“Of course you are.” Sophia made a scornful sound that was too old for her age. He missed the carefree, younger girl she had been when he and Isadora had been with her together. This older, sharper version, wise beyond her years, scraped like a scalpel against his already bruised heart.
What if she grew up and proved beyond all doubt that she was not his?
“I don’t like it when you’re angry at each other,” Sophia muttered, bridging the silence he had left gaping. “Izzie is happier when you’re together, and so are you.”
“Wearestill together,” Nicholas pointed out.
“Hardly! You don’t look at her when she’s not watching. Or even speak, if I’m not there.”
“We still share breakfast,” he tried unconvincingly.
Sophia rolled her tiny eyes. “Papa, don’t think I’m a ninny, please. A few weeks ago, you were talking. And now you’re both sitting like you’re in an ice house.”
“Don’t exaggerate.”
“I’m not! I don’t like it.” She pointed to the green coat. “I like that one better.”
Nicholas slid it over his shoulders silently. If Sophia had noticed he wasn’t himself, he would have to try harder—this rioting thing in his chest hadnothingandeverythingto do with her, and he would not punish her for what was no fault of her own.
“Whist?” he asked when they finally made it down into the drawing room. Isadora, thankfully, was elsewhere; he had a suspicion she had gone to dine with the American. No doubt they were abusing him roundly behind his back.
He deserved it.
The heaviness stayed with him however he tried to tease and joke the way Isadora did with Sophia so effortlessly. They played whist, and he lost as many hands as he could, only winning when Sophia grew suspicious.
By the end, she was yawning, and Isadora had not yet returned.
He suppressed the worry that something might have happened to her with a viciousness he didn’t want to examine. “Bedtime,” he forced mirth into his voice.
“Where’s Izzie?”
“Izzieis spending time with her friend tonight. She’ll probably be back late.”If she comes back at all.
He tried to push the thought away, but it kept returning with sticky insistence.Ifshe came back. Hewantedto believe the best of her, but he didn’t know how to believe the best of anyone anymore.
Isadora might not return. And if she did, who knew what she had been doing in the interim? He kept seeing her arched the way she arched for him, those low sounds he had thought his alone, given to a stranger. Each one crushed the air from his chest.
All he knew was the longer she spent away from his side, the more acutely he felt it. The loss, her absence. His entire worldfelt as though it was imploding, and he couldn’t scrape it back together again.
Sophia yawned again and sprawled across the chaise longue. He bent down and picked her up, gathering her in his arms as he carried her upstairs. She had lost that strangely adult aura she had, and now she was all child as she squirmed sleepily in his arms.
“Bedtime,” he murmured again. “I’ll call for nurse.”
“Stay with me, Papa,” she mumbled.
His footsteps faltered. He looked into her face, and for a terrible second, he saw Grace. He saw Sherborne.
Then his vision cleared, and he saw his daughter.Hisdaughter. The one whom he adored and would adore until eternity’s end, no matter what the truth was.
“I’ll stay,” he promised, carrying her the rest of her way to her bedchambers. Her nurse came running and changed the half-asleep girl into her nightgown. Nicholas was the one to tuck her into bed, and he sat beside her as she settled against the pillow, eyes closed and lashes fanning against her summer apple cheeks.
His daughter.His.
“I want you to be happy, Papa,” she mumbled sleepily. “And Izzie, too. I don’t want you to fight anymore.” Her eyelids fluttered, and her breathing deepened.
Nicholas sat silently by her side for a few moments longer.
“I know,” he whispered eventually. Sophia was too asleep to hear. “I don’t, either.”
