In the hallway outside, Claire breathed a fierce sigh and sank back against the wall, locking her knees as they trembled. Relief welled up in her chest until she could only drop her face into her hands and breathe deeply to stave off the threatening tears.
“You said you suffered a similar ailment as a child, my lord?” the doctor inquired.
“Yes,” Gabriel said. “I had several such attacks in my youth. As I grew, the frequency and intensity of them lessened.” He paused, hesitant. “Is it possible—”
“I’d say so,” the doctor interjected. “Some illnesses have a hereditary quality to them, my lord. It’s entirely possible that he, too, will outgrow them. Though so long as such symptoms persist, they must be treated with all seriousness.” There was the sound of things being shuffled around, replaced in the doctor’s large leather bag. “But where is the boy’s mother?”
“Unavailable.”
Claire stiffened at the brisk, decisive response. It felt like a warning, as if he knew that she lingered still, unseen in the hallway without the nursery. Their roles had changed, and nowshewas the outsider, begging scraps of information, of inclusion.
She had not considered that Gabriel could take her son from her without effort. That he could cast her out even while she still lived and worked within his household. That Matthew, the baby she had cradled in her body, held in her arms, and loved with a fierce determination every day of his life could be moved to such blatant aversion to her.
He was just a little boy, and she could not fault him for picking sides in a battle that had begun long before he had been born. But each pointed withdrawal pierced her heart until it bled, battered beyond recognition.
She swiped at her eyes and patted at her hair to ensure that it was properly tucked into place. Her duties had not ceased—in fact, now they would be the greater for losing Betsy and whichever other maids elected to leave with her. No good could come of prying where she was not wanted.
At least her duties as housekeeper would keep her hands—and mind—busy.
∞∞∞
The doctor had left at last, and there had been no sound from outside of the nursery to suggest he had encountered Claire, whom Gabriel knew had lingered there. She had treated the threshold of the nursery as if it were some invisible barrier that barred her path, but he’d seen a sliver of her dark skirts as she had waited outside, listening to Dr. Barnes’ professional opinion.
He had not begrudged her the knowledge. In her position, he would have been just as frightened, just as worried. But she had not stayed, had not attempted to breach the confines of the room, and he suspected she had been uncertain of her welcome, hadn’t wished to risk a harsh command to absent herself.
Matthew perched upon the edge of his bed, his little legs dangling. Gabriel sat beside him with a sigh, helping him wrestle his way back into his shirt.
“Matthew,” he said, “you must be kinder to your mother.”
Matthew’s head poked through the neck of the shirt, his hair rumpled and untidy, with the same tendency toward curling at the ends that his father’s hair held. “Mamalied,” he said fiercely.
“Yes,” Gabriel acknowledged, finding it unbearably awkward that he should be put into the position ofdefendingClaire. “But she did it for you. To protect you.”
His face quizzical, Matthew canted his head to the side.
“Children born to parents who are not married are called bastards,” Gabriel said. “Nonpersons under the law. Your mother”—Christ, now he was convincinghimself—“thought you would be safer if it was believed she was a widow.”
“But you married her, didn’t you, Papa?”
“Yes, of course.” But Claire had not known that. Thanks to his father, she’d thought herself seduced and abandoned. She’d fled to London to avoid the censure of her sister’s small community. “But, Matthew, she had been lied to as well. She thought she was doing what was best for you.”
And she had. It had not occurred to him before now, but orphanages and workhouses were littered with unwanted children born under less than ideal circumstances. Instead of abandoning their son in the hopes of saving her own reputation, she had chosen instead to raise him on her own. It could not have been an easy choice to make, nor a comfortable one. And she had worked so hard to support him, to give their son the best life she could manage—even if it had placed her in positions where she saw him but rarely.
How difficult had it been for her, to place her child in the care of her sister and see him for only a few hours on her half days off? How difficult was it now to have her son reject her in favor of his father? To have lost the affection of the child she had sacrificed so much to raise?
To linger unseen in the hallway, knowing she would not be welcomed into the nursery. To slip silently away once the danger had passed, denying herself the opportunity to cradle her child in her arms and assure herself that he had escaped this latest brush with danger unscathed.
“Your mother loves you,” Gabriel said, brushing Matthew’s disheveled hair away from his forehead. “Much more than you can possibly imagine.”
The past could not be rewritten, but the future was still mutable. Claire had loved Matthew first. Long before Gabriel had known about his son, Claire had been there loving him, protecting him, keeping him safe.
Chapter Thirty
Claire had burned almost two days worth of candles in the waiting. It was possible—likely even—that Gabriel would not come. He had not, after all, given any indication that he would. The previous evening, he had left her in all aggravation, a firm rejection that still stung.
But she could not sleep, even though it had gone well past two in the morning. Her eyes itched with the threat of tears that had continued throughout the day, though she had valiantly resisted the temptation to cry. There was a dam of burning emotion in her chest, but thus far she had managed to keep it from spilling over.
The flame of the candle set upon its plate flickered in ominous warning, and with mechanical motions she pulled open the drawer, removed another of the few remaining candles, and lit the wick with the dying stub of the old one.
