Wellington did not jump.
“He is not ready,” Oliver explained. “He needs more training.”
“Clearly,” Edward said.
Hugo stopped beside his friend. They stood shoulder to shoulder, the way they had stood a hundred times before, and the lake stretched silver and still before them.
“A father,” Edward said.
“Apparently.”
“How do you feel?”
“Terrified. Elated. And quite certain that I will be terrible at it.” Hugo paused. “But equally determined to be good.”
“You will be.” Edward glanced at him. “You are already good at it. I have watched you with Oliver and Leo for two years. You are patient, you are present, and you do not condescend. Those are the only qualifications that matter.”
“You are being generous.”
“I am being accurate.” Edward turned to face him. “Hugo, you spent your childhood with a father who could not see you and a brother who refused to look properly. You know exactly what a child needs, because you know exactly what one should never go without.”
Hugo’s throat tightened. He looked out at the lake, at the place where he had swum with Lily on their wedding day, where she had jumped in naked and laughed and called him impolite for staring.
“I told her everything, Edward. On the Dover road. The stammer. Sebastian. My father. All of it.”
“I know. She told Sophia. Sophia told me.” Edward’s mouth curved. “We are a family of terrible secret-keepers.”
“And?”
“And nothing has changed. Except that you are happier than I have ever seen you, and your wife is carrying your child, and you are standing by a lake watching a nine-year-old boy shout at a frog.” He clapped Hugo’s shoulder. “I believe this is what they call contentment.”
“It is unfamiliar.”
“It gets easier.”
“Does it?”
“No.” Edward smiled. “But it gets better.”
Wellington the Second leaped off his rock and landed in the water with a plop. Oliver cheered. Leo nodded with quiet satisfaction.
“Frog jumped,” Leo said.
Hugo laughed. The sound carried across the water, and somewhere on the blanket beneath the oak tree, Lily heard it and smiled.
The afternoon mellowed into evening. The family lingered in the garden until the light turned amber and the air cooled, andOliver had to be bribed away from the frog habitat with the promise of cake.
They moved inside for dinner, and the dining room at Thornwaite Hall held the noise and warmth of a family that filled it completely. Hugo sat at the head of the table with Lily at his side and looked at the faces gathered around him and felt, for the first time in this house, that the portraits on the walls had nothing left to say to him.
Later, after the guests had retired to their rooms and the house had settled into deep quiet, Hugo found Lily in their bedroom.
She stood at the window in her nightgown, the moonlight turning the white cotton into silver. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, and her hand rested on her stomach.
“You are staring,” she said without turning.
“You are beautiful. Staring is appropriate.”
“You said that to me once before. At the lake.”
