Marcus rose. “Come. We will eat. And no crumbs on your coat this time.”
Henry grinned and scrambled to his feet.
As they left the room, Marcus glanced once more at the childish music abandoned on the rug. A beginning. A reaching. Something inside Henry had begun to move again. And Marcus felt it, too.
By late morning,breakfast was finished, coats brushed, and the carriage set aside in favor of the walk to Cleveland Row.
The Lyon’s Den was unusually busy when they arrived. Not with players, Mrs. Dove-Lyon kept those to the main rooms, but with footmen bearing trunks, polished boots crossing the carpets, the crisp rustle of Bessie’s staff preparing for something Marcus could not yet name.
Henry stayed close to his side, not from fear, but from curiosity.
Theseus greeted them. “Good morning, my lord. Miss Edgewood is in the music room. Mrs. Dove-Lyon asked that you go there directly.”
Marcus thanked him and followed the familiar corridor. The music room door stood partly open.
He heard the first notes before he saw her. Not a scale. Not an exercise. A phrase, tentative and searching, as if it were not meant for any audience at all.
Henry paused, spellbound.
Marcus nudged the door.
Lila looked up.
Her hands stilled on the keys. For a heartbeat, something unguarded crossed her face, not surprise, not alarm. Warmth. Then it folded neatly away.
“Master Henry,” she said, smiling. “You are early.”
“It was my idea,” Henry said proudly.
Marcus did not correct the half-truth.
Lila’s gaze shifted to him. “Good morning, my lord.”
“Miss Edgewood.”
She rose, smoothing her sleeves in the familiar, collecting gesture. “Shall we begin?”
Henry climbed onto the bench at once.
Lila approached with the same poised attentiveness Marcus had noticed from the start. Neither indulgent nor distant. Fully present.
“What were you playing when we came in?” Henry asked.
She hesitated. “A small tune. The one you kept. I wondered how it might continue.”
Henry straightened. “You changed it again?”
“A little.”
“Is it better?” Henry asked.
She smiled, soft and real. “I hope so.”
Something in Marcus shifted. The exchange was simple. Honest. Henry had given her permission to shape what he carried inside him.
The lesson began.
Henry played his scales with new confidence, even adding a second pattern when she suggested it. Lila introduced a new bar to the tune, balanced, a shade stronger than the one he had brought her.