Page 76 of A Mother for the Blind Duke’s Orphans

The answer was so simple, and so devastatingly loyal, that Hector had no defense against it.

Poppy rose at once. “Then Princess shall join us.”

“Is that—” Hector began.

But Poppy was already moving, issuing soft instructions. A servant departed, and Aurora wiped her cheeks, still trembling. Hector sat uselessly with both hands on the table and understood that his carefully structured meal had been defeated by the moral clarity of a four-year-old. Princess arrived soon after, and with her came the end of the dining room as Hector had known it.

“Princess!” Aurora’s voice immediately changed and lit up the entire room while the baby gurgled happily.

There was the scrape of an additional chair, the movement of servants, the rustle of Poppy’s skirts, Aurora’s sudden flood of explanation to the baby, who could not possibly understand and yet seemed to receive the attention as her due. The room filled not simply with sound but with motion that confused Hector.

Shapes shifted at the edge of his vision. Poppy’s slender figure crossed and recrossed; Aurora leaned toward the baby, who turned toward Poppy’s voice, and the servants withdrew with the tact of people abandoning a battlefield. Hector could see movement more than detail, and there was too much of it. The world blurred into gestures. Pale cloth, dark hair, the flash of Poppy’s hand, and the bobbing shape of the infant. He had lived so long in stillness that this lively disorder struck him almost physically.

And yet it was not unpleasant.

“Hector?” Poppy’s whisper pulled him back to reality.

She came close to him, close enough that he knew her before she spoke. She had a scent he had begun to recognize against his will, something that was unmistakably hers. It reached him beneath the food, the polished wood, and the faint smoke of candles. His body noticed before his mind gave permission.

“She will not eat,” Poppy murmured.

Hector turned his head toward her. “Princess?”

“Yes.” She nodded firmly.

“She was brought here because Aurora feared she was being neglected. Now she refuses sustenance in protest?” he said dryly.

“I do not believe it is political,” she responded just as dryly.

“With that name, one must be cautious.” Hector shrugged.

Poppy’s laughter burst through her while chaos reigned behind her.

He sighed as he watched the children. “How do we fix this?”

She tapped her chin, looking unsure for a moment.

“There is a trick.”

Hector leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “Of course there is.”

“It requires some…noise.”

Her delicate hands waved around her, and the movement was distractingly adorable as she spoke. She completely captured him.

“Perhaps you did not notice that we have that already.” He motioned to his nieces.

“Well, it is not just any kind of noise…it involves singing.” Her eyes dropped, and he could see the blush rising in her cheeks.

“And what else does it involve?”

“Dancing,” she said softly.

Hector closed his eyes briefly, though it made no practical difference. He held back the smile that threatened to spread across his face. “This ought to be…interesting.”

“It is the most effective method.” She looked at him expectantly. “Are you all right with that?”

It was an absurd question. Nothing about him suggested readiness for musical theatrics over supper. His household had once operated with the hushed precision of a clock. Now his wife was asking permission to turn the dining room into a nursery performance hall so that an infant called Princess might be persuaded to open her mouth.