Maribel bit back a smile. This had disaster written across every moment of it. Thaddeus had no gift for teaching—his own education had been the sort that involved being thrown at increasingly difficult tasks until competence emerged through sheer survival instinct. And Oliver, sensitive creature that he was, absorbed anxiety like a sponge absorbing water.
She should intervene. Should walk over and suggest they try again another day, when tempers were steadier and expectations more realistic.
But something held her at the fence. Some need to see how this would resolve itself without her interference.
Thaddeus released the bridle. Maribel’s breath caught as Clover began walking without guidance, Oliver swaying slightly in the saddle but maintaining his seat. She could see the moment Thaddeus’s hands twitched toward intervention, then stilled as he forced himself to let the boy try.
They completed one circuit. Then another. Oliver’s posture shifted incrementally—shoulders dropping, spine straightening, hands finding the natural position she had tried to describe to him a dozen times without success.
When they reached the starting point again, Oliver’s face broke into a grin that could have lit the entire estate.
“Did you see?” His voice carried high and clear. “Did you see me?”
And Thaddeus smiled.
Not the careful, controlled expression he offered at social functions. Not the tight-lipped acknowledgment he gave servants who performed adequately. But an actual smile—unguarded and genuine, transforming his austere features into something approaching warmth.
“You were magnificent,” he said.
Maribel felt a warmth settle in her chest.
She turned away before either of them could notice her presence and continued toward the house, the wildflowers forgotten in her hand. The image followed her—Thaddeus smiling at Oliver’s triumph, Oliver glowing under that approval, both of them existing in a moment of uncomplicated joy.
It was such a small thing. A child learning to sit a horse. A man learning to offer praise without qualification.
But small things, accumulated, became the foundation of trust.
She turned away, allowing them to spend time on their own. She had some reading to do, she reasoned with herself.
She found them again that evening, entirely by accident.
The hour had grown late—past nine o’clock, well beyond Oliver’s usual bedtime. Maribel had been in the library searching for a book Eleanor had recommended when she heard voices drifting from the nursery corridor.
Thaddeus’s voice, lower than usual. Then Oliver’s sleepy response.
Maribel climbed the stairs quietly and paused outside the nursery door, which stood slightly ajar.
“‘And the dragon swooped down from the mountain—’” Thaddeus’s voice dropped to what was clearly meant to be menacing and succeeded only in sounding vaguely dyspeptic. “‘—breathing fire and destruction upon all who dared to oppose him.’”
A pause. Then he continued in a strangled falsetto that made Maribel press her hand to her mouth to contain laughter.
“‘But the brave princess did not flee. She stood her ground, her sword gleaming?—’”
“You make the princess sound funny,” Oliver murmured, his words thick with approaching sleep.
“I am aware. I lack theatrical training.”
“Papa used to read to me.” A rustle of bedclothes. “He did all the voices perfectly.”
Maribel’s heart started racing quickly in her chest. She leaned closer to the door, holding her breath.
The silence stretched. Then Thaddeus spoke again, his voice rougher than before.
“He was better at this than I am.”
“You do it differently,” Oliver said. “But I like it. It’s nice. Hearing you try.”
More silence. Maribel could picture Thaddeus sitting there, stunned by this small grace offered by a child who had every reason to withhold it.
