Page 63 of Lord Hartwell’s Refuge

Behind her, Roman took a step closer. “I—I thought this would relieve you.”

With a trembling hand, she massaged her left temple. “Relieve me? Of what?”

His tone seemed genuinely confused. “Of having to spend the remainder of your day settling a problem that is not yours to settle.”

Something in her chest tightened. “Henry is not a problem.”

“I did not say he was.”

“Yes. You did.” She turned, giving him a hard stare. “You just said you settled a problem.”

“Yes, but not that it was Henry.” He gestured with both hands, trying to placate her as he would an animal, which only irritated her more. “I should have said that the matter of his schooling is not your responsibility.”

“So you decided I need not interfere while you made it yours?” Tamsin wished, immediately, that she could take the words back. Not because they were untrue. Because of the way they landed.

His face didn’t harden exactly. Roman rarely showed anger so plainly. Instead, something inside him closed. “I saw you were worried. I knew you would go there. You would speak to Henry, then your stepmother, then your father, and the governess, and your sisters, and very likely Leopold if anyone could locate him. And then Cook would have asked something of you, and you would have been pulled into a different argument, and been required to judge a debate, more and more and more. By the end of the day, you would have assumed responsibility for determining what ought to be done for Henry because no one else would do it, and taken upon yourself several other duties besides.”

That he was right only served to bruise her already aching heart, so Tamsin focused on the one thing that mattered. “So you took Henry’s situation upon yourself.”

“Yes.” The answer was immediate. And unapologetic.

Tamsin gave a short, disbelieving laugh.

Roman’s expression sharpened. “I fail to see what is amusing.”

Clearly he did not. “Nothing about this is amusing.”

“Clearly something is.”

“You decided I should not be responsible for Henry,” she said, trying to make her speech as factual as possible. “So you took responsibility for me and my decisions.”

That silenced him.

Tamsin looked down at Anne’s letter. The anger had come quickly, but something else sat beneath it. Something she couldn’t quite name. Hurt, perhaps, though that seemed unreasonable. Roman had meant to help her. She knew that. Perhaps that was the worst of it. “I wanted to speak to him.”

“Henry?”

“Yes.”

Her husband shrugged. “You still may.”

“But by now he has been told he is not going to school, the whole purpose of the conversation.”

“Your father agreed⁠—”

Another impatient remark slipped from her tongue. One she had wanted to say but never dared before. “My father agrees with the last person who makes a sufficiently confident argument while he is trying to read! You could have turned up and convinced him to sell all his possessions and turn his children out onto the street if you’d spoken in a firm voice!”

Roman blinked.

Despite herself, Tamsin nearly laughed again. Instead, she pressed her lips together. “And you still do not know why Henry wants to leave home.”

“Neither do you.”

“No.” Her voice softened. “That is why I wanted to see him. Even from this distance, I can see there is more to it than school, Roman.”

Roman said nothing, merely stared at her while Apollo softly whined, looking between them.

Tamsin took another deep breath. “He is a little boy who has never asked to leave home before. He doesn’t ordinarily quarrel with his mother, or anyone else. Something made him decide this mattered. Perhaps Leopold said something foolish. Perhaps he misses me. Perhaps he thinks his governess treats him unfairly. There might be something that is hurting him, or making him afraid, or lonely.” She wanted him to understand how important this was to her. “I wanted to speak to a child so he knew someone was actually listening to him. It is so difficult to live in a house where no one ever listens.”