“I would not intrude.”
“You are the master of this house, Your Grace. You cannot intrude upon your own nursery.”
It was a challenge. They both knew it.
Lorraine’s tone remained light, her expression composed, but her gaze held his steadily.You came here for a reason. Either commit to it or leave, but stop hovering like a ghost in your own doorway.
Something shifted in his face. Then, with the air of a man committing himself to something unavoidable, he stepped inside.
Jenny had left an extra chair by the window—her usual place when Lorraine conducted lessons. The Duke drew it to the table and sat, his presence at once too large for the space, ill at ease amid the small scale of the nursery.
“Tea, Your Grace?” Lorraine poured without waiting for a reply, setting a cup before him. “Thomas, would you pass His Grace the jam?”
Thomas’s hand trembled as he reached for it. He held it out without looking up, his shoulders drawn tight with tension.
The Duke accepted it. “Thank you, Thomas.”
His voice was gentler than Lorraine had yet heard it. Still uneven, still uncertain, but softened by something like effort.
Thomas glanced up, startled. “You are welcome, Your Grace.”
Another silence followed. Lorraine took a measured sip of tea and waited.
“I understand,” the Duke said at length, “that you have been studying birds.”
Thomas’s eyes widened. He looked to Lorraine, then back again, as though uncertain whether this was some sort of test.
“Miss Weston found a book,” he said cautiously. “With pictures.”
“Bewick’s.” The Duke inclined his head. “I had the same volume when I was young. I spent a great many hours with it.”
“You did?” The question escaped Thomas before he could check himself. He looked immediately dismayed by his own boldness.
But the Duke did not take offence. If anything, something like the ghost of a smile touched his mouth. “I was particularly fond of kestrels. There was a pair that nested near the old folly. I used to watch them hunt.”
“I have seen a kestrel.” Thomas’s voice was barely audible, yet something had awakened within it—a faint spark. “It hovered in the air. As though it were not moving at all.”
“They do that. It is called wind-hovering. They hold themselves steady upon the current while they search for prey.”
“How do they manage it?”
“The tail acts as a rudder. And their sight is remarkable—a kestrel may spot a beetle from a considerable distance.”
Thomas leaned forward, his caution momentarily forgotten. “May we go to the folly? To see them?”
The Duke’s expression altered—something passing across it too swiftly to name. For a moment, Lorraine thought he might withdraw again into that habitual reserve.
“Perhaps,” he said at last. “When the weather clears.”
It was not a promise. Barely even an undertaking. Yet Thomas’s face lit as though he had been granted a treasure.
“Thank you, Your Grace!”
The Duke looked away, his jaw tightening. Beneath the table, his hands had curled into fists.
The remainder of the meal passed in cautious conversation. The Duke asked after Thomas’s lessons; Thomas answered in short, careful sentences that gradually lengthened as his confidence grew. Lorraine observed them both—the hesitant circling, the instinctive retreat, the quiet hunger for something neither quite knew how to claim.
When breakfast was concluded, and the Duke rose to depart, Lorraine followed him to the door.
