“I should have tried. I am his guardian. I am meant to—” He broke off, his jaw tightening. “I am meant to be what they need.”
Serena thought of what she had said to Ella, about not needing to be the adult. She thought of her own words about modest standards and small victories. And she thought of this man—this complicated, wounded man—who was trying so hard to be something he had never been prepared to be.
“My lord,” she said gently, “may I speak plainly?”
He turned to her, and she saw something unguarded in his grey eyes. “You have spoken plainly since the day you arrived. I see no reason you should stop now.”
“You cannot replace their father,” Serena said carefully. “Nor should you try. That path leads only to pain. But you are their uncle. You are the man who loved their father, who shared his history, who remembers their parents and misses them as they do. That is what they require. Not perfection. Not constant presence. Only you, as you are.”
He was silent for a long while. When he spoke, it was scarcely above a whisper. “I do not know whether I am equal to that. I do not know whether there is enough left of me.”
“There is,” Serena said without hesitation. “I have seen it. In the way you spoke to Rosie about her doll. In the way you told Samuel that his father was proud of him. In the way you came to luncheon, though it cost you dearly.” She paused. “You are not broken, my lord. You are grieving. And grief is not the same thing as being lost.”
He looked at her then as though seeing her clearly for the first time. For one brief, crystalline instant, something passed between them, wordless and undeniable, that made her breath catch.
“How do you do that?” he asked.
“Do what?”
“See things. Things that no one else sees. Things that I have been trying to hide from myself.”
Serena considered this. “Perhaps because I have lived long enough as an observer. Governesses exist on the edges of households. Neither servant nor family. We see much, because we are seldom seen.” She paused. “One learns a great deal when one belongs only partially.”
“That sounds… lonely.”
“It can be,” she said quietly. Then she looked down at Samuel. “But it also teaches one to recognise connection when it appears. And to value it.”
Lord Greystone followed her gaze. “He trusts you.”
“I think he wishes to,” she replied. “Which is not the same thing, but it is the beginning.”
“And you?” His voice was low, careful. “Do you trust your beginning here enough to continue it?”
The question lingered between them, carrying more weight than its careful phrasing suggested.
“I wish to help you,” she said at last. “All of you. That is why I am here.”
“That is not what I asked.”
“No.” She met his gaze steadily. “It is not.”
They regarded one another in silence, and Serena felt a subtle shift, as though a long-maintained distance had begun, at last, to close.
Then Samuel stirred, murmured something indistinct, and the moment was broken.
“We should take him inside,” Serena said, her voice less steady than she would have liked. “The air is cooling.”
“Yes. Yes, of course.” Lord Greystone rose and bent to lift the child, handling him with the utmost care. Samuel settled instinctively against his shoulder, his face relaxing even further in sleep.
Serena turned away, unable to bear the tenderness of it.
“Miss Collard.”
“Yes, my lord?”
“Thank you,” he said, after a pause. “For all you have done in so short a time. It’s more than I have accomplished in two years.”
“That is not entirely just, my lord.”
