“The afternoon schedule.” Maribel heard her own voice, flat and cold. “I see.”
Beside her, Oliver had gone very still. She did not need to look at him to know what his face held—she could feel it in the way his hand went slack in hers, the sudden heaviness of his small body, the collapse of hope into that terrible, quiet resignation.
Thomas had stepped back. His freckled face had gone carefully still, the easy friendliness of moments before replaced by a wary understanding. He knew, Maribel realised. Despite his youth, he knew how this worked—which children could be played with and which could not, which invitations would be accepted and which would be snatched away before they could take root.
“I have to go?” Oliver’s voice was very small.
“It seems so, sweetheart.” Maribel crouched before him, taking his hands in hers. “But we shall try again another day.”
“You always say that. You and Mrs. Allen and everyone.” His lower lip trembled, but he did not cry. He was learning not to cry, and the knowledge of it made Maribel want to scream. “Another day never comes.”
She had no answer for him. What could she say? That she would fight for him, when every fight led only to locked doors and watchful servants? That she would make things better, when she had so little power to change anything at all?
“I shall speak to His Grace,” she said instead. “I promise you, Oliver. I shall speak to him.”
She rose and turned to Thomas, who had retreated further still, his mud-caked boots shuffling against the gravel. “Thank you, Thomas. Perhaps another time.”
The boy nodded, but his eyes slid toward the house—toward the study window where, Maribel knew without looking, Thaddeus was watching. “Yes, m’lady. Another time.”
He slipped away through a gap in the hedge, vanishing with the practiced ease of a child accustomed to making himself scarce. Maribel watched him go, then took Oliver’s hand and began the walk back toward the house.
They did not speak. The gravel crunched beneath their feet, unnaturally loud in the silence. Oliver’s fingers lay limp in her grasp, all the bouncing energy of earlier drained away, and when they reached the side door through which they had escaped, he pulled his hand free and walked ahead of her without looking back.
Mrs. Allen was waiting in the entrance hall. Her face creased with sympathy as she took in Oliver’s expression, but she said only: “Shall I take the young master to wash up before tea, my lady?”
“Yes. Thank you, Mrs. Allen.”
Maribel watched them go—Oliver trudging up the stairs with his shoulders hunched, Mrs. Allen’s gentle hand upon his back—and felt something cold and hard settle into her chest.
Then she turned and walked toward the study.
She did not knock.
The door swung open beneath her hand, and she was across the threshold before Thaddeus could do more than look up from his desk. The accusation left her lips without her even thinking about it.
“You were watching us.”
He set down his pen. “I often observe the grounds whilst working. The view from this window?—”
“Do not.” She moved closer, her skirts swirling against the carpet. “Do not tell me you merely happened to glance outside at the precise moment your ward was speaking with another child. Do not tell me the timing of that footman’s arrival was coincidence.”
“Oliver’s schedule?—”
“His schedule does not require him to be friendless.” She stopped before his desk, gripping its edge to steady herself. “It does not require him to be isolated from every child his own age.It does not require him to learn that hope is something to be crushed the moment it begins to bloom.”
Thaddeus rose from his chair. Standing, he had several inches on her, and she suspected he meant the difference in height to intimidate. She refused to step back.
“Thomas Brennan is the son of a servant,” he said. “Whilst I have no objection to Oliver acknowledging the boy courteously?—”
“Acknowledging him courteously? The child wanted to show Oliver frogs, not lead him into a life of crime.” She laughed, and the sound held no warmth. “Good heavens, Thaddeus. He is four years old. Thomas is no more than five. They wanted to look at frogs together. What possible harm could that cause?”
“The harm of unsuitable attachments. The harm of raised expectations that cannot be met. The harm of?—”
“The harm of what? Of friendship? Of joy?” Maribel’s hands had begun to shake, and she pressed them harder against the desk to still them. “Do you even remember what those feel like?”
His face went very still. She watched his jaw tighten, watched his hands clench at his sides, watched the careful mask of his composure crack along its edges.
“You presume too much, madam.”
