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“My brother needs to be watched at all times until he is well, preferably far away from any alcohol.”

Christopher nodded slowly, outwardly maintaining his attention on the game as if her request for help was not monumental.

“Only a man should be asked to watch over him. Someone sturdy. When he drinks, he isn’t himself. He doesn't know his own strength and he can be … careless.”

Christopher strangled his cue stick but gave another curt nod.

“Lately, he is even worse when he isn’t drinking.”

Christopher’s eyes slammed shut and they remained so as he silently nodded his understanding, nauseated all over again at the bruises he had pretended not to notice. He allowed his rage to burn inside of him for several seconds before forcibly quashing it.

He looked up, watching her across the interminable distance of the billiards table. Her head was bowed, her fingers restlessly worrying one another. He wanted to crawl across the table and fold her into his arms. She looked small, defeated, so unlike Sofi that he had to check himself from stomping down the hallway and screaming his frustration into her half-conscious brother's face.

“Anything else?” he asked with all the lightness he could muster, planting his feet to the floor.

“Anything else?” she echoed back in a high-pitched, slightly hysterical tone. “I think that is quite enough, Christopher. Perhaps I wasn’t clear.” Her hands were shaking now and she hid them in the folds of her skirts. “I’m asking you to put yourself and others at risk to play nanny to my barbarian of a brother while he reduces everything within arm’s reach to splinters. I’m asking you to set aside time from your duties and your friends for a man who will loathe you and threaten you in return for your kindness.”

Her voice trickled away to a whisper. “I’m asking for too much.” Her chest was heaving, her eyes wide and helpless. “But I can’t do it on my own. And I can’t leave him to drown in his drink. And I have no one else.” A sob escaped, and she covered her mouth with her fingers. “No one else to help me. I do not want to ask this of you. I wish Oliver and I were far away from here where we couldn’t possibly harm you or anyone on the estate. I wish we had never⁠—”

The cue stick dropped from Christopher's lax fingers with a clatter, rolling across the floor. His first steps matched the urgency that roiled through him, but then he forced his feet to slow.

“There is a gamekeeper's cottage nearby, close enough to be convenient but not so close that the sounds of breaking furniture will attract attention. It’s desperately in need of a remodel, but demolition is exhausting work so it’s been left to crumble on its own. The table in the cottage was built there, and it’s far too large to carry out the door in one piece. With any luck, Oliver will rip off a leg or two and take out the westward-facing wall in the process, as it’s beginning to bow. If Oliver destroys the place, it will be helpful unpaid labour. In fact, I'm not sure my conscience will allow his physical exertion to proceed without compensation.”

Christopher had stopped a mere twelve inches away. Near enough for her to close the distance between them effortlessly, but far enough that she could keep her distance if she needed to. He silently begged her to take that last step. To muster up whatever courage remained after laying herself bare.

“Jeremy owes me a few shifts with your brother for his inappropriate leering,” he continued. “No one in this house is unaware of my affection for you, him least of all. A man doesn't haul a fifteen-foot-tall fruit tree up the side of a balcony to garner a woman's notice because his feelings are tepid.” His boots shifted an inch closer. “My feelings are not tepid Sofia. And what you view as an immoderate request, I welcome as an opportunity to remind you of that fact. Oliver, with his twenty-one stone of volatile feelings, is just another pear tree. I would grow you an orchard, Sofia … if you would only let me.”

He held her gaze, daring her to ignore the vehemence of his words and the raw honesty in his eyes. “In a few days, when he is stronger, but before he is well enough to start causing mischief, we’ll move him to the cottage. In the meantime, it may be wise to remove any objects from the cottage that might tempt him to test their missile capabilities. Once he’s there, we can take shifts keeping an eye on him until he is through the worst of it. Then, as he recovers, we’ll engineer a way to keep him busy … some kind of fulfilling work.”

“We need to move him today, Christopher. And soon. When I checked on him this morning, he had already found and consumed a bottle of something that smelled expensive.”

Sofia sounded miserable, and her cheeks pinked with embarrassment. Having regained enough self-control to be certain that touching Sofia would not lead to crushing her against his chest, Christopher reached out and cupped her face in his hand, swiping his thumb across her heated skin. The pad of his thumb tingled where he touched her. What an idiot he was. The desire to pull her close had, in fact, not abated. He doubted it ever would.

“Enough of that now. This isn’t your fault, Sofia, and I won't have you bear the shame for his misdeeds. Come, let's see what makeshift arsenals await us.”

Christopher had not exaggerated the shabbiness of the cottage. The floors sank and creaked beneath layers of dust, and strips of faded, curling wallpaper drooped from the walls dramatically. A brown moth-eaten coat hung from a peg on the wall, and a wooden toy boat sat in the corner beside a miniature hammer. All around her, the cottage was littered with belongings, as if whoever had lived there had disappeared in the middle of the night. She had the eerie feeling of being pulled into someone’s memories from long ago.

“Will His Grace mind you using this space?” She picked up a woman’s shawl from where it hung across a chair. It was simple homespun but embroidered with obvious care. Her fingers traced the loops of stitching, absently trailing across a cluster of pale pink flowers.

“He won’t mind. The people who resided here are long gone.”

Broken bits of glass crackled beneath Christopher’s boots as he walked the length of the room. Pulling a pen knife from his coat pocket, he crouched and used the blade to lift a loose floorboard, then retrieved a small tin box from the darkness beneath it. For a long moment, Christopher just stared at it, running his fingertips through the blanket of dust that covered its surface. He looked fragile. Vulnerable.

One at a time, he lifted the objects up into the single beam of muted sunlight that broke through the grime-coated windowpane. Two toy soldiers, a handful of jacks, a fishing lure, and a crude wooden whistle. He placed each of them back into the tin box reverently, closed the lid, and stood.

His home, then. His toy soldiers.

Christopher said nothing. Instead, he simply turned away, opened a cupboard, and began sorting through a pile of cookware. He looked so alone. So forlorn. She didn’t want to intrude on his privacy, but the urge to comfort him nearly overwhelmed her. And the more she tried to crush the impulse, the larger it became. To distract herself, Sofia folded the shawl she’d found and gently placed it at the bottom of an old cedar chest in the corner. Then she tucked a discarded sachet of dried flowers into the folds.

When she turned, Christopher was staring vacantly at the chest. His chin quivered. “There is no need for that. It’ll be quicker to make a pile outside and burn it all.” Then his eyes flicked back to the wooden boat in the corner. His boat. She was almost certain of it.

If this was Sofia’s childhood home and her feelings were popping up like wild onion sprouts, she would frantically rip them from the ground before anyone could see the imperfections in her garden. In the billiards room, Christopher had known that about her and given her exactly what she needed. He had spared her the indignity of weeping on his shoulder, feigning blindness to her helplessness and wounded pride. He’d deflected her unease with humour until the world felt sturdy again beneath her feet.

But that wasn’t what Christopher needed.

His back was turned as she approached, an old wooden spoon resting in his hand. Sliding her arms around him, she flattened her palms against his stomach, fingers splayed wide, and squeezed. Sofia held him tightly, her cheek pressed to the soft wool of his jacket, offering the sort of comfort she herself was too broken to accept.

Christopher’s taut muscles unfurled in her embrace, and a wash of contentment settled into her bones at being the source of his comfort. She ran her thumbs experimentally up and down his abdomen in what she hoped was a soothing pattern. He let out a long breath.