“Thomas.” Elizabeth rose and crossed to him, kneeling so that their faces were level. “These are Lord and Lady Apethorpe. They have come to visit you. Can you say good afternoon?”
Thomas considered the couple for a long moment, his small face unreadable. Then he shook his head with the firmness of a child who had made up his mind.
“Then let us meet them.” She took his hand and led him toward the settee, his small fingers clutching hers with a grip that betrayed his nervousness.
“What a handsome boy.” The Countess had risen from the settee and approached slowly, as though afraid of startling a wild creature. “You have your mother’s coloring, Thomas. Did you know that? She had dark hair, just like yours.”
Thomas’s grip on Captain tightened. He pressed closer to Elizabeth, his brows lowering with the stubbornness that was so like his father’s.
“Thomas is shy,” Elizabeth explained. “But once he knows you, he is quite conversational. He has been telling his snail all about your visit.”
“His snail?” The Earl spoke with faint incredulity, one eyebrow rising.
“Sidney. A garden snail of considerable distinction. Thomas is something of a naturalist.”
A smile tugged at the corner of the Countess’s mouth—the first genuine expression Elizabeth had seen from her, and it transformed her face entirely. “Amelia was the same. She collected beetles when she was small. Drove her governess to absolute despair.”
Elizabeth sensed the air change—a softening, or at least the easing of that brittle tension which had hovered like a breath held too long. The Countess was not simply measuring Thomas; she was searching for her daughter’s shadow, for some sign that Amelia lingered in this solemn child.
Thomas perked up at the mention of snails, his suspicion forgotten in favor of his favorite topic. “Sidney mine. Baby snails many,” he announced, abandoning his shyness with the suddenness of a summer storm. “Lizba counted.”
“Did she indeed?” The Countess glanced at Elizabeth with amusement, something warm flickering in her eyes. “And how many babies did Sidney have?”
“Lots more than fingers.”
“That is a great many babies indeed.”
“Sidney good Mamma.” Thomas clutched Elizabeth’s skirts, his small face earnest. “Like Lizba. Mine.”
“I had thought Sidney to be a father,” the Earl remarked, a dry note entering his voice.
At the word father, Thomas’s lower lip quivered, and his thumb made its slow journey toward his mouth. Since Darcy’s departure, his moods had shifted with the caprice of spring weather—sunshine one moment, storm the next.
“You are raising him well,” the Countess said, glancing at Elizabeth with something that might have been approval. “I can see that.”
“Waaaaarooahh!” A sound erupted from the corridor—a deep, melodious baying that could only belong to one creature in all of Derbyshire. And Harley burst into the drawing room like a brown-and-white tornado, his claws scrabbling on the marble floor, his ears flapping, his tail wagging with such enthusiasm that it seemed to power his entire body. He bounded across the carpet, trailing his lead behind him, and launched himself at Thomas with the devotion of a creature who believed himself separated from his boy for an eternity.
Thomas shrieked with delight, dropping Captain and throwing his arms around Harley’s neck. “Harley! Harley come! Mine!”
The Countess shrieked in a very different register, leaping onto the settee with surprising agility for a woman of her age. “Get those fleas away from me!”
The Earl rose, positioning himself in front of his wife as though the dog were a charging bull. Georgiana clapped her hand over her mouth, her shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter.
The hall boy stumbled in, stammering apologies. “He had to relieve himself, I?—”
Jamison leaped into action, producing a tone of command that usually worked on dogs and footmen alike. “Soup bone, Harley. Come.”
But the dog cared only for his boy, circling around Thomas and tangling his lead around the child’s legs. Jamison grabbed the leash and pulled, causing Harley to bay like a bloodhound resurrected from a Lady Renwick novel—a sound that seemed to shake the very chandeliers.
“No!” Thomas wrapped his arms around the hound with fierce protectiveness. “Harley stay! Thomas want Harley!”
“Harley must go back to his room,” Elizabeth explained gently, though her voice barely carried over the commotion. “We have guests, sweetheart.”
The storm gathered: first the darkening of Thomas’s face, then the trembling lip, and at last the full tempest of grief and rage. He flung himself onto the carpet, limbs flailing like an overturned beetle. “Da! Da!” he cried, Darcy’s name torn from some bruised place within. “Want Da. Now. Thomas bad boy. Da go away. Thomas bad, bad boy, and Da go away. Want Da!”
Elizabeth’s heart cracked open, and she swooped toward her son, sinking to her knees and gathering his small, thrashing body into her arms. Harley licked her face, which was not helpful, but she ignored him, focusing entirely on the boy who was falling apart in her embrace.
“You are not a bad boy.” Her voice was low, fierce, meant for Thomas alone. “Da loves you. Da went to London to help you, not because you did anything wrong. Do you hear me, Thomas? You are not bad. You are loved.”
