“She is at the orphanage. She has been spending most of her days there.”
His chest tightened. Of course. Of course, that was where she had gone. Not to parties or assemblies or any of the distractions London offered. To the children. To the place where she was needed and wanted and seen for exactly who she was.
“Do you know the way?” Lady Hartwell asked.
“I have been there once before.”
“Then you should have no difficulty finding it. It is the same building. Mrs. Everett will likely be at the door.” She paused, and something harder entered her expression. “Do not disappoint her again, August. She deserves better.”
The words landed like stones against his ribs.
“I know,” he said.
“Do you? Because knowing and acting upon that knowledge are rather different things, and thus far your actions have been severely wanting.”
He had no defense against this. None that would matter.
“I intend to do better.”
“Intentions are cheap currency. Results are what matter.” Lady Hartwell rose, indicating the interview was over. “Go. And August—” She caught his arm as he moved toward the door. Her grip was surprisingly strong. “If you hurt her again, you will answer to me. And I promise you, I am far less forgiving than my niece.”
He nodded and left.
The orphanage door was open when he arrived, propped wide to let in the afternoon air. He could hear voices inside—children’s voices, high and bright, and beneath them, a voice he knew better than his own heartbeat.
August stepped through the entrance and followed the sound down the narrow hallway. His boots were loud on the wooden floor, and he tried to quiet his steps though he was not entirely sure why. Perhaps because what he was about to walk into felt sacred in some way he could not articulate.
The parlor was at the end of the hall. Sunlight poured through two tall windows, flooding the small room with warmth and golden light. And there, in the center of it all, sat Eliza.
She was on a simple wooden chair, a book open in her lap. Her hair was pulled back from her face in a plain style, no curls or pins or any of the elaborate arrangements her lady’s maid usually crafted. She wore a dress he recognized—dark cotton, serviceable, one of the old ones she had brought from her lifebefore him. No silk. No lace. No jewels at her throat save her mother’s locket.
Children sat in a half-circle at her feet. A dozen of them, perhaps more, their faces turned up toward her with the rapt attention that only a truly gifted storyteller could command. A small boy leaned against her knee. A girl with red ribbons in her hair sat cross-legged directly in front, her mouth slightly open.
Eliza’s voice carried through the room, shaping the words of the story into something alive.
There was no duchess here, only Eliza.
His throat closed. He gripped the doorframe and watched her, memorizing the sight. The way light caught in her dark hair. The easy curve of her mouth as she read. The absolute rightness of her in this place, among these children, doing the thing she was born to do.
She turned a page, and her gaze lifted. Found him.
Her eyes widened. Just slightly—a fractional widening that someone who did not know her might have missed entirely. But he saw it. Saw the shock and the wariness and something else, something that made his pulse hammer against his wrists.
She did not stop reading.
Her gaze returned to the page, and she continued the story as though the Duke of Wildmoore were not standing in the doorway of an orphanage parlor looking like he had not slept in four days. Her voice did not waver. Her hands did not shake. She read to the end of the chapter with the same calm steadiness she brought to everything.
“And that,” she said, closing the book, “is where we shall stop for today.”
A chorus of protests erupted. “But what happens next?” “Does the prince find the treasure?” “You cannot stop there!”
“I most certainly can. The story will be here tomorrow, and so shall I.” She smiled at them—a real smile, unguarded and warm in a way that made August’s chest ache. “Off you go. Mrs. Everett has biscuits in the kitchen, and I believe there was some talk of a game in the garden.”
The children scattered. Several cast curious glances at August as they filed past him through the doorway, their small faces alight with speculation. The boy with the missing front tooth—Peter, August remembered—stopped and stared up at him.
“
“You look sad.”