She was worried about Gabriel… and her own future.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Amelia excused herself from the ballroom with quiet precision, offering polite smiles as she slipped past laughing guests and spinning dancers. The music swelled behind her, bright and careless, but she felt strangely detached from it as she moved through the corridor. Her thoughts were still tangled in the strange tension surrounding Gabriel and Lady Provie, but another worry tugged at her more insistently now.
David.
She told herself it was nothing, and yet she could not ignore the pull of concern in her chest that she might never see him again.
The nursery was dimly lit when she arrived, the warm glow of a single lamp casting soft light across the room. Inside, she found the maid slumped in a chair, fast asleep, her head tilted awkwardly to one side. David, however, was safe in his small bed, curled beneath blankets with his face half-buried in thepillow. His breathing was steady, peaceful, entirely untroubled by the chaos of the night below.
Amelia stepped closer, watching him for a long moment as her heart tightened unexpectedly.
He looks so small like this… How could anyone ever think of leaving him?
She reached out instinctively and gently smoothed a curl from his forehead, careful not to wake him. A faint ache settled in her chest, sharp and unfamiliar in its intensity.
Be the last time I see him like this,she thought suddenly, the idea striking her without warning. The thought felt wrong, almost unbearable. She had only been here a month, just a month, but somehow that felt untrue now. The children had rooted themselves in her life far more deeply than she had ever intended.
Amelia lingered a few moments longer, as though memorizing the sight of him might anchor something within her. The quiet rhythm of the room felt fragile, like something easily broken if she stayed too long. So, she straightened slowly, smoothed her skirts, and forced herself to step away. At the door, she paused once more, looking back at David’s sleeping form.
“Goodnight, my dear boy,” she whispered under her breath even though she knew he could not hear her.
Then she gently closed the door behind her.
The hallway outside felt colder as she made her way back toward the stairs. The sounds of the ball grew louder with each step she descended, laughter and music spilling through the open doors like a reminder of another world entirely. Amelia adjusted her breathing, steadying herself before rejoining the guests. She told herself firmly that she was only checking on David, nothing more, and yet her chest still ached faintly as she stepped into the foyer.
Halfway down the staircase, she stopped abruptly.
A woman stood below in the foyer, just inside the entrance doors, removing an elegant dark cloak from her shoulders. She moved with composed grace, the kind that drew attention without asking for it. Amelia had never seen her before, yet there was something undeniably commanding about her presence. The footman hovered nearby, uncertain whether to speak or simply observe. The woman glanced upward at the sound of Amelia’s footsteps.
Her eyes met Amelia’s immediately.
“Where is the Duke of Anderton?” the woman asked, her voice calm but carrying unmistakable authority.
Amelia hesitated for only a second, then descended another step carefully.
“He is in the ballroom with the other guests,” she replied politely, but something about the question unsettled her.
The woman’s gaze remained fixed on her as though assessing every detail at once. Amelia’s fingers tightened slightly on the banister without her realizing it.
“And you are?” the woman asked.
Amelia straightened, instinctively cautious. “Miss Shirley,” she answered. Then, after a pause, she added, “Though I beg your pardon, I do not recall that we have ever been introduced.”
A faint, almost knowing smile touched the woman’s lips.
“Oh, we have not been,” she said lightly, stepping further into the foyer as though she already belonged there. Her tone remained calm, but there was something underneath it that made Amelia’s stomach tighten. “But you will get to know me very well.”
Amelia frowned slightly, confusion flickering across her expression. “I beg your pardon?”
The woman tilted her head, studying her more intently now. Then she said it, casually, as though announcing nothing more than a polite arrival.
“I am Helen Warring,” she said. “The mother of David and Valerie.”
For a moment, Amelia could not respond.
The words did not immediately settle. They hovered in the air, refusing to make sense.
