“I know.” Oliver smiled, and for a moment, he looked so much like Leonard that Sophia had to look away.
“It’s time.”
The duke’s voice broke through the quiet intimacy. Sophia looked up to find him standing straighter, his jaw set.
“No!” Oliver’s face crumpled. “Sophia just got here. She can’t leave yet.”
“The hour has passed.” The Duke’s tone brooked no argument.
Sophia crouched before Oliver, taking his small hands in hers. “I will come again soon. I promise. And next time, we will draw together. Would you like that?”
Oliver sniffled. “You promise?”
“I promise.” She pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Now be good for Mrs. Palmer. And practice your letters.”
He hugged her one last time, fierce and clinging, before letting Mrs. Palmer guide him back to the table. Sophia rose and smoothed her skirts, composing herself. Then she turned to follow the duke out of the room.
The corridor stretched before them, silent save for their footsteps. Sophia walked beside him, intensely aware of the space between them. Close enough that her sleeve might brush his arm if she swayed. Close enough that she could feel the heat of his body through the layers of their clothing.
She kept her eyes forward. Her breath steady. Her thoughts carefully contained.
They descended the staircase side by side. His hand rested on the banister, broad and strong. She watched it, wondering what those fingers would feel like against her skin. The thought startled her, and she stumbled on the last step.
His hand shot out, catching her elbow. “Steady.”
The touch was brief, impersonal, and over in an instant. But Sophia felt it linger like a brand.
“Thank you.” She stepped away, putting distance between them.
The butler appeared, her cloak draped over his arm. The Duke cleared his throat.
“The visit went better than I expected.”
Sophia felt a flash of irritation. She swallowed it. “I am glad it met your standards, Your Grace.”
Something flickered across his face. Surprise, perhaps, at her sharp tone. But he said nothing. He bowed, stiff and formal.
She curtsied in return and allowed the butler to help her with her cloak.
As she stepped through the door into the pale morning light, she felt his gaze on her back. She did not turn. She did not acknowledge the strange flutter in her chest.
She simply walked away, carrying with her the memory of a little boy’s smile and the unsettling warmth of a duke’s hand on her arm.
Edward stood in the entrance hall long after the door closed behind her.
He could still feel the shape of her elbow in his palm. The brief moment when her weight had shifted toward him, when instinct had overridden thought, and he had reached for her without permission from his rational mind. He could still see the way her finger had pressed to her lower lip as she considered Oliver’s story, that unconscious gesture that drew his attention to her mouth in ways he did not care to examine.
He flexed his fingers and forced himself to move.
The visit had unsettled him in ways he refused to examine. He had expected Lady Sophia to spoil the boy. To undermine his authority. To fill Oliver’s head with sentiment and softness that would serve no purpose in the world he would one day inherit.
Instead, he had watched her crouch on the schoolroom floor, patient and attentive, letting a four-year-old child lead herthrough a story with no discernible plot. He had watched Oliver’s face transform from grief-shadowed wariness to something approaching joy. He had heard his brother’s name spoken aloud and braced himself for the inevitable storm, only to find Oliver smiling.
Smiling. At the mention of his dead family.
Edward climbed the stairs, his footsteps echoing in the empty corridor. He paused outside the schoolroom door, listening. Oliver’s voice drifted through the wood, chattering to Mrs. Palmer about the story Sophia had read, about the drawings they would make together next time.
Next time.
