Over Thomas’s fair head, his gaze found Lorraine.
She stood by the window, one hand pressed lightly to her mouth, tears slipping unchecked down her cheeks. She made no effort to hide them. She simply watched—watched the man she had drawn back from silence kneel upon the nursery floor and hold a child who bore his friend’s eyes.
Their gazes met.
And in that look, Dominic saw everything. Not merely the quiet, constant thread of desire that ran between them, but something deeper—something steadier.
This is a family,her eyes said.However fragile. However uncertain. It is real.
Do not let it slip away.
Thomas, his storm passing, glanced about at the room of damp-eyed adults and frowned.
“Why is everyone sad? It’s my birthday.”
The laughter that followed was the warmest sound Rovewood Hall had known in years.
The rest of the day passed in a golden haze.
There was too much cake. Thomas consulted his compass with near-ceremonial frequency. In the afternoon, they walked to the folly in search of kestrels—Thomas perched high upon Dominic’s shoulders, Lorraine beside them, her cheeks flushed with cold and something brighter.
The future waited.
But not today.
Today belonged to Thomas.
***
That evening, after the boy had been settled—compass upon the nightstand, Captain tucked beneath his arm—Dominic found Lorraine in the corridor beyond the nursery.
She leaned against the wall, her arms folded about herself.
“He asked me,” she said quietly, “before he fell asleep, whether we might do this every year.”
The words struck with quiet force. Every year. The easy assumption of permanence from a child who had only just begun to hope.
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him we would try.”
Dominic crossed the space between them and kissed her—tender and fierce in equal measure, gratitude and longing entwined. She yielded at once, her hands catching at his lapels, a soft sound escaping her that he caught and held.
“It was not wrong,” he murmured against her lips. “What you told him. It was the truest thing spoken in this house.”
“The Hardings. When they come—”
“I know. But not tonight.” He rested his forehead against hers. “Come. Stay with me.”
She rose onto her toes and pressed a kiss to the scar at his brow—intimate, assured, reaching past every defence he had ever raised.
Somewhere above, a child slept with a compass that always pointed home.
And Dominic, at last, was beginning to understand what that meant.
Chapter Nineteen
“You’re staring at me.”
