She turned slowly, her eyes searching his. Something in her yielded. Not fear. Fatigue.
Before she could speak, Henry struck the wrong note loudly enough to make them both start.
“It hopped!” he protested.
Lila laughed, real laughter, unguarded, and the weight in the room eased.
“We will teach it to stay,” she promised.
That afternoon, whenHenry’s lesson ended, Lila packed her portfolio with slower, more deliberate movements.
Henry tugged at Marcus’s sleeve. “Papa, we must walk Miss Edgewood home. She said the carriage followed her.”
Lila froze.
Marcus met Henry’s eyes. “Yes,” he said simply. “We will.”
Lila opened her mouth to protest, to preserve appearances, to refuse help she had learned too young to expect.
“No,” Marcus said quietly, shaking his head once. “Not today.”
She closed her lips. Did not yield pride. Accepted protection.
They stepped into the spring light together. Lila walked close to Henry. Marcus took her other side, his awareness locked onto the street behind them.
The carriage was gone.
But Marcus saw something else.
A man lingering near a post, a broadsheet held too carefully, unread. His eyes lifted twice as they passed.
Lila did not notice. Marcus did.
And the decision he had been resisting settled fully into place.
He would not wait for Fenwick to act. He would uncover how far this threat reached.
And he would end it before it touched her.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Henry finished hislesson with a burst of confidence so bright it warmed the entire room.
“I kept the whole first line!” he announced.
“You did,” Lila said, pride softening the tired edges of her composure. “And tomorrow you will keep a little more.”
Henry, triumphant, raced to put away his music book.
Marcus watched Lila carefully. Her smile was real. Her composure held.
But when she reached for the loose pages, her fingers betrayed her. Not a shake a child would notice. Enough that it echoed in Marcus’s chest.
Fenwick followed her.
The thought had not left him since she whispered it.
Mrs. Dove-Lyon appeared in the doorway, leaning lightly on her cane.
