Marcus folded his gloves in his hands. “Perhaps.”
Richard rested a brief, steadying hand on his shoulder. “I’ll let the house settle around you both.”
He withdrew without ceremony, leaving Marcus alone with the hush of the upper floor.
Marcus returned to Henry’s room and crossed to the window.
Grosvenor Square lay washed in early lamplight, silver and subdued. Branches cast thin shadows across the pavement. A solitary rider passed along the far edge of the square, the horse’s steps softened by damp stone.
Marcus rested his hand on the sill. The echo of Miss Edgewood’s playing lingered faintly in his mind. It was measured, unfamiliar, and persistent. It had reached something he had kept sealed for years.
He stood there as the light began to thin.
He turned back toward the small sleeping figure in Henry’s bed.
And for the first time in two years, the thought of morning did not tighten his chest.
It simply waited.
Chapter Four
The house wokethe following morning quietly, as if unwilling to disturb what had settled overnight.
Marcus had slept only in shallow intervals, the kind that never let him rest. Yet when he rose, the familiar edge of dread did not meet him at once. It waited farther back, less certain of its claim. Even the act of dressing felt altered. The dark coat, the muted cravat, no longer armor, simply habit.
When he stepped into Henry’s room, the boy was already awake.
Henry sat cross-legged atop the covers, the woolen dog tucked beneath his arm. His eyes lifted at once. Still cautious. But clearer.
“Good morning,” Marcus said.
Henry nodded. “Is my lesson today?”
“It is.”
The boy swallowed, shoulders drawing up as if preparing for something he could not yet name. Marcus crossed the room and crouched so they were level.
“You don’t need to be brave all at once,” he said quietly. “Only enough to come with me.”
Henry reached for his hand. “I can try.”
It was enough.
They took breakfast together in the small morning parlor. Neither spoke much. Henry ate half a roll and a slice of apple. Marcus managed tea. The quiet between them felt different today, not the weighted silence of grief, but something held in reserve, like breath before a note was struck.
When the clock chimed the quarter hour, Marcus rose.
“Shall we?”
Henry nodded and pressed the woolen dog to his chest once before setting it carefully on the chair.
Outside, the sky held the pale uncertainty of early spring. Clouds drifted thinly across a reluctant blue. Grosvenor Square had already found its rhythm: a gardener sweeping leaves, a boy chasing his dog along the walk, carriage wheels rattling over stone. Henry edged closer to Marcus’s side.
“Remember,” Marcus murmured. “Just enough bravery.”
Henry nodded again.
The walk to Cleveland Row felt shorter in daylight. The lane of the Lyon’s Den looked less secretive with the sun touching its blue-washed brick. Even so, something about the unmarked door slowed Marcus as they neared it.