“Thank you.” She paused. “And the boy himself? What can you tell me of him?”
Dominic’s hands stilled upon the papers.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Thomas.” Her voice remained pleasant, yet there was something beneath it—a thread of steel beneath silk. “I should like to know more of him. His temperament. His interests. His particular needs.”
“The only need of his that need concern you, Miss Weston, is his education. I trust you are equal to it.”
“Indeed.” She inclined her head slightly, and one of those errant curls slipped free to brush her cheek. She made no attempt to correct it. “But I was thinking rather of personal details. What does he enjoy? What frightens him? What makes him laugh?”
The questions struck like blows. Dominic felt his jaw tighten, the familiar cold spreading through his chest. “I am afraid I cannot assist you with such trivialities, Miss Weston. The boy has been in my care but a few months, and my duties to the estate—”
“Five months.” Her tone did not change. Her eyes did. “He has been in your care for five months, Your Grace. Surely, in that time, you must have formed some impression of his character.”
Silence stretched between them. Dominic was dimly aware that he ought to be offended—that this woman, this governess, should question him so directly, in his own study, bordered upon impertinence.
He was not offended.
He was something worse.
He was exposed.
“Thomas is… quiet,” he said at last. The word sounded insufficient, even to his own ears. “He does not speak often. He is not troublesome. Beyond that, I—” He stopped. Swallowed. Began again. “Beyond that, I suggest you form your own conclusions, Miss Weston. It is, after all, what I pay you for.”
She regarded him for a long moment. He had the most uncomfortable sensation that she saw straight through him—through the title, through the walls, through four years of carefully constructed distance—to the ruin beneath.
“Very well,” she said quietly. “Then I shall.”
She ought to have taken her leave then. Any sensible governess would have curtsied and withdrawn to the nursery where she belonged. Instead, she remained where she was, those storm-sea eyes fixed steadily upon his face.
“May I ask one further question, Your Grace?”
No,he thought.Certainly not.
“You may ask,” he heard himself reply. “I do not promise to answer.”
“The boy’s father. Captain Harding.” Something shifted in her expression—compassion, perhaps, or curiosity. “Mrs Potter mentioned that he served under you. In Spain.”
The cold in Dominic’s chest hardened to ice. His hand rose of its own accord, touching the scar that cut across his left brow—shrapnel, Badajoz, the same night everything had ended.
“Mrs Potter,” he said evenly, “speaks beyond her place.”
“She speaks out of care. For this house and for all within it.” Miss Weston’s chin lifted a fraction. “For you as well, I should imagine.”
“Miss Weston.” His voice emerged harder than he intended—colder. “You are engaged to instruct a child. Not to examine the household, its history, or its master. I trust I make myself understood.”
Something altered in her expression. For an instant—no more—he thought he saw hurt flicker there. Then it vanished, replaced by a composed blankness he recognised at once, for he wore it himself.
“Perfectly, Your Grace.” She sank into another curtsy. “I shall not trespass further upon your time.”
She turned to go. Her hand had just reached the door when he spoke again, the words escaping him before he could recall them.
“He likes birds.”
She paused. Turned back.
“Thomas.” Dominic kept his gaze upon the desk, unable to meet her eyes. “I have observed him at the nursery window, watching the birds in the garden. He appears… interested in them. I do not know if that is of any use.”
