Page 114 of A Mother for the Blind Duke’s Orphans

He did not seem to hear.

Aurora sighed, her grip loosening. She nestled closer, trusting the very man she had just wounded without knowing it. Several moments passed before anyone spoke. From the corridor came the faint murmur of Annabelle soothing Princess. The lamp flame moved once, then steadied.

At last, Hector lowered Aurora back onto the pillows. He did it carefully, with the precision of a man returning something sacred. Aurora barely stirred. Her mouth parted on a soft breath.

Poppy drew the blanket up over Aurora.

Hector rose.

“Are you all right?” Poppy asked.

He turned his head toward her. For a moment, she thought he might answer honestly. His face was nearer now, and she saw what his control had cost him.

“I should leave,” he said.

“No.” She kept her voice low for Aurora’s sake. “There is no need.”

“I should.”

“She settled with you. Perhaps you could stay a little while. For her.”

His jaw tightened. “I am sorry.”

“Hector—”

“I must go.”

He stepped back from the bed, then turned too quickly. His cane leaned where he had left it near the chair, but he did not reach for it. Poppy noticed the omission at once, absurdly small amid everything else, and for that reason alarming.

“Hector, your⁠—”

He was already at the door.

She looked at Aurora. The child slept, one hand curled beside her face. Poppy touched her hair once, then rose. She took Hector’s cane from beside the chair and followed him.

The house had no shape.

Hector knew that was not true. He knew every passage, every turn from the entrance to the stairs, every distance measured in steps and memory. He knew the slight unevenness of the floor near the western corridor. He knew where the wall narrowed before the arch. He knew how long it took the air to cool after the outer door shut behind him.

But without the cane in his hand, knowledge failed to become certainty.

The darkness pressed close. It robbed the familiar of edges. His sight, useless for fine detail even in daylight, gave him only masses and shadows. At night, it offered less than comfort. The house belonged to him. It had his name, his servants, his rooms. Still, for the first time, he felt lost inside his own home.

He stopped with one hand against the wall.

The plaster was cool beneath his palm. That should have steadied him. It did not.

If you came… maybe you could have saved Mommy.

The words had been drowsy. Unmeant. A child trying to understand the cruel arithmetic of absence. He had no right to resent them. He did not resent them. He feared instead how naturally they had found the truth.

A sound came from behind him. Light steps, quick but not careless.

Poppy.

He turned too sharply and misjudged the space. His shoulder brushed the wall. He hated that she saw it. Hated more that he needed the wall at all.

“Hector,” she said.