“Oliver.” Thaddeus’s voice emerged hoarse but gentle. “Look at me, please.”
Oliver shook his head, still hiding behind his hands.
“Oliver. I am not angry.” Thaddeus reached out slowly, as though approaching something fragile that might shatter. “You have done nothing wrong. Do you understand? Nothing wrong.”
The boy’s hands lowered fractionally, revealing a face blotchy with tears. “But I called you—I said?—”
“I know what you said.” Thaddeus’s throat worked visibly. “And you need not apologise.”
Oliver stared at him, searching for deception in that solemn face. “You’re not cross?”
“No.” The word came out rough. “I am not cross.”
Maribel watched emotions chase across Thaddeus’s features—too swift to fully catalogue but unmistakably painful. He looked as though Oliver’s single word had struck him somewhere vital.
“Mrs. Allen says sometimes words slip out,” Oliver offered tentatively, his tears beginning to slow. “When we’re not being careful. She says it doesn’t mean we’re bad. Just that we’re thinking about things we want very much.”
Something cracked in Thaddeus’s expression—some wall fracturing under pressure it could no longer withstand.
“Mrs. Allen is very wise,” he said quietly.
“Do you...” Oliver’s voice dropped to barely a whisper. “Do you think my real papa would be angry? That I said it to you?”
The question hung in the air like smoke.
Maribel pressed a hand against her fluttering heart as she watched Thaddeus struggle visibly with his response. His hands had begun trembling where they rested on his knees.
“Your papa,” Thaddeus said at last, his voice rough with suppressed emotion, “loved you more than anything in this world. And he would want you to be happy. To feel safe. To—” His throat worked. “To have someone who cares for you.”
“Like you?”
Such simple words. Such impossible weight.
Maribel saw Thaddeus close his eyes briefly, saw him draw a breath that shuddered through his entire frame.
“Yes,” he whispered. “Like me.” He glanced back at her, and breathed out in apparent relief. “And Maribel,” he continued. “And Mrs. Allen, and all of us here…”
Oliver’s face transformed—that swift, total shift from despair to joy that only children managed. He launched himself forward, small arms wrapping around Thaddeus’s neck with enough force to nearly knock them both backward.
“Thank you,” Oliver breathed against his shoulder.
Thaddeus’s arms came up to hold him. Maribel watched the careful way those large hands settled against Oliver’s small back, the tender manner in which one palm cradled the boy’s head. He looked stunned—as though he could not quite believe this was happening, that this child was choosing to embrace him despite everything.
When Oliver finally pulled back, his face was streaked with drying tears but glowing with happiness. “Might we continue with the soldiers? I want to show you the flanking trick Thomas taught me.”
“I—” Thaddeus glanced toward Maribel, and she saw panic flicker in his eyes. As though he realised suddenly that the walls he had so carefully constructed around himself had crumbled just a bit, and he was scrambling to rebuild them again.
Oh, what she would give to keep him from rebuilding those walls.
Maribel offered him a small, encouraging smile.
“Yes,” Thaddeus said, turning back to Oliver. “Show me.”
They settled onto the carpet together, and Maribel returned to her mending. But she could not focus on stitches. Could not stop watching the two of them—Oliver chattering with renewed enthusiasm, Thaddeus listening with an attention that seemed to cost him considerable effort.
Because Thaddeus’s hands were still shaking. Because tension radiated from every line of his frame. Because whatever had just transpired had clearly shaken him far more than he wished to reveal.
After perhaps twenty minutes, Thaddeus rose with careful precision. “I should return to estate matters. We shall continue tomorrow, Oliver.”
