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Lady Lyra paused pouring tea into her cup, an object so delicate it appeared as though it would shatter if I touched it. Her blue eyes narrowed as she considered me.

“I forgot what it felt like to go from nobody to somebody.” She reached across the table with her free hand, catching my fingers in hers.

“I am not a somebody, my lady. I merely seek some way I can repay the generosity you and Lord Greyson have offered Mela and me.”

Lady Lyra’s eyebrows rose. “You don’t include Kent in your debt?”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “Kent’s debts are his own.”

“Yet he includes yours in his.” She studied me with a slight smile pulling at her mouth. I didn’t trust the amusement coming from her. “No need to worry.” She squeezed my fingers gently. “If you would like to be employed, I would welcome a companion.” Her smile brightened, though I detected a hint of sadness emanating from her. “Preparing your friend for his new role demands more of Greyson’s time than he usually allots to his work and that leaves less time for me. Would you be interested in joining me in my duties? After all, you do need to learn to run a household.”

Puzzled, I frowned. “Why would I need such a skill?”

“Don’t you wish to learn new skills?” she asked evasively.

I nodded hesitantly. I suspected that she harbored an alternative motive, but she didn’t appear to mean me harm. At least I would learn something useful, hopefully, and be occupied until I could speak with Kent long enough to understand what to expect for my future. I disliked not having a plan or a way forward.

Before I could ask more questions, the conservatory door burst open, and the children descended on us.

“Momma!” Jas ran down the path to the terrace and threw herself into the billows of her mother’s dress and against her knees. “I caught a bunny!”

“Don’t lie, Jas.” Heath came around the feathered fern in the corner and bowed to his mother and then me. A miniature version of his father from his dark head of almost black hair to his black attire and gloved hands, Heath Greyson appeared much more sober than his eight years. “Mela lured the rabbit close for us to watch and we left it free. We didn’t restrain it in the least.”

The girl herself, my Mela, approached quietly and leaned against my shoulder.

“I am pleased that you could see the bunny up close,” Lady Lyra assured her daughter as she smoothed the child’s blonde curls back from her face. “I am equally pleased you did not restrain it. Wild creatures should be left wild.”

“But I wished to bring it in,” Jas protested with a dramatic pout. “Then I could see it every day and pet its fur and chase it—”

“You mean frighten it into a heart attack,” her brother inserted.

“I wouldn’t do that!” Jas turned in her mother’s arms to glare at her brother. “I love the bunny! I would never hurt it! I want the bunny!” Then with a sob, she buried her face in her mother’s skirts.

“There, there, sweetheart.” Lady Lyra smoothed her daughter’s curls and then rubbed her back. “Sometimes we need to let go of the things we love—people we love—for their own good.”

“But I want the bunny.” Jas whimpered as she straightened to her full, diminutive six-year-old height.

“And you must let it go. It is happy where it is, sweetheart.” Lady Lyra smiled as she wiped her child’s tears, not heeding the wet stains they left on her satin skirt. “Do you want it to be sad, cooped up in a pen, and longing for its home? How would you feel if someone took you far from your papa and me?”

Jas sniffled as she considered it. “I wouldn’t like that.”

“I imagine the bunny wouldn’t like it if you did the same to it.”

The little girl mulled over the idea with great gravity.

“Rue?” Mela’s whisper, soft and hesitant, pulled my full attention to her. “Can you be my mother?”

My heart sank as I looked into her earnest face. In her eyes I could see the hunger I had always felt—the need to be loved and cherished. To trust someone so completely was a precious treasure that I could only vaguely recall experiencing, but Mela could not. Unlike me, she didn’t have the finality of record to mark the fact her mother would never return and for years, she had cried herself to sleep hoping her mother would return to, claim her, champion her, and whisk her away from the trials of being a cast-off foundling.

“Oh, darling,” I whispered back. “I cannot be your mother, for we all have only one. However, I can be the next best thing.” I smiled at her. “I can be your teacher, friend, and champion. Will that do?”

“Could I call you mother, regardless? Just to use the name?”

“We have no blood connection,” I reminded her.

Mela’s bottom lip jutted out slightly. “But you are my mother in all ways but name. You take care of me: you soothe my hurts and kiss my scrapes. You listen to me when I need to talk and sit with me when I am ill.” She didn’t meet my gaze as she played with the trim on the seam of my gown. “Please, Rue?”

“I can’t allow it.” I squeezed her close. “But you are my daughter in every way that counts, and that is what truly matters.”