“You stayed for your mother.” Thomas leaned forward, his voice low and kind. “After what happened with Drakeston, you could not leave her alone. Jane would have understood.”
“Would she?” Sophia pulled her hand free and rose, moving to the window. The street below bustled with carriages and pedestrians, all of them carrying on with their lives as if nothing had changed. “I matched her with Leonard. I brought them together. And now they are both gone, and their son is an orphan, and I cannot even?—”
Her voice broke. She pressed her palm against the cool glass and closed her eyes.
Alice appeared at her side, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “You gave them five years of happiness. Five years they would not have had without you.” She looked up at her husband for an instant. “That matters, Sophia. That matters more than you know.”
Sophia wanted to believe her. She wanted to find comfort in those words. But the guilt sat heavy within her chest, a stone she could not shift.
A soft knock interrupted them. Sophia’s lady’s maid, Betsy, hovered in the doorway. “My lady? Might I have a word? In private?”
Sophia excused herself and followed Betsy into the corridor. The maid glanced both ways before speaking, her voice hushed.
“I heard something while I was out on errands, my lady. The Duke of Heatherwell arrived at his townhouse this morning. And he brought a small boy with him.”
Sophia’s heart lurched.Oliver.Jane’s son. Here in London.
“Thank you, Betsy.” She gripped the maid’s arm. “Thank you for telling me.”
She returned to the parlor, but her mind was already elsewhere. Already planning. Already determined.
She would see Oliver.
No matter what it took.
The dining room stretched long and silent around them. Edward sat at the head of the table, Oliver to his right, the chair swallowed by the child’s small frame. Between them lay an expanse of polished mahogany and the wreckage of an untouched meal.
Edward watched his nephew push a piece of roasted chicken across his plate. The boy had Leonard’s eyes. The same shade of blue, the same way they crinkled at the corners. Looking at him felt like staring at a ghost.
“You need to eat.”
Oliver shrugged. He pushed the plate away. “I’m not hungry.”
“You have barely touched your food all week.” Edward kept his voice level, though frustration simmered beneath his ribs. “Eat what is served.”
Oliver crossed his arms. His lower lip jutted out. “I don’t want it.”
“If you continue this behavior, you will go to bed hungry.”
The boy slumped in his chair. He pushed the plate further away, rattling the silverware. “I don’t want it.”
“That is enough.” Edward’s palm struck the table. “Sit properly and eat your dinner.”
Oliver scrambled to his feet, standing on the chair. His small hands balled into fists. He kicked the table leg, and his fork clattered to the floor with a sound that rang through the empty room.
“Sit down.”
“I don’t want the food!” Oliver’s voice rose to a shriek. “I want Mama!”
Edward went still. The words hung between them, sharp and raw.
“This is not how peers of the realm behave at the table.”
“I don’t care about peers!” Oliver stomped his foot on the chair. Tears streamed down his cheeks. “I want Mama! I want Mama!”
The grief in that small voice cracked something inside Edward’s chest. He rose from his seat, his throat tight.
“Shouting will not bring her back. Sit down at once.”
