Penelope crossed the room in four strides and dropped to her knees before the chair, taking Marianne's hands—ice-cold,trembling, birdlike—in both of hers. “Oh, Marianne. I should have come sooner.”
A sound tore from her chest that was barely human, and she folded forward into Penelope’s arms and wept.
Penelope gathered her close. Over Marianne’s shaking shoulder, she met Alastair’s gaze where he stood in the doorway—still as stone, his face unreadable, one hand braced against the frame.
He gave her a single nod.
She pressed her cheek against Marianne’s hair and held on.
“She is safe,” she whispered. “Your daughter is safe, and she is beautiful, and she is loved. Come with us.”
“I want to see Thomas,” Marianne wailed, as though she could think of nothing else. It was Alastair who answered. “And so you shall.”
Marianne slept all the way to where her daughter waited. She was quickly carried into a bedchamber, before Alastair sent for Thomas, who now stood in the centre of the guest chamber, all nerves and wrung hands.
“Will she even want to see me?”
Alastair had given him the room overlooking the south meadow—the one with the better light and the view of the hills rolling green and gold beyond the stone wall. A kind room. A room that suggested permanence rather than charity.
Thomas had not looked at the view once.
“She asked for you by name,” Alastair said. He leaned against the doorframe with his arms crossed, a posture designed to appear casual, though his chest felt like something had taken up residence behind his sternum and was pressing outward. “Repeatedly. Rather insistently, in fact. Penelope had to physically prevent her from walking to the village at midnight to find you herself.”
Thomas’s jaw worked. He stared at the floorboards—good English oak, recently polished, reflecting the morning light in warm amber streaks. His shirt was clean but worn thin at the cuffs, and someone had pressed it with care. He’d shaved. Had cut himself, too—a small nick beneath his left ear that he kept touching without realising.
“She doesn’t know about—” He stopped. Swallowed. Started again. “About Rose.”
“She knows the baby is safe. She knows who has been caring for her. Penelope told her everything on the journey back.” Alastair straightened from the frame and moved into the room, shortening the distance between them in a way that felt deliberate. “She does not know you are here. We thought it best to let you tell her yourself.”
“Tell her what, exactly? That I didn’t know?” Thomas’s voice had gone rough at the edges, the way it did when he was holding something back by force. “That she carried my child and gave it away and I wasn’t there? That while she was locked in that house, I was—Christ, Alastair, I was wrapping my hands in the boxing ring and feeling sorry for myself. Months. She was alone for months, and I didn’t?—”
“You didn’t know.”
“I should have.”
Three words carrying the weight of a man’s entire reckoning with himself. Alastair recognised the sound. Had made it himself, in different rooms, over different failures.
“Thomas.” He gripped his friend’s shoulder—hard, the way they’d done since the first time one of them had taken a bad hit in the ring. “You are here now. She is downstairs. Your daughter is in the nursery. Whatever you failed to do six months ago—and I would argue you failed nothing, because you cannot fight a war you don’t know is being waged—you can begin now. This morning. In about three minutes, if you can make your legs carry you down a flight of stairs.”
Thomas met his gaze. His dark eyes were glassy, and a muscle leapt in his throat.
“Three minutes?”
“Two, now. I suggest you stop rehearsing speeches and simply go to her.”
Thomas nodded once. Then again, as though confirming something to himself. He moved toward the door, paused, and turned back.
“Alastair.”
“Hm?”
“Thank you. For all of—” He gestured vaguely at the room, the house, the impossible arrangement that had brought them to this morning. “I know what this cost you. Your name. Your reputation. I know what people are saying, and I know you didn’t have to?—”
“Thomas.” Alastair’s voice came out rougher than intended. “Go and see her. Before I lose the last shred of my composure and we’re both standing here weeping like characters in a bad novel.”
The ghost of a smile crossed Thomas’s face—there and gone, swallowed by nerves. Then he was through the door and his boots were on the stairs, each step faster than the last.
Alastair stood in the empty guest room and breathed.