Amelia found herself drifting closer, drawn by forces she’d stopped trying to name. When she reached them, Tobias had started humming—something low and meandering that might have been an actual song or might have been entirely improvised.
Henry’s eyes were already drooping. His small body had gone heavy with impending sleep the way children’s bodies did—utterly boneless, completely trusting.
“He’ll need his nap soon,” she said quietly, though she made no move to take him. “The excitement has quite worn him out.”
“Has it?” Tobias’s voice held gentle humour. “I rather thought he’d wornusout.”
She smiled despite herself, watching her son drift toward sleep in Tobias’s arms. The morning sun painted them both in gold—chestnut hair and dark curls, strong hands cradling small limbs with infinite care.
They looked... right. Together. As though this was how things had always been meant to be, despite every reason it shouldn’t be.
“You’re very good with him,” she said again, because the observation bore repeating. Because Tobias deserved to know what his affection meant—to Henry, yes, but also to her.
“He makes it easy.” Tobias adjusted his hold fractionally, and in doing so, his knuckles brushed her arm.
The contact was incidental. Meaningless.
Except it wasn’t.
Electricity arced through her at that simple touch—that bare whisper of skin against muslin. Her breath caught audibly, and his gaze snapped to hers.
They stood frozen, the space between them charged with something she couldn’t name and didn’t dare examine. His knuckles still pressed against her sleeve. His eyes had gone dark, pupils blown wide, and she watched his throat work as he swallowed.
Neither moved. Neither breathed.
Henry made a small sound in his sleep, and the spell shattered.
Tobias pulled his hand back as though burned. Amelia stepped away, her heart hammering against her ribs with enough force to make her dizzy.
“I should...” She gestured vaguely toward the house, toward safety, toward anywhere that wasn’t here with him and this impossible wanting. “Lord Ashbourne is waiting.”
Tobias’s jaw tightened fractionally. “Of course. Lord Ashbourne.”
The name was sobering. A stark reminder of what was appropriate, what was proper, what was allowed.
“Henry adores you,” she said softly, because if she didn’t fill the silence with words, she might say something far more dangerous. “He’ll miss you when... when things change.”
When I marry someone appropriate. When we’re no longer living in this impossible proximity. When you’re merely Uncle Tobias again instead of the man Henry calls Papa.
When I can no longer watch you hold my son and pretend my heart isn’t breaking.
Tobias looked down at Henry’s sleeping face for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice had gone rough.
“So will I.”
The confession escaped before he could cage it. She watched the words register—watched him realize what he’d revealed—and something in his expression cracked open. Raw and vulnerable and utterly devastating.
“Tobias—” she began, though what she meant to say remained unclear even to herself.
But he shook his head, that careful mask sliding back into place. The one he wore in society. The one that gave nothing away.
“We should go inside,” she said gently, ending the moment before it could destroy them both. “Before Lord Ashbourne thinks I’ve forgotten him entirely.”
She held out her arms for Henry. Tobias transferred him carefully, and for one suspended breath their faces were inches apart—him bending to pass the sleeping child, her reaching to receive him—and she could count his heartbeats in the pulse at his throat.
Could see the longing he was trying so desperately to hide.
Could feel her own longing rise to meet it, fierce and undeniable and absolutely forbidden.
