She reached her chambers and closed the door behind her, pressing her back against the wood, staring at nothing.
In the nursery above, Oliver would be settling into sleep, his wooden soldiers arranged in careful formation on his nightstand, his dreams—she hoped—finally free of shadows.
And in his study below, Thaddeus Blackwood sat alone with his brandy and his silence and his grief, defending a woman he claimed not to trust while refusing to meet her eyes in the light of day.
Nothing about this man made sense.
Nothing about her reaction to him made sense either.
She tried her best to push the thoughts of him from her mind as she rushed to her own chambers, praying to heavens for sleep to come and stop the tumultuous thoughts from swirling around in her mind.
Her dreams were interrupted shortly after midnight. A sound broke through the barriers that separated reality from dreams, one that pierced through the darkness like a blade.
Oliver’s screaming.
Maribel jumped out of bed before conscious thought could intervene, her bare feet slapping against cold floorboards as she raced toward the nursery. The corridor stretched endless before her, shadows clinging to the walls, her heart pounding in her throat.
She burst through the nursery door and found him there—not alone.
Thaddeus stood beside Oliver’s bed, still dressed in his evening clothes, his face pale in the candlelight, his hands hanging helplessly at his sides. Oliver thrashed beneath his covers.
“Mama! Don’t go! Papa, wait!”
Beside his bed, Thaddeus stood frozen.
Their eyes met across the room.
And for the first time since she had known him, Maribel saw real grief in his gaze.
CHAPTER 8
“You look dreadful.”
Thaddeus did not lift his gaze from the correspondence spread across his desk. “Good morning to you as well, Julian.”
“I am quite serious.” Lord Julian Westcott moved into the study without waiting for invitation, crossing to the windows with the ease of a man who had known this house—and its master—for the better part of two decades. “When did you last sleep? And I mean actual sleep, not that thing you do where you close your eyes for an hour and call it rest.”
“I sleep adequately.”
“Liar.” Julian turned from his contemplation of the grounds, his expression settling into something between concern and exasperation. “You have shadows beneath your eyes dark enough to be mistaken for bruises. I know you, my friend, and I know what you look like when something haunts you.”
Thaddeus set down his pen with deliberate precision. He had, in fact, been awake most of the night. After Oliver’s nightmare—after standing frozen beside that small bed whilst the boy screamed for parents who would never answer—he had retreated to his study and remained there until dawn painted the sky grey.
He had not trusted himself to return to his chambers. Not with Maribel’s rooms so close, not with the memory of her face as she’d looked at him across Oliver’s bed still burning behind his eyes.
For a minute it seemed as though they shared something deeper, something that he never wanted to share with anyone.
For a minute it seemed as though she too felt the same grief that he carried with him. And in truth, it made sense that she did. Margaret, after all, had been her sister.
But it had been easier to deny her pain than to relate it to his own. Simpler to retain his own grief rather than take the change that he might find it doubled.
“The boy had nightmares,” Thaddeus said at last. “I heard him crying out and went to see if assistance was required.”
“And was it? Required?”
The question landed with more weight than its casual delivery suggested. Thaddeus thought of Oliver’s tear-streaked face, ofsmall hands clutching at blankets, of his own helplessness as he’d stood there not knowing what to do, what to say, how to offer comfort to a child who flinched from his presence.
After a brief glance at him, Maribel had rather easily attended to the child and he still remembered vividly the way Oliver had clung to her. As though she were the only thing keeping him afloat.
