Outside, the housekeeper loitered, eyes puffy and red, hands wringing themselves into knots. She looked at Nancy—at the streak of moisture on Nancy’s cheek, quickly wiped away—and seemed to lose the thread of everything she’d been about to say.
“Thank you, Lady Nancy,” she managed. “For—” She gestured vaguely toward the nursery.
Nancy straightened her skirt, composed herself, and said, “They’re just children. They need someone to remember that.”
The housekeeper nodded, chastened.
Nancy descended the stairs without looking back, her resolve set in concrete. Now more than ever, she knew she could not abandon them. Not to Scarfield’s rules, nor to the slow decay of a household that considered children a hazard to the upholstery.
Even if it kills me, I will not leave them,she thought.I will not.
CHAPTER 5
Oscar paced the length of his study like a beast condemned to its own parlor. It was nearly two in the morning, and all he could think of was Lady Nancy and the chaos still clinging to the armchair where she had so recently threatened to incinerate his future. He glared at the chair. It did not glare back, but he could feel its disdain.
He’d been a fool to think the night would go quietly after her visit. Nancy, of all women, proposing marriage—proposing herself, as though she was haggling over a sheep at the county fair, and not the rest of both their lives.
He’d spent years preparing for every political, financial, and legal battle a duke could face. Nothing in his exhaustive training had left him the faintest hope of parrying a bluestocking’s attack in his own library.
Oscar poured another inch of gin, slumped behind his desk, and glowered at the sheaf of blank paper that awaited his reply.
Rejection, he reminded himself.
She wanted a clean answer and a swift refusal so she could return to her saints and orphans, and forget this whole idiotic misadventure. It was his duty as a gentleman to spare her the humiliation of waiting. The problem was, whenever he tried to write the words:No, you will not do. I am not a suitable match. The children are better off with a governess.
He dipped his quill, then stabbed it into the blotter with enough force to pierce the surface. His left hand, usually so steady, trembled in a way that would have brought his fencing master to tears. He cursed, then cursed again for cursing, and drew a long breath through his nose. The room settled, briefly. Even the fire ceased its petulant snapping.
A faint, persistent wailing penetrated the wall. He ignored it for two minutes and twenty seconds, then slammed down his pen and strode into the hallway.
He intercepted Mrs. Tullock at the base of the stairs, where she hovered, wringing her hands into a knot. “It’s the children, Your Grace,” she whispered, as though the walls themselves might overhear. “Nightmares again. They won’t be comforted.”
Oscar pinched the bridge of his nose. “Didn’t we try laudanum yesterday?”
“Dr. Harkness said it was ‘ill-advised’ to use it more than twice in a week.”
“He is a man of no imagination,” Oscar replied, but he was already mounting the staircase, each step a march toward the front lines of domestic warfare.
He braced himself at the nursery door, then entered. The room was a shrine to terror. Clara huddled against the headboard, arms wrapped tight around her knees, jaw set in a scowl that could have curdled milk. Henry clung to her side, both fists wound in the hem of her dress, mouth wide in a silent scream. Their faces were pale and shining, luminous with the aftermath of a shared panic.
Oscar assessed the situation, hands behind his back as though inspecting a battalion of snotty recruits. “What is the matter now?” he asked, quietly.
Clara glared at him with an expression that could only be described as ancestral. “He won’t stop crying,” she said, as if daring him to argue.
Henry’s sobs redoubled in volume, and he buried his face in the tartan.
Oscar cleared his throat. “It’s all right, little lord. There are no monsters here.”
Henry’s reply was to shriek at a higher pitch, which Oscar did not believe anatomically possible. Clara, however, went silent on seeing Oscar, her tears retreating behind a wall of pure suspicion. She looked him over, and he recognized the look from countless political negotiations:This adversary cannot betrusted. He will exploit any weakness and eat your heart for breakfast.
Oscar shifted his stance. “Clara. If you do not calm your brother, he will rupture something valuable.”
“He’s allowed to cry,” Clara said. “He misses Mama.”
Oscar tried not to wince. “Mama is—” He checked himself. No point in re-litigating death. “Mama cannot return. But you must both sleep, or you’ll fall ill, and then there will be no one left to torment me.”
Clara regarded this with frank skepticism. Henry, however, found a new gear of despair and began hiccupping between sobs. Oscar glanced around the room. There were two beds, but only one had been slept in. The other was perfectly made, as if the twins were afraid to disturb anything that belonged to someone else.They’re always glued to each other,he realized.They don’t trust anyone enough to let go.
He gingerly perched on the edge of the bed, scattering a pile of stuffed animals in the process. One rolled onto the floor—a battered rabbit with an ear hanging by a thread. Clara snatched it back and hugged it to her chest, never breaking eye contact. Oscar considered what a normal man might do in this scenario—sing a lullaby, perhaps, or pat their heads—then wisely rejected both options.
