She looked up. He was watching her.
“You have not forgotten,” she said softly. “You are remembering. That is not the same thing.”
“Is it not?”
“No. Forgetting is surrender. Remembering is… an effort.”
He was still for a long moment, something working beneath the surface. Then, slowly, he held the horse out to her.
“Will you give it to him?” he said. “I—” He stopped. “I am not certain I should know what to say.”
Lorraine took it. Their fingers brushed—light, fleeting, and far too noticeable.
“You will not get it wrong,” she said. “But if you prefer, I will give it to him—and tell him it is from you.”
“Thank you.”
He stepped back. Too quickly.
“Your Grace—”
“Dominic.” He did not look at her. “You called me that. The other night.”
“That was—I shouldn’t have—”
“I did not object.” His hand rested against the doorframe. “I have not been Dominic to anyone in a very long time.”
Then he was gone.
Lorraine stood very still, the small wooden horse in her hands, her heart unsteady in her chest.
***
She gave Thomas the horse that afternoon.
His reaction was everything she had hoped for. He turned it over in his hands with quiet reverence, tracing the carved mane, the painted eyes, the tiny hooves worn smooth by years of use.
“His Grace played with this?” Thomas’s voice was hushed. “When he was my age?”
“When he was your age. His grandfather made it for him.”
“And he’s giving it to me?”
“He wished you to have it. He thought you would take care of it, as he did.”
Thomas hugged the horse to his chest, his eyes bright with unshed tears. “I will,” he said, with sudden fierceness. “I’ll take care of it. Always.”
Lorraine knelt beside him and smoothed his hair back from his forehead. “I know you will. That is why he chose you.”
Later, she stood at the nursery window and watched him in the garden below, showing the horse to Jenny with animated delight—holding it aloft as though it were something rare and precious. Even at a distance, his joy was unmistakable.
You did this,she thought. Whether to Dominic or to herself, she could not say.You gave him this. A bridge across all that silence.
She pressed her hand lightly against the glass and drew a slow breath.
***
The following days settled into a new pattern.
