Nancy rose, pulling the children with her. “Come. Let’s get you washed up, and I will find you a biscuit.”
As she ushered them toward the door, Henry’s sobs faded to hiccups. Clara, always in control, looked back at Oscar with a glare that promised retribution.
Oscar stood, smoothing the front of his coat, wishing the ground would open and swallow him.
This would not do. They could not continue the conversation in front of the children, and he could not let the day end with him as the household ogre. “Nancy,” he called.
She paused on the threshold.
“My study. Now.”
She turned, arching a brow at his tone, but did not object. She kneeled again, whispered something to the twins—words Oscar could not catch, but they involved kisses and promises—and left them in the hallway.
Outside, the housekeeper hovered with the air of someone hoping to intercept a riot before it broke out. Nancy addressed her in a brisk undertone. “Mrs. Tullock, would you be so good as to take the children to the kitchens and ask Cook for some biscuits? I’ll be joining them shortly for tea.”
The housekeeper nodded, understanding the code. She led the children away, casting Oscar a sideways look of warning.
Oscar led Nancy to his study, closed the door behind them, and faced her with the rigid posture of a man about to be tried for murder.
“You cannot undermine me in front of the children,” he began.
“You cannot terrorize them and expect gratitude in return,” Nancy shot back.
Oscar gritted his teeth. “I was not terrorizing them. I was attempting to prevent bodily harm.”
“They are five. They have only been here a month. They do not know you, Oscar. You are a stranger and you keep yourself that way.”
“I am not required to coddle them.”
“You are required to care for them,” Nancy fired back. “That means more than food and shelter. It means being present, and not just to hand down rules like an angry god.”
He glared at her, but the anger felt hollow. She was right, in the way that only Nancy Gallagher was ever right. He did not know how to care for these children. He had never learned the trick.
He took a breath, then another, and forced himself to explain. “My father never indulged us with affection. He was distant. But he ensured we were educated, safe, and never lacked for anything. It was enough.”
Nancy stared. “Was it? Is that how you wish to be remembered by them?”
Oscar snapped, “I wish only to keep them alive! I wish—” He cut off, the words coming hard and ugly now. “I wish that looking at them did not feel like reopening a wound, every single day.”
The silence that followed was absolute. Nancy’s eyes widened. For once, she had nothing to say.
Oscar heard himself breathing—shallow, quick. He willed himself not to look away.
Nancy softened, but not in the way he expected. “You miss your brother,” she said.
Oscar’s mouth twisted. “Of course I do. But that is irrelevant.”
“It is not irrelevant,” Nancy said, her voice almost gentle. “It is everything. The twins are lost, and so are you.”
Oscar made a noise, low and bitter, but Nancy pressed on, relentless.
“You do not have to look at them, Oscar. You do not have to face your pain in order to help theirs.”
He shot her a look. “What are you proposing, then? That I raise them in darkness?”
She pursed her lips, thinking. The action drew his attention to her mouth, and for a strange, dizzying second, Oscar forgot what he was about to say.
He forced himself back to the point. “Pray tell, what magical solution do you propose now, Nancy?”
