Lila smiled, and the room softened. “Then let us see what else you can keep.”
Marcus watched her. The steadiness. The strength she concealed.
Fenwick had misjudged the ground beneath his feet.
Chapter Twenty-One
The lesson endedwith Henry’s shoulders a little straighter and his eyes bright from the small triumph of mastering a short run of notes.
Lila closed the music book carefully, her fingertips smoothing the corner in a thoughtful glide.
“You did well today,” she said.
Henry nodded, breathless with quiet pride. “I kept the second bar, too.”
“I heard,” she said softly. “And tomorrow, we will make room for a third.”
Marcus felt the warmth in the room shift in a way he had begun to recognize—subtle, but unmistakable. It happened whenever she praised the boy.
The tension left Henry’s shoulders first, then the air itself followed, as though the room trusted her judgment.
Marcus had spent years commanding rooms through force of presence. Lila Edgewood changed them without force at all.
He found the difference difficult to ignore.
Lila’s voice did not simply instruct Henry. It steadied him. Drew him forward.
Drew Marcus forward too, if he were honest.
Mrs. Dove-Lyon stood in the doorway, leaning on her cane.
“You will walk Miss Edgewood home,” she said. Spoken as a suggestion, delivered as fact.
Marcus inclined his head.
Lila looked down, color rising at the back of her neck as though the room had grown warmer.
They stepped out into the spring air. The clouds stretched thin above them, letting pale sunlight filter between them.
Henry trotted ahead a few paces, kicking a pebble along the cobblestones and humming his lesson under his breath.
Marcus slowed slightly to walk beside Lila.
He had not meant to draw closer. Her voice still lingered in him, quiet as a held note.
“You seemed unsettled this morning,” he said carefully.
Lila’s grip tightened around her portfolio. “I did not want Henry to see anything amiss.”
“He sees more than people think.”
She nodded once. “Yes. I know.”
They walked in silence for a stretch. Marcus watched her hands, the way her thumb brushed the edge of the folder, as if it steadied her more than she wished to admit.
“Fenwick will not bother you while Henry is present,” Marcus said.
Her brows drew together. “That is not a comfort. I would prefer he not bother me when I am alone either.”