Evander folded the handkerchief and placed it back beside the lamp. He extinguished the flame and left the study. His footsteps sounded loud in the darkened house as he climbed the staircase.
He passed the nursery. The door was ajar. Inside, a single candle burned, and Mrs. Bridwell sat in the rocking chair, her chin on her chest, dozing. Tommy slept in the crib. The room smelled of milk and beeswax.
Mary was not there. She had gone to her own rooms, then. She had eaten. She had left the baby to the nursemaid and retired, as any reasonable woman would after a day spent doing the work Evander should have shared.
The corridor stretched ahead of him, dark and quiet. Evander walked past the nursery, past Mary’s chambers, and into his own room. The door clicked shut behind him.
The darkness should have been a relief. Instead, it was filled with things he refused to name. Mary asleep in the armchair with her fingers reaching toward the crib. The way she had whispered “he has Charlotte’s eyes”the first time she held Tommy.
A woman who had not eaten all day because leaving that child’s side was something she could not bring herself to do.
Evander sat on the edge of the bed, pressed his palms against his knees, and waited for his mind to empty.
It did not.
CHAPTER 6
“He has a grip like a dock worker, this one.”
Mrs. Bridwell laughed as Tommy’s fingers closed around her thumb with a ferocity that seemed impossible for a child who weighed less than a sack of flour.
Mary leaned over the crib and watched his face scrunch with the effort of holding on. His eyes were open today, tracking movement with a focus that had not been there a week ago.
“Is that normal?” Mary asked. “The gripping?”
“Perfectly normal, Your Grace. It’s instinct. Babies hold on to whatever’s nearest.” Mrs. Bridwell eased her thumb free and tucked the blanket around Tommy’s chest. “Give it a few weeks, and he’ll have your hair. They always go for the hair.”
Mary smiled. She reached into the crib and offered her own finger, and Tommy seized it with the same blind determination.His grip was warm. She could feel his pulse through the pad of his thumb, quick and insistent.
“Charlotte used to do that,” she said. “When she was small. She would grab my hand in her sleep and refuse to let go. Our mother said she’d grow out of it.” Mary paused. “She never did.”
Mrs. Bridwell busied herself folding a stack of clean linens. Mrs. Bridwell knew when to speak and when to let silence do its work. Mary had already come to rely on that instinct more than she cared to admit.
Three days had passed since the Duke told her he did not want children. Three days since he accused her of helping Charlotte disappear. Three days of meals eaten alone, corridors walked alone, and a bed that remained untouched on the side that was not hers.
The Duke existed in this house the way the weather existed beyond a window. She heard him. She felt the effects of him. Doors opening and closing on the floor below. Footsteps in the corridor at hours that should have been quiet. Orders relayed through Mrs. Cahill, who arrived each morning with the same question:Does Her Grace or the nursemaid require anything for Lord Thomas?
Never the Duke himself. Never his voice at the nursery door. Never his face in the room where his nephew slept.
“He watched again this morning,” Mrs. Bridwell said.
Mary looked up. “Who?”
Mrs. Bridwell raised an eyebrow. “His Grace. From the corridor. While you were feeding Tommy his bottle. He stood there for a good two minutes before he left.”
Mary’s jaw tightened. “Then he should have come inside.”
“Perhaps he doesn’t know how.”
“He is a duke. He walks into rooms for a living.”
Mrs. Bridwell folded the last cloth and set it on the stack. “Walking into a room and belonging in one are different things, Your Grace.”
Mary opened her mouth to argue, then closed it. Tommy’s grip on her finger tightened, and she looked down at him, and the argument dissolved.
“Breathing is strong. Heart sounds excellent. Weight gain is on pace for his age.”
Dr. Hargrove straightened from his examination and placed his instruments back into his leather bag with the unhurried precision of a man who had delivered and examined hundreds of infants. Tommy lay on the changing table, naked and furious, his wails filling the nursery like a cathedral organ.