Page 113 of A Mother for the Blind Duke’s Orphans

Aurora sat upright in the bed; she looked small beneath the twisted blankets, her hair was loose around her face, and her cheeks were wet. She had both fists pressed to her mouth as though trying to hold in the next scream and failing. When she saw Poppy, she reached out at once.

“P-Poppy⁠—”

“I am here.” Poppy crossed to her. “You are safe, darling. It was a dream.”

Aurora shook her head so hard her whole small body trembled. “I saw her.”

Poppy sat on the edge of the bed and took the child’s hands. “Whom did you see?”

Aurora’s breath hitched. “M⁠—”

The room stilled.

Poppy felt Hector stop behind her soundlessly.

Aurora looked from Poppy to Hector, then down at the blanket. “My real mother.”

Poppy’s fingers tightened around the child’s.

“Oh, Aurora.”

“She was there,” Aurora whispered. “And then she was gone again.”

Hector moved to the other side of her.

Poppy expected Aurora to draw back, but the child had trusted him in careful increments, with the grave courtesy of the very young toward an adult they had not yet decided to love. But he approached her slowly, making sure his movement announced itself, and when he reached the bed, he lowered himself beside Poppy with a gentleness that made the mattress barely shift.

“Aurora,” he said.

His voice was stripped of its command. Softer than Poppy had ever heard it. Aurora looked up at him, and Hector held out his arms. For one breath, no one moved. Then Aurora leaned into him.

Poppy let her go, and Hector gathered the little girl against his chest as if she were breakable and precious beyond speech. Aurora clutched at his shirt and buried her face there. Her sobs came smaller now, worn thin by fright.

“I saw Mama,” she said again.

“I know.” Hector’s hand rested on the back of her head. “I know.”

Aurora sniffed. “Did you know her?”

Hector’s eyes closed. When they opened, their pale gray seemed almost colorless in the lamplight. “No, I never knew her. But I wish I did. All I knew was that her name was Rose, and I believe that is the most perfect name for the most perfect mother and sister.”

Aurora lifted her head a little and sniffed. “She was perfect. She was the best mama. She always smiled, and even when she got sick, she laughed and played with us.”

Hector smiled at her softly. “She sounded incredible.”

Aurora’s eyes lit up as she remembered the details of her mother. “She was. Why did you not visit us, Uncle Hector?”

Poppy looked away, but only for a moment. She could not leave him alone with such a question.

To her surprise, Hector answered without hesitation. “My father hid her existence, and I discovered the truth about her, you, and Princess only after finding a letter from your mother.”

Aurora studied him, reassured by the certainty, if not the words. She shifted against him, exhausted now that the worst of the terror had passed. Her lashes were damp. Her small hand remained clenched in his shirt.

Aurora’s eyes had already begun to close. “If you came… maybe you could have saved Mommy.”

Poppy watched the change in Hector. How his tall body bent so carefully around the child and became rigid. His face gave nothing away, but the absence itself was terrible. She could see the question enter him and find a home among wounds already there.

“Hector,” she said quietly.