her head. “Good. This house has been in want of happiness for a long time.”
She said nothing more. But as she rose to leave, she pressed Lorraine’s hand in brief passing—a gesture that felt, unmistakably, like sanction.
***
The days that followed were the happiest Lorraine had ever known.
She had not expected happiness. Had not permitted herself even the shape of it—not like this, not this bright, consuming, precarious joy that suffused her days and lent a quiet radiance to the most ordinary moments.
For three years, she had trained herself not to want.
Now she did nothing but want—and have, and be wanted in return—and the abundance of it left her almost unsteady.
They were careful. They had to be.
The household could not know—not yet, not while everything remained what it was: duke and governess, master and employee, an imbalance that society would condemn without hesitation.
If word travelled beyond Rovewood, Lorraine’s reputation—already fragile—would be destroyed entirely.
And Dominic, for all his rank, would not escape unscathed; their attachment would be reduced to something coarse, misread as convenience or indulgence.
So they performed.
By day, they were unchanged. Courteous. Correct. He visited the nursery under the guise of assessing the governess’s work. She reported progress over tea in the morning room. They spoke of schedules, books, and instruction with impeccable propriety.
But beneath that surface, everything had altered.
A glance across the breakfast table—his eyes finding hers while Thomas spoke, holding a moment too long before he looked away. A brush of fingers when passing a book—brief, deliberate, charged. The sound of her name in his voice—Miss Weston—weighted with a meaning that belonged only to the night.
And at night, the pretence dissolved.
She came to him after midnight, once the house lay still and Thomas slept soundly.
She learned the path by heart—seventeen steps to the end of her corridor, left at the gallery, down the main staircase, across the first-floor passage, through the heavy oak door leading to his rooms. She learned which boards creaked and which held their silence. She learned to carry her shoes.
She learned other things as well.
The sound he made when she pressed her lips to the scar along his ribs. The way his hands trembled when he loosed her hair, as though unwrapping something rare. The precise touch that could unmake her entirely.
And she learned the quieter things—the hours after, when the fire burned low and they lay close together, speaking in low voices.
He told her of his childhood: a solitary boy in a vast house, raised by servants after his mother’s death, guided by tutors his father scarcely noticed.
He spoke of Eton—of Julian and William, and the first sense of belonging he had ever known.
He spoke of the army—not the horror, not the ravine, but the other parts: the camaraderie, the dark humour, the absurdity of men facing death with laughter.
The way William could lift spirits with a single remark.
And she told him of herself.
Of her father—the gentle scholar who loved too deeply. Of Lydia—beautiful, reckless Lydia, who had let Lorraine bear the cost, and now sent money that was always returned. Of the long years as a governess—the careful navigation of other people’s homes, the quiet discipline of needing nothing.
“I was so proud of it,” she said one night, her cheek against his chest, his fingers tracing idle patterns along her shoulder.
“Not needing anyone. I had built myself into something unassailable. And then I walked into your study, and you could not tell me a single thing about the boy in your care, and I thought: this man is as broken as I am. Only far less discreet about it.”
His laughter stirred beneath her ear. “Less discreet?”
“Entirely without subtlety. I had years of practice. You were making no effort at all.”
“I was not.”
He laughed again—warm, unguarded.
They fell into a quiet that was not empty but full—of shared breath, of ease, of something newly and quietly certain. His arm tightened around her, drawing her closer, and she went without hesitation, settling against him as though she had always belonged there.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
***
In the days that followed, the three of them found a rhythm that felt, to Lorraine, like the opening notes of a song she had been waiting her entire life to hear.
Mornings were for lessons. Thomas was flourishing—reading beyond his years, showing a genuine talent for watercolours, and asking questions with the eager curiosity of a child newly at ease in the world.
He was working now on a series of bird portraits, each more detailed than the last, and had begun keeping a journal of his observations, which Lorraine helped him compile each evening.
Afternoons were for excursions. They walked the grounds together—all three of them—a practice that had begun cautiously and now felt as natural as breathing.
Dominic showed Thomas the kestrel’s nest at the old folly, crouching beside him in the long grass, their two heads—one dark, one fair—bent together over the scattered remains below.
He taught the boy to name trees by their bark and to read tracks in the earth.
When Thomas tired, he lifted him easily onto his shoulders, and Lorraine followed a few paces behind, her heart so full it almost ached.
Evenings were the most precious of all. They dined together at the small table in the morning room, avoiding the great dining chamber that swallowed both sound and warmth.
Afterward, Dominic read aloud—Robinson Crusoe, then tales from The Arabian Nights—his deep voice gentling the stories into something safe and close.
Thomas often fell asleep before the end, Captain the wooden horse clutched in one hand, his head resting against Lorraine.
She and Dominic would remain where they were, the fire low, not touching—not daring to touch, not with the child between them—but exchanging glances that said more than any words.
We look like a family, Lorraine thought one evening, watching Dominic carry a sleeping Thomas toward the nursery, the boy’s fair head slack against his shoulder. We look like the kind of family I once thought I might have.
The thought was dangerous. She knew it. She turned from it, refused to examine it too closely.
It returned all the same—quiet, persistent, impossible to root out.
***
“Miss Weston, when the Hardings come, will I have to go with them?”
The question caught her unprepared.
They were in the nursery, midway through a reading lesson, when Thomas spoke—his voice small but steady, as though he had been turning the thought over for some time before giving it shape.
Lorraine closed the book gently. “The Hardings are your grandparents, Thomas. They are coming a very great distance to meet you.”
“But will I have to go with them? To India?”
“I do not know, my dear. That is something His Grace and your grandparents must decide together.”
“But what if I do not wish to go?” His eyes searched her face. “What if I want to stay here? With you and His Grace?”
Something tightened sharply in her chest.
“Thomas—”
“He reads to me now. Every night. And he showed me the kestrels, and he lets me sit in his study, and he—” His voice wavered. “He is different. He is not sad all the time anymore. And I do not want to leave him, because what if he becomes sad again?”
Lorraine gathered him close, blinking against the sudden sting in her eyes. “Whatever is decided will be because the people who love you are trying to do what is best. And your wishes matter, Thomas. They do.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
He studied her for a moment, solemn beyond his years. “Do you think His Grace loves me?”
The question struck her with unexpected force.
“Yes,” she said, steady and certain. “I think he cares for you very much. Even if he does not always know how to show it.”
Thomas nodded. Then, with disarming simplicity: “I think he cares for you too.”
Lorraine stilled. “Thomas—”
“He looks at you as though you are the most important person in the room.” He frowned faintly. “Is that allowed?”
She almost laughed. Almost cried.
“People are permitted to look at one another as they please,” she said, which answered nothing at all.
Thomas seemed satisfied. He returned to his lesson, and Lorraine sat beside him, her hands folded tightly in her lap, her heart unsteady.
What happens when the Hardings come?
The question lingered, inescapable.
Their ship was somewhere at sea, drawing nearer with each passing day. And when they arrived, everything would change. Thomas’s future would be decided. And with it, hers.
What was she to Dominic?
A governess, a lover, a woman who had somehow stumbled into a life that didn’t belong to her?
And when the moment came—when choice could no longer be deferred—what would he choose?
She thought of him that morning, standing in the nursery doorway, watching her teach, smiling with the quiet, unguarded warmth of a man who had, at last, found something worth holding on to.
Choose us, she thought, fiercely and without sound. Choose this.
But some wishes could not be demanded. They could only be hoped for—quietly, desperately, in the silence between heartbeats.
***
That night, she went to him earlier than usual.
He was at his desk when she entered—writing, his brow drawn, lamplight warming the lines of his face. He looked up, and the change in him was immediate: focus giving way to something softer, deeper, unmistakable.
“You are early.”
“Thomas asked me today whether you love him.”
Dominic stilled. “What did you tell him?”
“The truth. That you care for him very much.” She crossed to him and seated herself lightly upon the edge of the desk, facing him. “He does not wish to go to India. He wishes to remain here. With us.”
“The Hardings—” he began.
“Are coming. I know.” Her voice softened, though it did not waver.
“And I know we have not yet spoken of what happens then—of what becomes of any of this—and I am not asking you to decide it tonight. But Thomas must know that he has a place here. That this is not something fleeting. That he is not to lose another family.”
“Another family.” Dominic’s voice roughened. He reached for her hand, threading his fingers through hers, holding fast. “Is that what we are?”
“I do not know what we are,” she said quietly. “I only know what it feels like.”
“And what does it feel like?”
She lifted their joined hands and pressed her lips to his knuckles—a quiet echo of that earlier moment in the library, when he had first laid himself bare to her.
“Like home.”
Something shifted in his expression—not the sharp fracture of confession, nor the consuming heat of desire, but something deeper and steadier. A settling. A recognition. The look of a man who had wandered too long and had, at last, found where he belonged.
He rose and drew her from the desk into his arms, and kissed her—slowly, thoroughly, with a tenderness that still undid her. She yielded without thought, her hands finding the now-familiar lines of him, the strength and the scars alike.
“Stay,” he murmured against her lips—the word that had become their quiet ritual, their shared defiance against a world that would deny them this.
“Always,” she answered.
And in the amber glow of his chambers, with the wind low against the windows and the house settling softly around them, she allowed herself—for that moment—to believe it.