Page 109 of A Mother for the Blind Duke’s Orphans

“I am,” she said. “Thank you.”

“You have everything you require?”

She knew what he was truly asking about.

Food, shelter, safety, and arrangements.

The measurable forms of care. He was generous with those. Unfailingly so. She had once found comfort in it, but now it felt like being handed a blanket when she was asking not to be left outside.

“Yes,” she said. “I have everything I require.”

His head inclined. “Good.”

Another long silence followed.

Poppy waited. Pride told her not to wait for more mundane questions, such as whether she had slept. Or for him to confess that he had not. She hoped that he would allow even one honest word to pass the guard at his mouth. But he said nothing.

Instead, he asked, “How are the girls?”

The question was kind, and because it was kind, she could not resent it cleanly.

She answered, “They are well.”

Poppy wanted to tell him of small matters, ordinary matters, the kind that made a household feel alive when one was allowed to belong to it. He listened with perfect attention. That was almost unbearable, too. Hector never failed in attention. He could make duty look like devotion until one reached for it and found one’s hands empty.

When she finished, he nodded. “I am glad.”

“You always say that.”

His brow drew together slightly. “Do I?”

“Yes.”

“I mean it.”

“I know.”

That was the trouble. She knew he meant what he said. He simply said so little that mattered.

His face turned more fully toward her. For an instant she thought something in him might yield. His mouth parted, and her pulse answered before he spoke. Then he closed it again.

The small refusal did what no sharp word could have done. It showed her that he had chosen this. Whatever he felt, whatever he feared, he had chosen the return to distance. He had found the place where they had stood before the kiss and stepped back into it as though obedience could erase memory.

Poppy folded her hands before her. “Was there anything else, Your Grace?”

His expression changed. Not much. With Hector, pain often appeared only as stillness.

“No,” he said. “I did not mean to detain you.”

He spoke as if she were a guest with another appointment. Or as if he had not held her face between his warm hands and kissed her senselessly two nights ago.

Poppy curtsied because she knew when she was unwanted and had to leave the room. “Then I shall leave you to your morning.”

“Poppy.”

She stopped at the sound of her name and turned back.

Hector stood as before, but the hand on his cane had tightened. His gray eyes fixed on hers. “I hope you understand that my concern is for your comfort.”