Page 24 of Duke of Sapphire

Henry looked at his cousin’s son and tried to remember the last time he had seen the boy still. He could not. Every account from the staff described Ian in motion—on rooftops, over walls, through gates, always somewhere he was not meant to be and never anywhere he could be reached. And now he was here. Sitting with a near-stranger on a drafty playroom floor as though he had always done it.

Nathan, he thought. Eleanor. Please be all right.

It was not a prayer exactly. He was not certain he prayed. But the words formed themselves, low and insistent, and he let them.

“Can ye fix the rest of them?”

Ian had lifted his head. He was looking at the row of soldiers, and then at Charlotte, and there was something in his face that Henry had not seen since he arrived.

He was smiling.

It was a small, cautious thing, as though he had not entirely decided to commit to it. But it was there. Unmistakable.

“The rest of them?” Charlotte said.

“Aye.” Ian sat up a little. “I’ve broken rather a lot.”

“How many is rather a lot?”

Ian considered this with enormous seriousness. “Most of them.”

“Most—” Charlotte looked at the floor around them. Then she looked at Ian. “Did you break them all at once, or was it a systematic effort?”

“Both,” Ian said. “Mostly systematic.”

Charlotte pressed her lips together. Henry could see she was fighting to conceal a smile of her own. “I see,” she said. “Well. I can help you repair them. But first you must promise me something.”

“What?”

“That once they are mended, you will not break them again.”

Ian was quiet for a moment. “Even if I’m very cross?”

“Especially then.”

He thought about it. Henry waited. He was aware he was holding his breath, which was a thing he almost never did.

“All right,” Ian said. “I promise.”

“Solemnly?”

“Aye. Solemnly.”

Charlotte nodded, as though this settled a matter of considerable legal weight. “Then we have an agreement.”

Ian picked up a headless soldier and held it out to her. “This one first.”

And that was when Henry noticed the dress.

It was deep navy wool, something the one of the household staff had evidently found for her, well-fitted across the shoulders and neatly belted, and it was the first time since the carriage left London that he had seen her dressed as herself. She had discarded the boy’s coat and the borrowed cap. Lady Charlotte no longer carried the dust and discomfort of a week on the road. She looked—he checked himself. She looked like herself, which was the only safe way to finish that observation.

He glanced at the door frame instead of continuing to peer at her.

It did not help. He was still aware of the navy dress in the way one is aware of a fire on the far side of a room.

He cleared his throat.

Charlotte’s head came up. Ian straightened. They both looked at him and for one moment the room went very still.