“It grows late,” he said instead. “You should rest. The boy will expect you early.”
“Yes.” She gathered her book and drew her shawl more closely about her shoulders, though she did not immediately move away. “Your Grace—Dominic—”
His name, spoken thus, struck him like a physical thing.
“Forgive me,” she said at once, colour rising in her cheeks. “That was… ill-judged.”
“No.” His voice was low. “It was not.”
She held his gaze a moment longer. Then she dipped a curtsy—small, almost careless—and turned toward the door.
“Good night, Your Grace.”
“Good night, Miss Weston.”
She paused upon the threshold. “Lorraine,” she said, without looking back. “If we are to work together for Thomas’s sake… You may call me Lorraine.”
And then she was gone.
Dominic remained where he was, the room altered by her absence. The fire burned low. The lamp flickered.
After a time, he crossed to the chair she had occupied and sat. The leather still held a trace of warmth.
“Lorraine,” he said aloud, softly, as though testing the shape of it.
It sat strangely upon his tongue. Like something long forgotten.
He did not return to bed. He remained there as the fire sank to embers and the first pale light of morning crept across the shelves.
And for the first time in many years, he did not dread the coming day.
Chapter Seven
“Miss Weston, the sky has gone quite strange.”
Lorraine looked up from the geography primer to find Thomas at the nursery window, his small face pressed to the glass. Beyond him, the October afternoon had turned ominous—the sky a bruised yellow-grey, the wind driving the bare branches of the oaks into restless motion, the first heavy drops of rain striking the panes with sharp insistence.
“So it has.” She set the book aside and joined him. The moors stretched bleak and open below, and as she watched, a jagged streak of lightning split the sky. Thomas flinched, edging closer to her.
“I do not like storms,” he said quietly. “They are too loud.”
“I understand.” Lorraine rested a hand upon his shoulder, feeling the tension there. “When I was your age, I used to hide beneath my bed whenever there was thunder. My father would find me there with my hands over my ears, utterly convinced the world was ending.”
Thomas glanced up at her, curiosity momentarily overtaking fear. “What did your father do?”
“He crawled under the bed beside me.” She smiled faintly. “He said storms were only the sky in a temper, and that the sensible thing was to wait it out somewhere comfortable until it passed.”
“That is rather foolish.”
“Entirely foolish. But it answered its purpose.”
Thunder rolled again, closer now. The lamps flickered.
Thomas caught her hand. “It is very loud.”
“It is only the storm,” she said, gently. “We are quite safe—”
The lamps flickered—and went out.
