Page 91 of Duke of Sapphire

“He said it very matter-of-factly,” she said. “As though he had thought it through and arrived at a position.” She looked at the fire. “That almost made it worse.”

A beat of silence.

“I did not know his birthday,” Henry said. It was not an excuse. It was flat, just a fact, and the fact seemed to cost him.

He looked at his hands. “I knew the year. I knew he would be seven. I did not know—” He stopped again.

Charlotte felt sorry for Henry. He had come into this guardianship the way he came into everything: capable, dutiful, and almost entirely unprepared for the parts that could not be managed with accounts and instructions.

“Well,” she said. “Now you do.”

“He truly said he does not want a celebration?”

“He said that.” Charlotte tilted her head. “He also said his father hides the gift, and he has to find it. He said his mother makes the cake.” She kept her gaze on the fire. “He was telling me what birthdays mean to him. He was not telling me to do something.”

Henry looked at her.

“He is six years old,” Charlotte said. “He has had the worst six weeks of his life, and he is trying to be very sensible about all of it. He should not have to be sensible about his birthday as well.” She pressed her hands flat on her knees. “I am going to plan something. Small. Not a production. Just—enough.”

Henry said nothing for a moment.

“He may not thank you for it,” he said at last.

“He does not need to thank me for it.” She stood. “He needs to have it.”

Henry looked at her with an expression she could not fully catalogue. It was neither disagreement nor approval.

“I will need your help,” she said.

“You are asking me.”

“You are his guardian. Yes.”

He picked up the letter again. He did not look at it. “Tell me what you need.”

She moved toward the door. At the threshold she stopped and looked back.

“To start,” she said, “I need to know what his favorite thing to eat is.”

Henry said, without any hesitation whatsoever: “Anything with jam.”

Charlotte looked at him. He looked at the letter.

He does know some things, she thought. Just not the date.

“Good,” she said. “That’s a start.”

She left him at the library and went to find paper.

“The shortbread is essential,” Charlotte said. “And I want a sponge cake. Something with jam in the middle.”

Mrs. Ellison had her hands folded and her expression of careful attentiveness, which Charlotte had come to recognize as the one she wore when she thought the request was unusual but had decided not to say so. Cook, who had warmed considerably since the first week, was already nodding.

“I can manage that easily enough,” Cook said. “Raspberry jam. And the shortbread. Will there be many for tea, Your Grace?”

“Just the household. And a few trivial things for Ian to find in the garden beforehand—nothing elaborate. I thought perhaps some of those little iced biscuits if you can manage them. The ones with the colored sugar.”

“Those I can do.” Cook was already mentally somewhere in the kitchen. “Shall I⁠—”