And just like that, some of the tension in Rosie’s small body eased. She did not smile—she was not ready for that—but she stopped clutching her napkin quite so tightly, and her shoulders dropped a fraction of an inch from where they had been pressed up around her ears.
Serena exhaled slowly, some of her own tension releasing with the breath.
“Samuel,” Lord Greystone said, turning to his nephew. “How were your lessons this morning?”
Samuel did not look up. His fingers tightened against the edge of the table, and for a long moment Serena thought he would not answer.
Then, in a voice scarcely louder than Rosie’s, he said, “Fine.”
“Good. That is good.” Lord Greystone glanced briefly at Serena, plainly unsure how to continue.
She gave him a barely perceptible nod of encouragement.
“Miss Collard tells me you completed your arithmetic without errors,” he went on. “That is impressive. I was never very accomplished at arithmetic myself.”
Samuel’s head lifted a fraction, not enough to meet his uncle’s gaze, but enough to show that he was listening.
“Really?” The word was hesitant, doubtful.
“Really. I used to hide my exercises under my bed so my tutor could not find them. Edward, your father, had to help me finish them once the tutor had gone.”
There it was—that name, Edward, spoken with a complicated mixture of love and grief. Serena watched Samuel’s face carefully, saw the way the mention of his father made something shift in the boy’s expression.
“Papa was good at arithmetic,” Samuel said quietly. “We used to practice at night, before bed.”
“I know. He told me about it in one of his letters.” Lord Greystone’s voice had roughened. “He said you were quick as anything. That you’d be running the estate accounts by the time you were twelve.”
Samuel’s lower lip trembled, just slightly. “He said that?”
“He did. He was very proud of you, Samuel. Of all of you.”
The silence that followed was unlike the strained pauses before. It was full, heavy with memory and loss, with the presence of someone who was no longer there.
Ella set down her spoon.
“I thought you did not wish us to speak of them, Uncle,” she said, her voice carefully controlled.
Lord Greystone flinched as though he had been struck. “That is not—I never said—”
“You did not have to.” Ella lifted her chin. “You never mention them. You never speak of them. You moved all their things from the main house, and you took down the large portrait in the drawing room, and you…” Her voice broke. “It is as though you want us to forget they ever existed.”
“Ella,” Serena said quietly. “That is enough.”
“No, it is not.” Ella’s eyes shone with unshed tears. “We are not meant to cry where he can see us, and we are not meant to speak of Mama and Papa, and we are not meant to need anything from him because he is always busy with his papers and the estate and his…”
“Ella.”
Lord Greystone’s voice cut through the room, and she fell silent at once. There was no anger in his tone. But something far worse—something broken.
“You are right,” he said.
Ella stared at him, her chest heaving with suppressed emotion. “What?”
“You are right. I have been… avoiding it. I have been hiding from your grief because I do not know how to face it, because to face it would mean facing my own.” His jaw worked. “I have failed you. All three of you. And I am sorry.”
The room was utterly still. Even Rosie had ceased fidgeting, her wide eyes fixed upon her uncle.
Serena watched Lord Greystone struggle for composure, watched emotion threaten to undo him. His eyes grew bright, his breath unsteady.
