She worries too much. The boy is simply spirited. Nothing wrong with that.
He crossed the threshold to find Mary looking rather frazzled, her cap askew, whilst Henry stood in his cot with both small fists gripping the rail. The child’s face lit up the moment he spotted Tobias.
“Papa! You came!”
“I did indeed, lad.” Tobias moved to the cot, and Henry immediately raised his arms in that universal gesture of childhood demand. “Though I believe you’re supposed to be sleeping.”
“Not tired,” Henry repeated with impressive conviction. “Want to be with you.”
Mary looked between them uncertainly. “My lord, Lady Amelia was quite specific about his schedule?—”
“I’ll take responsibility,” Tobias heard himself say. “Go have some tea, Mary. You look as though you could use a respite.”
The nursemaid’s relief was palpable. “If you’re certain, my lord?”
“Perfectly certain. Off you go.”
She departed with gratitude practically radiating from her, leaving Tobias alone with a child who’d thoroughly won the battle of wills. Henry bounced on the cot mattress, his earlier fatigue apparently forgotten in favour of victory celebrations.
“We play now, Papa?”
“Perhaps.” Tobias lifted him from the cot, settling the warm weight against his chest. “Though I have work in my study. Terribly boring work. Ledgers and correspondence and all manner of dull adult things.”
“I want to help!”
“Can you read yet?”
“No.” Henry said this with the sort of confidence that suggested reading was merely a technicality he’d master momentarily. “But I’m very smart.”
“Indisputably.” Tobias carried him from the nursery, feeling the boy’s small fist in his shirt. “Very well. You may assist me with my correspondence. Though I warn you, Lord Pemberton’s letters regarding crop rotation are spectacularly tedious.”
Henry giggled against his shoulder, and something in Tobias’s chest loosened fractionally.
This. This is what matters. Not drawing rooms and appropriate suitors and polite courtship rituals. Just... this.
He settled into his chair and positioned Henry on his knee, reaching for the nearest letter.
“Right then. This is from Mr. Thornton regarding timber rights on the northern boundary. Shall I read it aloud, or would you prefer to examine it yourself?”
Henry grabbed the paper with both hands, promptly crumpled one corner, and announced, “I know what it says!”
“Do you indeed? Enlighten me.”
“It says...” The boy studied the incomprehensible marks with impressive seriousness. “It says Henry is a good boy and can have biscuits.”
“Remarkable. That’s precisely what I thought it said as well.” Tobias rescued the letter before it could be destroyed. “Though I suspect Mr. Thornton might have mentioned something about timber in there somewhere.”
They continued this pattern for several minutes—Tobias pretending to work whilst Henry “helped” by rearranging papers, testing the weight of the inkwell, and providing running commentary on everything within reach. It was spectacularly unproductive.
The drawing room and its polite courtship felt very far away.
Eventually, Henry grew still, his small body relaxing against Tobias’s chest. Not sleeping—his eyes remained determinedly open—but quiet in that particular way children achieved when processing something important.
“Papa?” The word was softer now, tentative.
“Yes, lad?”
“You stay?”
