Page 33

T he side door yielded to Graham’s touch without a sound. He slipped through the servants’ entrance. The kitchen lay in darkness, copper pots gleaming dully in the moonlight that slanted through tall windows.

He paused, listening. No footsteps above. No murmur of voices. The house had settled into sleep hours ago, leaving him free to creep through his own halls like some vagrant seeking shelter.

Coward.

The word followed him up the narrow back stairs, past the sleeping quarters where his staff dreamed peacefully, unaware their master had spent the day wandering London’s streets like a madman.

The hospital had been mercifully quiet—no emergencies to occupy his hands or silence the accusations that circled his mind like carrion birds.

He’d walked instead. Miles of pavement beneath his feet, through neighborhoods that grew progressively grimmer as the day wore on. Bermondsey. Whitechapel. Places where a man could disappear into the press of bodies and no one would mark his passage or wonder at his purpose.

But even there, in the stench and squalor, he’d found no peace. Only the memory of Abigail’s face when he’d turned away from her. The careful composure that had settled over her features like a veil.

I chose you.

Her words had echoed with every step, every breath. She’d chosen him, and he’d repaid her faith by fleeing into the night like some green boy afraid of his wedding bed.

Graham reached the main floor and hesitated at the crossroads of corridors.

To the left lay the stairs that would take him to his chambers—to the connecting door he’d locked before the wedding, the barrier he’d erected between them.

To the right, his study beckoned with its familiar shadows and blessed solitude.

He turned right.

The floor creaked beneath his boots as he loosened his cravat. A single lamp burned in the corridor, casting just enough light to navigate by. Someone had left it for him.

Abigail, no doubt.

He’d been a husband for precisely one day and had already failed spectacularly at the endeavor.

He pushed the door open with a sigh.

Abigail stood by his desk in her nightgown. The lamplight gilded her profile in soft firelight. Her hair was unpinned, streaming down her shoulders and back. Her hand rested on a small gilt box as she placed it on his desk, and she laid a hand on her chest, startled at his sudden appearance.

“I didn’t mean to intrude. The girls brought you a present while we were shopping today,” she said, pulling her wrap closer around her.

While he’d been wandering the streets, she’d been caring for his nieces. Taking them out, buying them things, being the guardian they needed while he nursed his wounds in dark alleys.

“You shouldn’t have troubled yourself,” he said and pressed his lips together as a shadow crossed her face.“I mean, thank you.”

He hovered a few steps inside the room. She should be angry, yell at him perhaps. Not bring him gifts for God’s sake.

She regarded him a beat longer but he could conjure nothing more.“I should let you work,” Abigail said, moving toward the door.

His hand shot out, catching her wrist. “Wait.”

She went still beneath his touch, but didn’t pull away.

He cleared his throat. “Please.”

He pulled her to him before, drawing her close before he could think better of it.

His arms hesitated around her shoulders, the way one might gather a bundle of kindling, uncertain of weight or fragility.

She stood stiffly against him for a moment, but then her hands came to rest at his sides and she exhaled, as if something inside her had loosened.

“I’m sorry if I pushed too hard last night,” she whispered.

“No.” The word tore from his chest. He stopped and took a slow, deep breath. “I’m not...” He swallowed hard. “I’m not good at this.”

Her grip around his waist tightened. “None of us are born knowing how to be married.”

“That isn’t—” He broke off, frustrated. “It isn’t just marriage. It’s...” He gestured vaguely, encompassing the space between them, the silence of the house, the expectations he couldn’t fulfill.

“Living?” she supplied gently.

He inhaled shakily. Yes. Living. Not just surviving, not just enduring, but inhabiting each moment fully, with all its terrors and wonders.

“Perhaps,” he conceded.

She nodded, as if he’d confirmed something she already suspected. “Well, fortunately, it’s a skill one can improve with practice.”

A reluctant smile tugged at his mouth. “Are you offering lessons?”

“I might be persuaded.” Her answering smile was tentative but real. “Though I should warn you, my credentials are somewhat lacking.”

The tension between them eased a fraction. Graham leaned into her warmth that had begun to seep through his coat.

“Tomorrow,” he said suddenly. “Would you—that is, might I take you and the girls to the park? If the weather holds.”

Her head tipped back enough for him to see the beginning of a smile at the corner of her mouth. “If the weather holds,” she agreed and they both knew it was not rain they were speaking of.

She stepped back, breaking the circle of his arms. He let her go, though his hands flexed at his side, missing the feel of her.

“Do you remember Timothy?” she asked, fiddling with the fringe on her wrap.

Graham gave a soft snort. “The boy who interrogated me in the Beacon House hallway and declared we were both hopelessly smitten? Vividly.”

That drew a faint laugh from her. “He’s meddlesome. And occasionally profound.” She paused, then added, “We have an agreement, he and I. When one of us is scared, we’re allowed to borrow each other’s brave. Just enough to get through the hard part.”

She glanced up, meeting his eyes. “I’d like to extend that arrangement to you.”

His mouth twisted. “You think I’m frightened?”

A sudden knot of resistance formed, tight and hot between his shoulders.

Of course he was frightened. He was terrified.

But to have it named—so gently, so plainly—was almost unbearable.

He forced himself not to cross his arms over his chest as she held him in her gaze, the same gaze that stopped him from killing her attacker in that fetid alleyway.

“You don’t have to accept it, but if the weather grows stormy and you find yourself looking for the door again,” she continued, voice quieter now, “try borrowing some brave instead. It’s meant for staying.”

She stepped away then, collected but not distant, and moved toward the door.

He watched her go, the silence closing gently in her wake. At the threshold, she paused. “Don’t let the girls eat them all,” she said, nodding toward the box. “They’re for you.”

The door closed behind her with a soft click, leaving Graham alone with the fading warmth of her touch and the echo of her words.

He moved to his desk and opened the little box. Chocolate drops, arranged in neat rows.

Graham took one, letting it melt slowly on his tongue as he stared at the closed door. Borrowed brave, she’d called it. As if courage could be passed from hand to hand like a coin.

He wasn’t sure he believed it but if anyone had courage to spare it was his wife.

Heather plunged through the flock of ducks with the enthusiasm of a cavalry charge, arms windmilling as she scattered birds in every direction. Feathers flew and indignant quacks erupted across the pond’s edge.

“Come back!” she called, skidding to a halt at the water’s edge. “I have bread for you!”

Mary Ann hung back, clutching her portion of bread against her chest. “They do not care for being chased,” she said, eyeing a particularly large mallard that had circled around behind them. She took a careful step away from it. “I believe that one means mischief.”

Abigail stifled a yawn behind her gloved hand.

The night had been long, her thoughts circling like the very birds they now attempted to feed.

She sank onto the stone bench with relief, wondering briefly if they should have brought Ms. Norwood after all.

The woman had a way of corralling the girls’ energy that Abigail, in her current state, could only envy.

The ducks regarded Heather’s offering with imperial disdain, as if bread crusts were beneath creatures of their stature.

“Maybe they don’t like bread,” Mary Ann observed, scattering a handful of crumbs in front of the finicky fowls.

“They’ve likely been fed a bakery full of treats this morning considering half of London is here,” Abigail said, settling on the stone bench overlooking the pond. The morning had proved warmer than expected, and she turned her face into the sun, enjoying the heat.

As the girls continued to coax the recalcitrant ducks to eat, she glanced up the gentle slope where Graham had positioned himself beneath a sprawling oak, arranging their picnic with military precision.

Each item from the basket found its appointed place on the blanket—plates aligned, napkins folded into perfect triangles, cutlery positioned at exact angles.

As if by ordering these small things, he might somehow contain the wild uncertainty of a family outing.

He’d kept his promise about the park, despite the shadows still lingering beneath his eyes. The weather had held—both outside and between them.

It’s a start .

“Uncle Graham says ducks remember faces,” Heather announced, abandoning her bread to chase a particularly fleet-footed bird along the water’s edge.

“Then they shall know to hide from you next time,” Mary Ann said, edging away from several ducks who had discovered the feast.

The shadow fell across her lap. Abigail looked up, shading hereyes against the sun.

“What a charming picture.”

A gentleman approached with the deliberate pace of someone who expected others to wait for his arrival. His walking stick—ebony with a silver ferrule far too ornate for a simple park outing—struck the path with each step, like a conductor’s baton marking time.