Page 136 of A Mother for the Blind Duke’s Orphans

Rose.

Hector found it fitting to name her after his sister, especially since her hair changed to the reddish hue that Aurora claimed their mother had. In his sight, her curls really did look like roses.

The seaside air was sharp with salt and promise; the cries of gulls mingled with the distant music of the Assembly Rooms and the bright, unrestrained delight of two little girls who knew themselves thoroughly adored. Hector sat in the sunny parlor of their hired house, the scent of the ocean and of Poppy’s rosewater perfume wrapping about him like a benediction.

He had never imagined a life so full. Poppy sat next to him and touched his face gently. Hector sighed in relief.

“I find myself missing your touch every second you are away from me,” he spoke softly.

“I miss yours too,” she responded, and Hector immediately raised his fingertips to her soft skin.

Aurora, ever the observant little soul, had been watching them for days, and Hector felt her presence long before he heard the light patter of her slippers or smelled the faint sweetness of the lemon drops she favored. She hovered just at the edge of their quiet moments. When at last she could contain her curiosity no longer, her clear young voice broke the peaceful afternoon.

“Papa,” she said, “why do you and Mama always touch each other’s faces so gently? I see you do it every day. Princess sees it too, and although she is still a baby, we are both wondering why.”

Hector smiled, turning his face toward the sound of her. He held out a hand, and at once she came to him with a delighted squeal. He gathered her close and felt the precious weight of her small body against his chest, but his heart ached when he did not feel Poppy’s touch.

“Because, my clever Aurora,” he answered softly, “my eyes cannot tell me the shape of the people I love. But my hands can. When I touch Mama’s face, I see her as clearly as if the sun itself had painted her for me. I know the arch of her brow when she is thinking, the little dimple that appears when she is trying not to laugh, the softness of her mouth and the roundness of her eyes when she looks at me with tenderness. Touch is how I know you both and how I know that I am home.”

There was a brief, awed silence. Then Aurora, generously and boldly as ever, took his hand in both of her small ones and pressed it solemnly to her own cheek.

“Then you must see me better, Papa,” she declared. “And Princess too. We want you to know us as well as you know Mama.”

Hector’s throat tightened.

How did I ever deserve such abundance?

With infinite care, he mapped Aurora’s face. He felt the smooth forehead, the delicate nose, the determined little chin that so resembled his own when she had set her mind upon something. Then Mrs. Patterson brought Princess, who was wriggling with excitement.

“There is the birthday girl,” Hector cooed softly.

He touched the child’s soft cheeks and memorized them both, storing every detail in the private gallery of his heart.

“There,” he whispered. “Now I see you both more clearly than ever. Two bright stars in my sky.”

When Mrs. Patterson coaxed the girls upstairs for their afternoon rest, and the house had fallen into that rare, golden quiet, Hector found Poppy alone on the terrace overlooking the sea. He came up behind her, sliding his arms around her waist and drawing her back against his chest. His lips brushed the crown of her head.

“Poppy,” he said quietly, almost against her hair, “there is something I must confide. Something that has troubled me these past weeks.”

She turned within the circle of his arms so that they stood face to face. He lifted his hands at once to her beloved features, tracing them as he always did, yet this time his fingers lingered, searching her for more clues of who she is.

“I cannot explain it properly,” he continued, his voice roughened by worry. “But you seem… altered. Your scent changes from day to day. You are sweeter some mornings, and warmer, almost like honey and milk. And your body heat… it is different. Some hours you burn like a summer hearth; others you feel cooler, as though something within you is drawing the warmth inward. I have lain awake beside you and felt the difference, and it frightens me, my love. Tell me I am imagining phantoms. Tell me you are well.”

Please, his soul begged. Do not let anything take her from me. I have only just learned how brightly life can burn.

Poppy’s hands rose to cover his where they cradled her face. He felt the curve of her smile beneath his thumbs, and then he felt the first shimmer of happy tears.

“You are not imagining phantoms, Hector,” she said, her voice trembling, and he felt his mouth dry up. “You are sensing the truth more keenly than anyone else ever could.”

“You are scaring me, Poppy. Tell me truly, what is going on?”

Poppy took a deep breath in. “The girls will soon have another sibling. A brother or a sister, I do not yet know…but our family is growing again.”

For a moment, the world seemed to still. The crash of the waves, the cry of the gulls, even the beating of his own heart, all of it faded beneath the roaring wonder that filled him.

Another child. Another soul to love. Another voice to join the beautiful chaos of our home.

Hector made a broken sound that was half laugh, half sob, and crushed her gently to him, burying his face in the curve of her neck where her scent was strongest. He breathed her in as though he might draw the new life into his own lungs.