The story was dreadful. A silver dragon guarding a castle for reasons never explained, fighting opponents whose motives remained murky, saving a village by standing in front of things and refusing to move.
Clara adored it.
When her attention finally drifted back to her dolls, Rosamund caught Tristan’s gaze.
“Thornwick,” she said. “A dragon named after a hedgerow.”
“It suited him. He was prickly and misunderstood.”
The words landed before he seemed to mean them to. He shifted then, and she recognised the look on his face. Prideful as he could be, he was self-aware. She couldn’t help but allow a hidden smile to form on her lips.
That evening, she found him in the corridor outside the nursery, pulling on his coat. His hair was disordered in a way that suggested small fingers had been involved.
“Thank you,” she said. “For being kind to her.”
He turned. The corridor was dim, a single sconce burning low, and in that light the severity of his features softened into something merely human.
“The child asks nothing of me but honesty. It is a gift that adults rarely offer.”
She wanted to answer properly—to match the weight of what he had given with something equal. She stood there, for long minutes—just looking at him.
“Good night,” she said at last. The only words that she could manage to get over her lips. A ghost of a smile played on his face. He lifted his hands, as though he would touch her. He did not. Instead, he put both hands behind his back.
“Good night, Rosamund,” he said—and she was certain that there was a softness in his voice.
Then, he was gone—and once she no longer heard his footsteps, she too made her way to her bedchamber.
* * *
Rain arrived on Thursday and settled over London with the permanence of an uninvited relative. Clara had exhausted every indoor occupation the nursery could provide.
“I shall perish if I cannot go outside.”
“You shall not perish. Read your book.”
“I have read it again.”
Rosamund surrendered and left Clara to Parsons, the nursemaid whose tolerance for theatrics bordered on the geological.
She pushed open the library door and stopped.
Tristan stood at the desk—coat discarded, waistcoat unbuttoned, shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow. Papers covered every surface. His hair fell across his forehead from being raked through, and the set of his shoulders carried a tension she recognised from their earliest days.
He had not heard her enter.
She knocked on the open door. The transformation was immediate—sleeves adjusted, posture corrected, weariness folded behind composure. But it was too late. She had already seen.
“Forgive me. I came for a book.”
“This is your library as much as mine.”
“It is your library. I borrow it.”
“Then borrow it.”
The movement disturbed a paper on the desk, which slid sideways and joined a colony of its fellows on the floor. Hecaught it. Missed the next. She bent without thinking, retrieved it, held it out.
Their fingers brushed.
