Henry pushed it gently.
Lila looked up.
She sat at the pianoforte with her hands poised above the keys as if she had been playing until the moment he entered. Today she wore soft gray, simple and clean, the sleeves catching the light. Her hair had slipped a little from its knot, a dark tendril brushing her cheek.
Her gaze moved first to Henry, warming at once. Then it touched Marcus. Not held. Not studied. Just caught, as if she had not intended to notice him at all.
“Good morning, Master Henry,” she said.
“Good morning, Miss Edgewood. I brought my piece.”
“I am glad.” She patted the bench beside her. “Let us see what you kept.”
Henry hurried forward.
Marcus crossed to his usual chair by the window. The one Mrs. Dove-Lyon had arranged there as if she knew exactly where he would choose to sit, and exactly what it meant that he returned to it.
Lila accepted Henry’s portfolio and unfolded the staff paper with care, smoothing the slightly creased page. “Papa wrote the notes,” Henry said simply. “In case I forgot.”
The notation was careful, deliberate. Lila’s eyes lifted at once, not to Henry, but to Marcus. Something unspoken passed between them before she looked back at the page, her mouth curving with quiet recognition.
“My lord, this will help him,” she said. “You kept the rhythm clear.”
Marcus inclined his head.
“Only because Henry insisted I write it exactly as he played it. I suspect he does not trust my memory.”
Lila’s mouth curved.
“That is wise of him.”
The remark slipped between them more easily than Marcus expected. For a moment, the heaviness that had lived beneath his ribs these past years loosened its grip.
“Then I must hope his musical judgment proves kinder than his opinion of my handwriting,” Marcus said.
Lila laughed.
The sound escaped her before she could restrain it, warm and unguarded. Marcus felt something answer it instinctively. The response rose without effort, as natural as breath.
For an instant, he forgot himself.
His face changed before he realized it. The reserve that usually held his expression in careful check lifted, and the ease that had once made strangers lean closer without knowing why returned as if it had only been waiting for permission. The smile that followed carried none of the polite distance he offered the world now. It was brighter. Warmer. Entirely unguarded.
Lila stilled.
The shift was unmistakable. Surprise flickered across her face, followed by a quick curiosity as though she had glimpsed a man she had not expected to find.
Marcus saw it reflected there.
For a brief and deeply unwelcome moment, he understood something with absolute clarity.
Miss Edgewood was not merely steadying his son.
She was dangerously close to awakening the man Marcus had spent two years keeping buried.
The awareness struck like cold water.
He straightened at once. The warmth vanished as quickly as it had appeared. When he spoke again, his voice had returned to its earlier restraint.
