“I agree,” Marcus said.
Her eyes lifted, uncertain. “I do not want to create trouble for your household.”
“You are not,” he said.
Henry tugged her hand. “Miss Edgewood, will you walk a little way with us?”
She hesitated, torn between propriety and affection.
“Only to the lane,” Marcus said. “After that, Henry and I will continue on with you.”
Relief, not embarrassment, touched her cheeks.
“Very well,” she said.
They stepped into the pale spring light together. Henry walked between them, humming under his breath, their steps falling into the same rhythm without effort.
Not a family. Not yet.
But something was forming.
Something real.
Something neither of them could will away any longer.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The lane pouredthem into the busier edge of Covent Garden. Henry swung his music book lightly against his leg, humming the way he did when his head was full of notes.
Lila walked on Marcus’s left, quiet but not withdrawn. Her gaze swept the crowd with a quiet awareness she did not bother to hide every carriage wheel, every figure lingering a pace too long.
She was not afraid. She was alert.
A woman who had learned to survive by seeing danger before it arrived.
Marcus matched his pace to hers.
Henry chattered between them. “Miss Edgewood, I am keeping the third bar. Tomorrow I will keep four. Then five. Then the whole song!”
Lila gave him a warm, genuine smile. “One bar at a time, Henry. The music must have room to settle.”
“What is the song? What does the rest of the song sound like?”
“It’s a lullaby my nurse sang to me when I was your age.” She hummed the refrain.
Marcus watched Henry lean toward her voice, watched how she steadied him without even touching him.
They reached a quieter turn near Piccadilly. Lila’s steps slowed the instant the market sounds thinned.
Marcus did not ask why. He knew.
“Is this where he spoke to you yesterday?” he murmured.
Lila’s breath tightened, the smallest shift of her ribs. “Yes.”
Henry looked up sharply. “Who?”
“No one you need worry about,” Lila said quickly.