“I’m not going anywhere, lad.” Tobias shifted so Henry was cradled against his chest, the boy’s burning forehead pressed against his shoulder. “Not now. Not ever.”
The promise hung in the rain-loud silence. Amelia found herself unable to look away from them—this man who had no true claim to her son, no obligation beyond a distant family connection, holding Henry as though he were the most precious thing in creation.
This is what love looks like,something whispered in the back of her mind.This is what I’ve been missing. What we’ve both been missing.
She shoved the thought away. Too dangerous. Too impossible.
But it returned anyway, insistent as the rain.
The hours blurred together. At some point, Tobias insisted she rest—just for a moment, just close her eyes. She must have dozeddespite intending otherwise, because when she jolted awake, grey light was seeping through gaps in the curtains.
Dawn.
And—
She sat bolt upright, her heart lurching. “Henry?—”
“Shh.” Tobias was exactly where he’d been before—or perhaps he’d never moved. Henry lay against his chest, but something had changed. The terrible flush had faded from the boy’s cheeks. His breathing, when she strained to hear it, had steadied. Deepened.
“The fever?” Her voice cracked on the question.
“Broke about an hour ago.” Tobias’s smile was exhausted but genuine. “He’s been sleeping peacefully since. Real sleep, not fever-sleep.”
Relief crashed over her with physical force. She pressed both hands over her mouth, muffling the sob that tore free. Her vision blurred with tears—grateful tears this time rather than terrified ones.
Henry was safe. Her boy was safe.
“Come here.” Tobias shifted carefully, making room beside him on the chair he’d commandeered hours ago. “You’ll make yourself ill standing there crying.”
She shouldn’t. Propriety, convention, all the rules she’d lived by for so long?—
None of it mattered.
She crossed to them and sank down beside Tobias, her body fitting against his side as though explicity carved for that purpose. One of his arms came around her shoulders, pulling her close. His other hand cradled Henry, holding the sleeping boy secure.
They sat like that in the grey dawn light, neither speaking, whilst Henry’s steady breathing provided the only sound beyond the diminishing rain. Tobias’s heart beat slow and sure beneath her ear. His warmth seeped through the layers of fabric separating them. And for the first time in longer than she could remember, Amelia felt safe.
Not the cold security Edward had provided—all financial stability and appropriate position. But real safety. The bone-deep certainty that she wasn’t alone. That someone saw her fear and stayed anyway. That her terror didn’t disgust or inconvenience but instead drew him closer.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “For staying. For—” Her throat closed around words too large to force past it.
“You never need to thank me for this.” His hand tightened fractionally on her shoulder. “Not for him. Not for you.”
The words should have felt neutral. Familial concern between in-laws. Instead, they landed with a weight that made her pulse quicken.
She tilted her head back, meaning to say something—what, she had no idea. But the movement brought them face to face, mere inches apart in the strengthening dawn light.
His eyes held hers. Grey as storm clouds, darkened by exhaustion and something else. Something that made her breath catch. Made her suddenly, acutely aware of every point where their bodies touched. Of how his fingers had begun tracing absent patterns against her upper arm. Of how her hand had somehow come to rest against his chest, feeling the steady thrum of his heartbeat beneath her palm.
“Amelia.” Her name emerged rough, scraped raw by the long night. “I?—”
Henry stirred between them, making a small sound of contentment as he burrowed deeper against Tobias’s chest. The moment shattered like sugar glass.
Tobias cleared his throat. Released her slowly, though his hand lingered perhaps a heartbeat longer than strictly necessary. “He’ll likely sleep for hours yet. You should rest properly. In your own bed.”
She should. She absolutely should.
But the thought of leaving this room—leaving them—felt impossible. As though by stepping through that door she’d break whatever fragile thing had been built during the night’s vigil.
