When she looked back, he was watching her with an expression she couldn’t decipher.
“Thank you. For what you said. In the library. I’ve been considering it.”
She didn’t trust herself to speak. Could only nod and slip into the corridor.
As she climbed toward the nursery, Maribel pressed her hand against her chest where her heart beat its wild, treacherous rhythm.
Tomorrow, she feared, the walls might begin to crumble.
CHAPTER 11
“Idid not expect to find you still awake.”
Maribel paused outside the study, her candle flickering in the draught. She had been returning from the nursery—her third visit to Oliver’s chambers that evening—when she observed light beneath his door.
“I might say the same of you, Your Grace.”
The door stood slightly ajar. Through the opening, she could see him seated at his desk, his coat discarded and his cravat loosened about his neck. The sight was startling—she had never seen him in such disarray, even within the privacy of his own home.
He glanced up at her words, and something in his expression made her pause. He appeared exhausted, yet more than that—he possessed the aspect of a man wrestling with thoughts that afforded him no peace.
“Sleep proves elusive this evening.” He hesitated, and the uncertainty in his manner was so uncharacteristic that she found herself drawn forward. “Would you—that is, if you are not too fatigued—would you spare me a moment? There is a matter I wished to discuss.”
The request was so unexpected that Maribel crossed the threshold before conscious thought could intervene.
“Of course.”
She set her candle upon the side table and settled into the chair opposite his desk, drawing her shawl more closely about her shoulders. The fire had burned low, and the room held a distinct chill.
Thaddeus rose from his chair and moved toward the fireplace, one hand coming to rest upon the mantel. For several moments he said nothing, merely stared into the dying embers as though they might provide him with the words he sought.
“I wished to thank you,” he said at length. “For this afternoon. For what you said to Lady Ashworth regarding Oliver.”
Maribel regarded him with genuine surprise. “I spoke only the truth.”
“Perhaps. Yet you spoke with conviction, and in defense of a child who has no claim upon your protection save what our arrangement provides.”
“He is a child,” Maribel said gently. “That is claim enough.”
Thaddeus turned to face her then, and the expression in his grey eyes caused her breath to catch. There was a vulnerability there, carefully guarded yet unmistakable.
“You are remarkably good with him,” he observed quietly. “Better than I have any right to expect. Better than I myself can manage.” He paused, his hand tightening upon the marble. “I find myself grateful—more than I can adequately express—that Nicholas ensured your presence in Oliver’s life.”
The admission appeared to cost him considerably. Maribel watched him struggle with the words, observed him attempting to maintain the careful distance he had established whilst simultaneously acknowledging what lay beneath.
“Oliver requires merely what any child requires,” she replied. “Someone willing to see him properly. To attend to his needs rather than what might prove most convenient.”
“You make it sound quite simple.”
“It is simple. What makes it difficult is fear—caring for someone when one is terrified of what that care might cost.”
The words settled between them with vast, intangible weight.
Thaddeus remained silent for a moment, his gaze fixed upon her with an intensity that made her pulse quicken. Then, quitewithout warning, he moved toward the chair beside hers rather than returning to his desk—a deliberate choice that brought him nearer than strict propriety demanded.
He sat, leaning forward with his elbows resting upon his knees, his eyes staring out blankly ahead. The firelight cast his profile in sharp relief, and she could see the tension in his jaw, the weariness about his eyes.
“I was six-and-twenty when my mother died,” he said quietly. “Eight years past. Old enough to understand such things, yet young enough to believe I still had time. That I might mend what had grown strained between us.”
