“You have given my son something valuable,” he said. “I am grateful.”
Lila blinked once, the change clearly visible to anyone who cared to notice it.
“You are welcome, my lord.”
Henry turned, holding up the page triumphantly.
“Papa, look.”
Marcus crossed to him immediately, the interruption welcome.
“Yes,” he said, bending beside the boy. “Let me see.”
Marcus gave a nod of acknowledgement. Henry glowed.
She turned to Henry. “Shall we warm up your fingers first?”
He nodded vigorously.
She led him through scales. Gentle. Even. Henry matched her tempo with concentration that knitted his brows. When his wrist dipped, she adjusted it with the lightest touch, no more than a feather’s stroke. Henry straightened at once, proud to be corrected.
“You see?” she murmured. “Your hand knows its place.”
Marcus watched them. The sensation that moved through him was not discomfort. Not longing. Something quieter, edged with awareness. The sense of standing at the threshold of something he had not planned for and did not yet understand.
Henry moved into the next exercise.
Lila hummed softly, matching the tempo.
The boy’s shoulders eased. And then, without seeming to notice the change in himself, Henry hummed along with her. A small, unguarded sound. A boy who had once made no sound at all.
It struck Marcus with unexpected force.
He turned his head, just enough to gather himself.
And saw Fenwick.
The man stood half in shadow at the far end of the corridor, speaking to a passing footman with the careless ease of someone accustomed to belonging wherever he chose to stand, as if discussing something of great importance. Marcus felt the reaction before he examined it. A familiar alertness sharpened his attention, quiet and precise.
The old instinct.
The one that calculated another man’s interest in a single glance.
Fenwick’s gaze rested not on the footman.
It was on Lila.
Marcus dismissed the thought at once. Or tried to. Miss Edgewood required no protection from him. Or so he told himself, and yet he found himself watching Fenwick with a steadiness he had not intended.
Not kindly. Not appreciatively. Not neutrally.
Intently.
Something coiled low in Marcus’s spine.
Fenwick inclined his head when he caught Marcus looking. Too smooth. Too familiar. Then, as if whatever purpose had drawn him there was complete, he drifted away down the hall with the ease of a man who believed he belonged in any corridor he entered.
Marcus exhaled once. Slowly.