“No, my darling. Play with this instead.”
The ball rolled across the lawn, and Henry shrieked with delight—that pure, uncomplicated sound that only childrencould produce. He set off after it with his unsteady gait, arms windmilling for balance, and Amelia found herself smiling at the sight of her son.
When had she last laughed without effort? Without that hollow awareness that joy was something she was supposed to feel rather than something that simply… arrived?
Not for months, she realized. Not since… Not since she’d married.
“Mama, look! Look what I did!”
Henry had successfully captured the ball and was now holding it aloft like a trophy, his face split by a grin so wide it threatened to consume his entire countenance. Pride radiated from every inch of his small body.
“I see it, darling. Very clever indeed.” She moved to him, crouching so they were eye-level, and pressed a kiss to his forehead. He smelled of sunshine and innocence and everything good in a world that felt increasingly complicated. “Shall we build it even taller?”
But Henry’s attention had already shifted—the way it did with children, like butterflies alighting on one flower before immediately seeking another. He pointed toward something behind her, his eyes going wide.
“Papa!”
Oh no.
Amelia’s heart performed some complicated manoeuvre in her chest—part leap, part plummet, entirely unwelcome. She turned slowly, as though by moving with deliberate care she might somehow control what she would see.
It didn’t help.
Tobias stood at the garden’s edge. She took her time to study him, take in the sight of him—every last detail.
His jacket had been discarded somewhere. His waistcoat hung open. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows, revealing forearms that had no business being so distracting. Sunlight caught in his chestnut hair, turning it shades of gold and copper, and his usual careful composure—that practised charm he wore like armour—had softened into something more genuine.
He looked like a man rather than a viscount. Like someone who belonged in gardens and laughter rather than ballrooms and propriety.
He looked, Amelia realized with dawning horror, exactly like the sort of man she could grow to care for. Perhaps even... fall in love with.
No. Absolutely not. That is not what’s happening here.
But Henry had already broken free, charging toward Tobias with a squeal that probably disturbed every bird within a mile radius. And Tobias—instead of maintaining appropriate distance, instead of preserving the careful boundaries they’d shattered and hastily reconstructed last night—simply grinned and dropped to one knee, opening his arms.
The boy barrelled into him with enough force to nearly topple them both. Tobias caught him easily, his laugh rich and unguarded, and lifted Henry into the air.
“Good morning, lad. Have you been terrorising your mother already?”
“We’re playing!” Henry announced, as though this were breaking news of national importance. “With the ball! I caught it!”
“Did you now?” Tobias tossed him higher—not dangerously so, but high enough to make Henry shriek with glee. “That’s very impressive. Soon you’ll be better at sport than me.”
“I’m the best!”
“Cheeky creature.” Tobias caught him on the descent, settling the boy against his hip easily. It looked right in a way she could not explain. His eyes found Amelia’s across the sun-drenched lawn, and something flickered in their grey depths. “I hope I’m not intruding. I thought perhaps…”
He trailed off, and she watched him search for words. Watched the careful control he usually wielded so effortlessly falter slightly in the morning light.
“You’re not intruding,” she heard herself say, though every instinct screamed that he absolutely was—or rather, that his presence disrupted the careful equilibrium she’d been attempting to restore since fleeing the drawing room. “Henry is always delighted to see you.”
Henry. Only Henry. No one else is delighted. Certainly not you, with your racing pulse and your inability to stop noticing how the sunlight makes his eyes look like molten silver.
“You’re quite good with him,” she added, because silence felt dangerous and words—even meaningless ones—might build some barrier between them. She managed something approximating a smile. “Natural, even.”
“I’ve had excellent instruction.” Tobias shifted Henry’s weight, his grin turning slightly sheepish. “He only cries when I try to teach him cards.”
The image was so absurd—so perfectly Tobias—that laughter bubbled up before she could suppress it. Real laughter, the kind that came from somewhere deep and genuine rather than the practised sounds she’d perfected for society.
