The thought should have brought comfort. Relief, even. Instead, something hot and vicious coiled in his chest—something that felt disturbingly like jealousy.
You’re being ridiculous. She’s a widow in need of protection, nothing more. This... this preoccupation is merely a concern for her welfare.
Yes. Concern. A perfectly natural response to having inherited responsibility for a vulnerable woman and child. Any gentleman would feel similarly protective of his brother’s widow. Any decent man would wish to ensure her happiness and security.
The fact that her happiness with another man made him want to put his fist through the carriage wall was simply... simply...
He had no explanation for that whatsoever.
The hours crawled past with excruciating slowness. Each mile between himself and Redmond Park felt like a physical weight settling upon his shoulders. He tried to occupy his mind with estate matters requiring attention in London—correspondence with his solicitor, banking affairs, the letting of his bachelor lodgings now that he required something more befitting a viscount.
But his thoughts returned repeatedly to Amelia. To the shadows beneath her eyes that spoke of sleepless nights. To the way her hands trembled when she believed no one was watching. To how small she had looked standing upon those steps, holding Henry against her chest as though the boy were her only anchor in a storm-tossed sea.
She needs this time. She needs freedom from male oversight. Even yours. Especially yours.
Because if he were honest—brutally, uncomfortably honest—his presence at Redmond Park had not felt like duty these past weeks. It had felt like... like coming home. Like belonging somewhere for the first time in his dissolute existence.
Meals shared across the dining table, discussing estate matters and tenant disputes. The way she listened when he spoke, truly listened, rather than merely waiting for him to finish.
Henry’s laughter echoing through the corridors. The child’s absolute trust, his small hand reaching for Tobias without hesitation. The weight of him in Tobias’s arms, solid and real, andhisin every way that mattered.
Playing at being a family. That’s what they had been doing, he realised with uncomfortable clarity. Playing at something neither of them could acknowledge, something that society would never permit.
His hands clenched into fists against his thighs.
Stop. This. Now.
He forced his attention to the passing landscape, counting trees and hedgerows like a madman seeking distraction from pain. The coaching inn at Sevenoaks appeared ahead, and he considered stopping—his back ached from hours of travel, his head throbbed from circular thoughts that led nowhere profitable.
But stopping meant more time away from London. More hours trapped with only his own company and these treacherous reflections.
“Drive on,” he called to the coachman.
They would reach Town before nightfall if they maintained pace. He could begin rebuilding his life—his proper life, the one that did not involve a widow with sad eyes and a smile that could undo him completely.
The carriage lurched over a rut, and something small tumbled from beneath the opposite seat. Tobias bent to retrieve it, his fingers closing around soft wool.
A sock. Child-sized, hand-knitted, with a small embroidered ‘H’ near the cuff.
Henry’s sock.
He stared at the tiny garment in his palm. It was sosmall. Had Henry’s feet truly been this small? It seemed impossible that something so fragile could support a child learning to walk, to run, to chase butterflies with determined enthusiasm.
Tobias pressed the sock between both hands, as though he could somehow preserve the warmth of the boy who had worn it.
Six months. He would not see the boy for six months.
Would Henry even remember him? Children forget so quickly at that age. By the time Tobias returned, Henry might look upon him as a stranger. Might flinch away rather than reaching with that absolute trust that had undone Tobias completely.
Eventually, he might even transfer that precious “Papa” to someone else entirely. Some gentleman Amelia would choose to marry, some respectable man who would become Henry’s true father, whilst Tobias remained forever Uncle Tobias—if that.
His throat tightened painfully.
This is what you wanted. Distance. Propriety. Giving them both space to build lives that don’t depend on you.
But he had not anticipated it would hurt this much.
He tucked the sock carefully into his coat pocket, over his heart. A talisman against loneliness. A reminder of what waited in Kent—though whether it would still be there in six months remained terrifyingly uncertain.
