Page 23 of Duke of Sapphire

“Tam sounds entirely sensible.”

“He is. He’s the most sensible animal on the whole estate.” Ian was quiet for a moment, rolling a headless soldier between his palms. “Better than the tutors, anyway.”

“Are the tutors very bad?”

“The last one had cold hands,” Ian said, with feeling. “He would put them on the back of me neck when I was copyin' out me letters. It was awful.”

Charlotte pressed her lips together. “That does sound deeply unpleasant.”

“And the one before smelled of cabbage. Nae a little. A great deal.” He considered this. “I didnae mind the one before that so much. He let me draw maps.” He glanced at the soldiers. “But he left.”

“Why?”

Ian shrugged one shoulder. “They all leave.”

He said it plainly, without complaint, which was worse than if he had said it with feeling.

Charlotte finished binding the soldier in her hands and set it with the others. She looked at the row of them, the repaired and the still broken, and said nothing for a moment.

“Da reads to me at night,” Ian said. “Mam does voices.” He turned a soldier over. “She’s particularly good at the villain’s voices. She makes it low, like this—” He dropped his voice into a growling rumble that was entirely unconvincing and entirely endearing. “Da says she should have been on the stage.”

Charlotte felt something tighten in her chest. She kept her face still.

“They’re coming back,” Ian said. He did not look at her. He said it the way he had said it to everyone else—flat, certain, not inviting argument. “I know everyone thinks they’re nae. But they are.”

“I know you believe that,” Charlotte said carefully.

“I’m nae makin’ it up,” Ian said, with a sudden sharpness that was the first crack in the composure. “I ken the difference. I’m nae a baby.”

“I did not say you were.”

“You were thinkin' it.”

“I was thinking,” Charlotte said, “that you know your parents better than anyone else in this house. And that it is not a foolish thing to wait for someone you love.”

Ian looked at her. It was an exceedingly long look for a six-year-old. Something in it was assessing again, the same quality she had seen in him on the roof, but it was not quite the same as when he had looked at the Duke. There was something in it that was more uncertain. More careful.

His chin wobbled, once. He got it back under control very quickly.

Charlotte set down the soldiers. She put her arm around him and pulled him in, and he came without resisting. He leaned into her side with the sudden weight of a child who had been holding himself very upright for an exceptionally long time.

“All shall be well,” she said. “I promise you.”

She felt him breathe.

Outside the playroom window, the light had turned thin and grey, and the moorland beyond the wall was quiet. Ian was warm against her side, his head heavy on her shoulder, still gripping one of the repaired soldiers in his small hand.

All shall be well, she had said.

She held him tighter, and she hoped, with everything she had, that it was true.

CHAPTER 8

“Ipromise you,” Charlotte said.

Henry had been standing in the doorway long enough to feel the cold of the stone floor through his boots. He had not intended to watch. He simply had not found a reason to stop looking at the scene unfolding in the playroom.

Ian was pressed against Lady Charlotte’s side, his head heavy on her shoulder. She had one arm around him and the other occupied with a row of repaired soldiers she had propped against the skirting board. She was not speaking anymore. She did not need to.