“You cannot tax the horses!” Oliver declared; his small face scrunched with outrage. “Horses are sacred!”
“Every kingdom needs taxes.” Rosie crossed her arms. “Papa said so.”
“Tax the dragons instead,” Nancy suggested helpfully.
Thomas watched the proceedings with a mixture of pride and bewilderment. “I am fairly certain I said nothing about taxing horses.”
“Children have selective hearing.” Alice patted his arm. “You will learn.”
Edward appeared in the doorway, drawn by the commotion. He watched the children negotiate their treaty, his expression softening in a way that made Sophia’s heart clench.
He caught her eye across the room and smiled.
She smiled back, and the world felt impossibly full.
CHAPTER 34
“You have not gone out in weeks.”
Hugo sprawled in the leather chair across from Edward’s desk, a glass of brandy dangling from his fingers. The afternoon light slanted through the study windows, catching the dust motes suspended in the air.
“I go out regularly.” Edward did not look up from his correspondence. “We attended the Ashworth ball last week, as you know, and the theater the week before.”
“That is not what I mean, and you know it.” Hugo swirled his brandy. “The tavern. The fights. You have not been in over a month.”
Edward set down his pen. He had not consciously stopped boxing. Had not made a resolution or set a date. He had simply stopped needing it. The restless energy that had once driven himto seek violence in basement taverns had quieted, replaced by something calmer. Something that felt like contentment.
“I have been otherwise occupied.”
Hugo’s grin was knowing. “Yes. I imagine you have.” He raised his glass in a mock toast. “Marriage suits you, Edward. I never thought I would say it, but here we are.”
Edward did not deny it. He could not. The evidence was written across his face, in the ease of his posture, in the smile that came more readily now than it ever had before.
Sophia had done this. Had reached past his defenses and found something worth saving. He still did not fully understand what she saw in him, what scraps of value she had discovered beneath the walls and the silence. But he would take those scraps and build them into something worthy of her.
Something she deserved.
That evening, Edward found Sophia in the library.
She was curled in the window seat, a book open in her lap, the fading light painting her features in shades of gold and amber. She looked up when he entered, her face brightening in a way that still surprised him, still made his chest feel too full.
“There you are.” She set aside her book. “I was thinking Hugo had kidnapped you.”
“He tried.” Edward crossed to the window seat and settled beside her. “I resisted.”
Sophia shifted to make room for him, her shoulder brushing against his. The contact was casual, familiar, the easy intimacy of two people who had learned to exist in each other’s space.
“You seem tense.” She studied his face. “Is something troubling you?”
Edward looked out the window at the garden below. The roses were blooming, late summer colors spilling across the manicured paths. He had walked those paths as a child, before everything had changed. Before his mother had vanished and his father had turned to stone.
“There are things I have not told you.” The words emerged slowly, dragged from somewhere deep. “About my family. About why I am the way I am.”
Sophia was quiet. She did not push, nor did she press. She simply waited, her hand finding his and holding on.
“My father was not always cold.” Edward began. “When I was very young, I remember him laughing. Playing with Leonard and me in the garden. Reading to us before bed.” He paused. “Iremember my mother. Her smile. Her voice. The way she would sing when she thought no one was listening.”
“What happened?” Sophia’s voice was soft.
