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“I shall remain for as long as you and your mother wish me to,” he replied, the solemnity of his tone conveying the weight of his promise. “You have my word, Tristan.”

Emma’s heart thudded in her chest even as she struggled with whether to believe him or not.

Satisfied, the boy’s eyes fluttered shut, his breathing deepening into the rhythms of sleep hastened by emotional exhaustion.

Argus, who had followed them upstairs, approached the bed and gently licked Tristan’s hand where it rested atop the coverlet, before settling on the rug.

For several minutes, Emma and Victor kept silent vigil over the sleeping child, who had, against all odds and expectations, brought them together.

Finally, certain that Tristan was securely in the embrace of untroubled dreams, Emma gestured toward the door.

Victor nodded, rising with the fluid grace that had always fascinated her—such a large man with the look of one too impatient and rough yet capable of such controlled delicacy of movement. He bent briefly to murmur a command to Argus, who appeared disinclined to leave his position beside Tristan’s bed.

“He will guard the boy,” he explained as they descended the stairs toward the drawing room. “While I doubt any threat remains, the hound has grown quite attached to your son.”

“As has his master, it would seem,” Emma replied, the words emerging more pointed than she had intended.

Victor pressed his lips together at that.

They reached the drawing room in silence.

The butler appeared briefly to light the lamps and stoke the fire against a chill summer breeze before withdrawing with diplomatic discretion, leaving them in a pool of golden light that seemed to isolate them from the world beyond.

And Emma did not know what to do.

She wanted to ask him why he’d come back, why he was here at all, but the words stayed stuck in her throat, unable to come out.

“You should depart as well,” she said abruptly, the words a direct result of the turmoil churning within her. “The hour is late, and propriety?—”

“Propriety be damned,” Victor interrupted, his customary reserve fracturing to reveal the raw emotion beneath. “I have spent four weeks in self-imposed exile, Emma, tormented by the conviction that my presence in your life represented a danger rather than protection. Tonight has proven the catastrophic error of that judgment.”

Emma turned away, unable to bear the naked vulnerability in his expression.

“You left,” she said, the pain of those weeks evident in her voice despite her attempt at composure. “Tristan asked for you every day. He believed?—”

“I thought only of protecting you both,” he said, his voice rough with self-deprecation. “After the incident at the charity event, when I saw the fear in your eyes?—”

“As I told you then, it was not fear of you,” Emma corrected fiercely, turning to face him fully.

She watched as he struggled with her words.

“I was afraid,” he admitted finally. “Not of scandal or consequence, but of feeling. Of caring for you both so deeply that your loss would destroy me, as surely as Caroline and John’s deaths nearly did.”

The confession hung in the air between them, its naked honesty dissolving Emma’s remaining defenses.

She moved toward him, closing the physical distance that had become a poor proxy for the emotional chasm they had allowed to form.

“And now?” she asked softly, her hand rising to rest against his chest, feeling the steady rhythm of his heart beneath layers of fine linen and wool. “What are you afraid of now, Victor?”

His larger hand covered hers, warm and calloused and achingly familiar. “Only of failing you,” he replied, sincerity resonating in every syllable. “Of being less than what you and Tristan deserve. Of proving unworthy of the trust you have placed in me.”

“I do not require perfection,” Emma said, the words emerging with the clarity of absolute conviction. “I have witnessed that in abundance from men who presented flawless exteriors while harboring rotten souls. What I require—what Tristan and I both need—is honesty. Constancy. The courage to remain present even when circumstances grow difficult.”

Victor’s free hand rose to cup her cheek with an infinite tenderness that positively broke her.

“Then allow me to be honest now,” he said, holding her gaze with unwavering intensity. “I love you, Emma. Not as a delicate creature to be protected, but as a formidable woman who has faced every adversity with unflinching courage. Who has raised a son of exceptional character despite unconscionable obstacles. Who has awakened feelings I believed long buried beneath grief and duty.”

The declaration, so plainly stated yet so profound in its implications, momentarily robbed Emma of speech. She had imagined this moment in the solitude of her chambers, during the long nights of his absence—had constructed elaborate scenarios in which they might reconcile, might acknowledge the depth of feeling that had developed between them.