Tommy would go to his parents. That had always been the plan, and Mary had agreed to it. It was right, it was fair. The baby she had rocked to sleep every night for six weeks, whose breathing she knew better than her own, whose grip on her collar was the first thing she felt every morning and the last thing she felt every night, would be taken from her arms and given to a mother who had not been there, and a father who had left him in a basket on a doorstep.
And Evander…
The marriage had been built around Tommy. Without the baby, without the scandal, without the tangled obligations that had forced them together, what held this marriage in place? Evander had said it himself, weeks ago in his study.
We will not need to trouble each other.
The music swelled. Evander turned her through the final measures, his hand warm at her waist, his eyes on her face. Mary smiled because she was the Duchess of Blackholm at the Atherton ball, and smiling was what duchesses did when the ground was falling away beneath their feet.
The waltz ended. The orchestra paused. Evander released her waist but kept her hand.
“You danced beautifully,” he said.
“Thank you. I would like to go home now.”
Evander studied her face. “The evening is young.”
“I know. I am tired.” She withdrew her hand from his and adjusted a pin in her hair that did not need adjusting. “Tommy will need his midnight feeding, and I would rather be there for it.”
Evander searched her expression for several seconds. Mary held it steady and gave him nothing, because giving him the truth would mean explaining that she was losing the baby and possibly losing him. She could not say those words in a ballroom surrounded by three hundred people who expected her to be grateful for the life she had been given.
“Of course,” Evander said. “I will call the carriage.”
After they’d said their goodbyes to the hosts, Isabella caught Mary’s arm on the way out.
“Are you all right?” she whispered.
Mary squeezed her hand and said, “Tired.”
Isabella’s eyes said she did not believe it, but she let her go.
Evander sat beside her in the carriage instead of across from her, which was new, and his arm rested along the seat behind her shoulders, which was newer.
The closeness of him made everything worse because it reminded her of the carriage ride from Hampstead, and the taste of his mouth, and the way his hands had moved in the dark, and all of it, every moment of tenderness and heat and slow, grudging intimacy they had built over six weeks, rested on a foundation that would vanish the moment Richard and Charlotte were found?—
“Mary.” His voice pulled her out of her panicked reverie.
“Hmm?” She raised her brows, trying to keep her expression neutral.
“Are you certain you are all right?”
“I am tired. It was a long evening.” She rested her head against his shoulder because she wanted to, and because it might be one of the last times she could, and because the sapphire gown deserved at least one honest moment before the night was over.
The carriage stopped. They entered the house. Evander touched her arm in the entrance hall, a brief, warm pressure.
“Goodnight, Mary.”
Mary waited. One breath. Two. His hand still rested on her arm, warm through the silk, and she waited for him to tighten his grip. To pull her closer. To say something, anything, beyond the careful courtesy of a man escorting a guest to the door. She looked at his face and searched for the man who had whispered against her jaw on the dance floor, who had silenced Lord Whitmore with a single step, who had chosen the sapphire because it would suit her and not the family.
He was there. She could see him, just behind the composure, pressing against the surface. All he had to do was stay. All he had to do was not let go.
Evander withdrew his hand. “Goodnight.”
She climbed the stairs and went to the nursery first. Mrs. Bridwell dozed in the rocking chair, and Tommy slept on his back with his fists above his head, peaceful and oblivious.
Mary stood over the crib and touched his cheek. His skin was warm. His breathing was steady. His fingers curled in his sleep, gripping at nothing.
“What am I to do without you, darling?” she whispered. The words came from a place she could not control. “I’ll be all alone in this massive house.”
