Page 128 of A Mother for the Blind Duke’s Orphans

Poppy’s laughter answered before Hector could restrain his own. It moved softly through the room, bright with affection. He felt it before he fully heard it, the way he had learned to feel Poppy’s nearness in the slight change of the air, the pause that came before she spoke, and the whisper of her skirts when she shifted her stance.

There had been a time when he had mistaken sight for certainty. He knew better now. Sight had never told him what a person was. It had only offered surfaces and dared him to be satisfied with them. Poppy had taught him a slower grammar. The small intake of breath when she was moved. The touch of her fingers on his sleeve before she asked something difficult. The warmth of her skin when she came near enough to be found without reaching.

A faint brightness hovered where she stood near the window, some mingling of morning light and the pale color of her gown, and when the air stirred, it lifted strands of her dark blonde hair. He could not see them as another man might. He could not count them, nor name the exact shade of gold or brown where light met them. But the blur about her head softened, trembled, and his mind made reverence of what his eyes could not finish.

“Perhaps your ribbon can serve as an early birthday present,” Poppy suggested. “She already cherishes it.”

Aurora’s indignation sharpened at once. “That is not fair.”

Princess chuckled from the cot with brutal timing.

“It is not a laughing matter,” Aurora told her.

The baby laughed again.

Hector lowered his chin to hide the smile threatening the order of his face. “Aurora, come here.”

There had once been a delay after such an invitation. A little pause in which Aurora weighed the safety of obedience against the risk of nearness. Now her steps came readily, though not without drama. She crossed the boards with a child’s uneven haste, and the floor announced each footfall. He saw her as a moving shape, then felt the light pressure of her small body, stopping near his knee.

“I am here,” she said.

Hector smiled. “So I gathered.”

“You cannot know unless I tell you.”

“I know more than you suspect.”

She considered that.

He eased his fingers from Princess’s grasp only long enough to set his hand where Aurora could choose to take it if she wished. After a moment, she did. Her fingers curled around his thumb. She was less hesitant than before, but still careful in ways that told him too much about the past. He closed his hand gently over hers.

“Would it truly be so terrible to share with your sister?” he asked her gently.

“Yes,” she answered too quickly.

Poppy made a small sound, but Hector kept his attention on Aurora. “Then it is acceptable if you have prepared another gift for her.”

Aurora went still.

He knew that stillness. It was the pause before a child discovered the consequences of her own argument.

“I did not get her anything else,” she said slowly.

“No?”

“No.” A faint worry entered her voice. “Was I meant to?”

“A birthday generally benefits from a gift.”

“It is not her birthday yet.”

“You have made that point well.”

“Then—”

“But if the ribbon is not to be considered an early gift,” he said, “you may need another.”

Aurora released his hand and, from the rustle of fabric and the air displaced near his knee, flailed both arms in the manner of one conducting a furious orchestra of thought.