Page 125 of A Mother for the Blind Duke’s Orphans

“That is less concerning.”

Aurora tucked herself against his side. “I am watching for symp-symp—” She stopped, frustrated.

Hector waited.

“Symptoms,” she finished in a rush.

“An excellent nurse.”

She relaxed at once.

Poppy saw it. Hector knew she did. The silence between them shifted again, full of recognition.

The nanny arrived soon after, summoned perhaps by Poppy’s look or by the increasing certainty that Aurora intended to spend the day atop him as a living poultice. It took persuasion, then bargaining, then a promise that they could return later if Hector remained obedient in bed.

“I am always obedient,” Hector said.

Poppy gave him a look.

Aurora kissed his cheek. Princess imitated her with more enthusiasm than accuracy, pressing a damp kiss near his jaw. Then they were carried and shepherded from the room, still calling instructions back to him.

“Do not sleep too much!”

“Do not get another head!”

“Do not move!”

The door closed.

The quiet that followed was enormous.

Poppy remained beside the bed. She did not sit. One hand rested on the back of a chair, her knuckles pale. Hector could not see the fine details of her face, but he knew the angle of her body. Guarded. Strained. Still afraid.

“Come here,” he said.

“I am here.”

“Closer.”

She hesitated, then sat on the edge of the bed.

He reached for her hand. She gave it to him at once, and that nearly undid him.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

“No. A bruise, perhaps. Nothing more.”

“You are certain?”

“Yes.”

He closed his eyes briefly.

The moment returned in pieces: the crack of sound, the horse’s shape exploding from darkness into light, Poppy standing in its path. His body had moved before thought. There had been no nobility in it. No choice weighed and made. Only refusal.

No.

Not her.