“The cottage we just passed. It belongs to the groundskeeper and his family.” His gaze returned to the window. “Oliver asks about it often. He has apparently formed some attachment to the idea of the boy who lives there.”
Maribel recalled then—Oliver’s voice, bright with innocent enthusiasm.That’s where the groundskeeper’s boy lives! He waved at me once.
“He mentioned it to me,” she said with a bright smile, thinking of the boy who did not yet understand the ridiculous restraints of society. “He seemed quite taken with the notion of a potential playmate.”
Thaddeus said nothing. Despite his utter lack of a reaction, Maribel could instinctively sense that she had strayed into territory he would rather not explore. She filed the observation away for later examination and returned her attention to the window.
The conversation, such as it was, appeared to be over.
She glanced out of the window, and true joy welled up in her when they reached the estate.
Oliver was waiting on the front steps when the carriage finally rolled to a halt before Blackwood’s imposing façade.
Maribel saw him the moment the door opened—that small figure practically vibrating with barely contained energy, his dark hair falling across his forehead, his brown eyes fixed upon the carriage with desperate intensity. Mrs. Allen stood behind him, one hand resting gently upon his shoulder.
Before the footman could properly assist her descent, Maribel was out of the carriage and crossing the gravel drive, her borrowed gown swirling around her ankles, her heart pounding against her ribs.
Oliver broke free of Mrs. Allen’s restraining hand and ran to meet her.
“You came back!” He flung himself against her legs with enough force to stagger her, his thin arms wrapping around her waist, his face pressed against her stomach. “You came back, you came back, Mrs. Allen said you would but I wasn’t sure, I was scared you might not?—”
“Hush, sweetheart.” Maribel knelt on the gravel, heedless of her dress, and gathered him into her arms. He was trembling—she could feel the fine shivers running through his small body—and the knowledge that her absence had caused him such distress cut her to the quick. “I told you I would return. Did I not promise?”
“You promised.” His voice was muffled against her shoulder. “But people break promises sometimes. Mama promised shewould always be here, and then she wasn’t, and Papa promised too, and?—”
“Oliver.” Maribel pulled back just enough to cup his face in her hands, to force him to meet her eyes. His cheeks were wet with tears he was trying very hard not to shed, and the sight of them shattered something in her chest. “Listen to me now. I am not going anywhere. Do you understand? I am staying. Right here. With you.”
He searched her face with those too-old eyes, looking for the lie, the hedge, the qualification that would allow her to slip away when he least expected it.
“Staying?” he repeated. “Truly staying? Not just for a visit?”
“Truly staying.” She pressed a kiss to his forehead, breathing in the little-boy smell of him—soap and grass and the faint sweetness of the biscuits Mrs. Allen must have given him that morning. “This is my home now. Our home. And I am not leaving it.”
It truly was her home now, she realised. And for the first time, now that she held Oliver in her arms, it felt like it.
The tension drained from his small body all at once. He sagged against her, his arms tightening around her neck, and she held him there on the gravel drive whilst the servants looked on and the afternoon sun slanted golden across the stones of Blackwood.
When she finally rose, Oliver’s hand firmly clasped in hers, she found Thaddeus watching them.
He stood beside the carriage, his tall frame silhouetted against the afternoon light, his expression unreadable. But there was a strange look in his eyes before he shut it away behind his customary mask of control.
“Mrs. Allen,” he said, turning to address the housekeeper, “please see that her ladyship’s belongings are brought to her chambers. I trust everything has been prepared?”
“Yes, Your Grace. Everything is in readiness.”
“Very good.” He glanced at Maribel—a brief, assessing look—and inclined his head. “I have business to attend to in my study. I shall see you at dinner.”
He walked past them and disappeared into the house without another word.
Maribel stared after him, her hand still clasped in Oliver’s smaller one, her chest tight with emotions she could not name.
“Is he angry?” Oliver asked, his voice small with uncertainty. “He looks angry.”
“No, sweetheart.” She squeezed his hand reassuringly. “He is not angry. He is simply... learning. As we all are.”
Oliver considered this with the gravity of a four-year-old philosopher. Then he tugged at her hand, his momentary worry already giving way to more pressing concerns.
“Will you come see my soldiers? I’ve arranged them just as Papa taught me, and I want to show you the cavalry charge I invented. It’s very fierce.”
