The respectable, appropriate future Tobias kept insisting she needed.
“Tell him...” She glanced at Henry, who’d already rediscovered the ball and was attempting to balance it on his head. “Tell him I shall join him shortly. I need to make myself presentable.”
“Very good, my lady.”
Peters withdrew, and Amelia remained frozen on the lawn. She should go. Should tidy her hair, smooth her morning dress, and present herself to the man who represented everything sensible and proper.
But her feet refused to move. Her hands trembled as she smoothed her skirts—not from nervousness about LordAshbourne, but from something else entirely. Something that felt uncomfortably like reluctance.
This is what you wanted. Security for Henry. A proper marriage to erase the scandal of living with your brother-in-law. This is...
“I wouldn’t if I were you.”
The amused voice made her spin around.
Tobias stood at the garden’s edge, and the sight of him drove every coherent thought from her mind.
He’d discarded his coat somewhere. His waistcoat hung open, revealing the fine linen of his shirt beneath. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows, exposing forearms that had no earthly right to be so distracting. Sunlight caught in his chestnut hair, turning it shades of burnished copper, and his usual careful composure had softened into something more relaxed.
More real.
More dangerous.
“Wouldn’t what?” she managed, grateful her voice emerged relatively steady.
“Attempt to balance anything on his head.” He gestured to Henry with a smile. “I tried it once as a boy. Ended with a concussion and my mother banning me from the library for a month.” His grin was unrepentant. “Though in my defence, I’d chosen a rather large volume of Plutarch. Henry’s showing admirable restraint with just a ball.”
Henry, hearing his name, looked up from his architectural pursuits. His face transformed—joy blazing across it with such intensity Amelia felt her chest constrict.
“Papa!”
He abandoned the ball immediately and launched himself toward Tobias with a squeal that probably disturbed every bird in Kent. Tobias dropped to one knee, opening his arms, and caught the boy with practised ease.
Then he lifted Henry high—so high Amelia’s heart stuttered—and tossed him gently into the air.
Henry’s shriek of delight echoed across the lawn, pure and unrestrained. Tobias caught him on the descent, tossed him again, and the sound of their combined laughter did something peculiar to Amelia’s lungs.
She had not had a childhood as free as this, though it was something she’d always wished for—though to her, it was as distant as the stars. She never thought it possible.
Even after her marriage, she never thought it would be something her child would have.
“Again!” Henry demanded, his small hands fisting in Tobias’s shirt. “More high, Papa!”
“Greedy creature.” But Tobias obliged, and the giggles that followed made Amelia’s vision blur traitorously.
She pressed her fingers to her lips, watching them. Watching this man who had no obligation whatsoever treat her son not as a duty or a burden, but as something infinitely precious.
Edward had held him once or twice—always uncomfortably, distant. Tobias held him as though nothing else mattered. As though making a child laugh was the most important occupation in the world.
“You’re quite good with him,” she said when Tobias finally set Henry down—though the boy immediately began climbing his legs like a determined monkey. “Natural, even.”
Henry chose that moment to demonstrate his continued fascination with gentleman’s attire by attempting to pull Tobias’s waistcoat off entirely. Tobias caught his questing hands gently, redirecting them toward the wooden ball instead.
“Perhaps we should focus on simpler pursuits, lad. Like mastering the art of catching before we advance to gambling.”
“Catch!” Henry announced, apparently approving this plan.
The morning dissolved into something timeless then. The three of them on the sun-warmed lawn, taking turns rolling the ball whilst Henry gave chase with increasing enthusiasm and decreasing success. Tobias invented increasingly ridiculous commentary for each attempt, making Henry dissolve into giggles. Amelia found herself drawn into their orbit despite every intention to maintain an appropriate distance.
