“I am occupied, Miss Weston.”
A pause. He could see her in his mind: chin lifted, arms at her sides, that particular stillness she adopted when deciding whether to press or withdraw.
“Thomas is asking for you. He wishes to show you the kestrel he has finished.”
The guilt struck sharp and immediate—a physical thing, hot and unwelcome.
“Tell him I shall see it tomorrow.”
Another pause. Longer this time.
“Will you?”
Two words. Courteous on the surface. Beneath them—a blade.Will you truly come tomorrow? Or is this the beginning of your retreat? Are you the man whoknelt upon a nursery floor and made a promise—or the man who locks his door and pretends not to hear?
“Tomorrow,” he repeated.
He heard her breath—a short, controlled exhale that might have been frustration, or hurt, or both. Her footsteps retreated down the corridor. He remained motionless until the sound faded, then set down his pen and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes.
You told her you loved her. You stood in the gallery and said the words out loud and meant them more than you have ever meant anything, and now you are hiding behind a locked door because a letter arrived and the world is doing exactly what the world always does.
Coward.
The accusation was hers, though she had not spoken it. He heard it all the same—in the voice he carried within him. The version of her that was braver, sharper, truer than he had ever been.
And, more often than not, right.
***
On the third day, Thomas came himself.
Dominic heard the footsteps—too light for an adult, too deliberate for a servant—and then a knock so soft it was nearly lost against the wood.
“Your Grace?”
He closed his eyes.
“Your Grace, it is Thomas. I have my painting. May I show you?”
The voice was small and careful. The voice of a child who had learned, through painful repetition, that the people he loved had a tendency to disappear and not return.
Dominic rose from his desk, crossed the room, and opened the door.
Thomas stood in the corridor, holding a sheet of watercolour paper in both hands. The painting showed two kestrels—male and female—perched upon a low stone wall, the sweep of the moors behind them. The female was larger, as Dominic had taught him. The detail in the wing feathers was remarkable for a boy of seven. The colours were somewhat overbold—too much crimson at the breast, too much gold in the eye—but the proportions were sound, the birds unmistakable.
In the lower corner, in Thomas’s careful hand:For His Grace.
“I made it for you,” Thomas said. “Because you said you like kestrels too. And Miss Weston said—she said you might like something for your study. Because it is very bare in here.”
Dominic looked at the painting. Then, at the boy holding it—William’s eyes, William’s earnest expression, the compass hanging from a ribbon about his neck, because he had taken to wearing it everywhere, even to bed.
The middle of February. You have but a few more weeks with this child, and you are spending them behind a locked door.
He knelt. The motion came more easily now—his body remembering what his pride had once resisted, learning that lowering himself was not weakness but a different form of strength.
“It is excellent, Thomas. The proportions are very good.”
Thomas’s face lit at once. “Do you truly think so? Miss Weston said the beak was too large, but I told her kestrels have strong beaks for tearing—”
