“He had the orrery corrected the following week.” Lord Morland’s eyes crinkled. “Because she was right. She was twelve, and she was right, and a man three times her age had to fix his instrument because my daughter noticed what his craftsman had not.”
Pride lived in every word. Not the performative pride of the ton, but the quiet, bone-deep pride of a father who had given his daughter the tools to see the world and then watched her use them to correct it.
“I am not surprised,” Lucien said. “She has a habit of noticing what others miss.”
Lord Morland studied him for a long, quiet moment. “Yes,” he said. “She does.”
The evening continued. Lord Morland asked about the duchy, and Lucien answered with more honesty than he gave the ton.
“My uncle left the estate in considerable debt,” Lucien said, turning the broth spoon in his bowl. “The tenants had been neglected. Several properties were in disrepair. I have spent the better part of two years rebuilding what he allowed to crumble.”
“And you have done this alone?” Lord Morland asked.
“With good stewards. And stubbornness.”
“Stubbornness is undervalued.” Her father’s eyes crinkled. “What of this orphanage Elinor has mentioned in her letters? Lyra House, is it?”
Lucien glanced at Elinor. She held his gaze, and the brief look carried the weight of midnight lessons and chalk dust and children’s voices echoing off freshly painted walls.
“It was a workhouse when I inherited it,” Lucien said. “The children were living in squalor. I could not leave it as it was.”
“Many men could,” Lord Morland said. “Many men do.”
“Your daughter would not let me be one of them.”
Her father turned to Elinor. She felt the heat rise in her cheeks, but she did not look away.
“She taught me that institutions are only as good as the people willing to fight for them,” Lucien continued. “Lyra House has proper tutors now, warm beds, regular meals. The children are learning to read, to write, to name the constellations. It is the thing I am most proud of in the duchy, and I cannot take credit for any of it.”
Lord Morland was quiet for a moment. His gaze moved between them with the attention of a man who had loved one extraordinary woman in his life and could recognize the shape of that same love forming between two people who had not yet spoken the word.
“Lyra,” he said. “The constellation.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“My daughter taught you that one, did she?”
Lucien’s mouth curved. “She teaches me most things, whether or not I ask for the lesson.”
Elinor pressed her lips together to keep the emotion from reaching her face. Her father caught it anyway. He always did.
“Elinor!” The crash came from the bedroom.
Lucien was on his feet before the sound had finished, his chair scraping across the stone floor. He reached the corridor ahead of Elinor and pushed through the door to find Lord Morland on the floor beside the bed, his legs folded beneath him, his face gray.
The broth tray had shattered. Newton had leaped to the windowsill and stood with his back arched, his eyes wide.
“Papa.” Elinor dropped to her knees beside her father.
Her hands found his shoulders, his face. His skin was clammy. His breath came in shallow, ragged pulls that did not seem to bring enough air.
“Help me lift him.” Lucien kneeled on Lord Morland’s other side, sliding his arm beneath the older man’s shoulders.
He was lighter than Lucien expected, lighter than any man should be. Together, they raised him back onto the bed. Elinor arranged the pillows while Lucien held him steady.
“Thorne!” Elinor called for the steward. Her voice cracked on the name. “Thorne, send for the physician. Now!”
Lucien caught her arm. “I will go. I am faster on horseback, and I will bring the best doctor available. Stay with him.”
