Page 64 of A Mother for the Blind Duke’s Orphans

“It means I cannot lie to your uncle.”

Aurora looked down.

“But,” Poppy continued, “it also means I do not carry tales merely to make a child feel ashamed.”

The small hands in Aurora’s lap unclenched slightly.

“Is he angry?” she whispered.

“No.”

“How do you know?”

Because Poppy had seen His Grace pause outside this very door after supper, one hand lifted, not knocking. She had seen the worry he concealed beneath impatience when Aurora would not eat or Princess cried.

“Because he loves you,” Poppy said simply.

Aurora absorbed this with suspicion.

This time Aurora’s mouth did curve, faintly. Then the curve vanished. “I do not mean to be bad.”

“I know.” Poppy brushed her hair aside.

“I try to stay in bed. I get in. I shut my eyes.”

“And then what happens?”

“And then I miss home.”

Poppy immediately thought of the orphanage. She had missed it too.

“I am there even when I shut my eyes,” Aurora said, frustrated now.

“Does your new room feel too large?” Poppy had to remember every detail so she could help Aurora.

Aurora nodded at once, relief flashing across her face because Poppy had found the word. “It is all too large.”

This house, with its noble rooms and high ceilings, its spaces made for lineage and ceremony, had turned itself upon a child not by malice but by scale. The duke had brought Aurora into safety and placed her in a chamber fit for a beloved niece of a duke. He had given her what he had been taught to give: quality, privacy, and dignity. A proper room with a proper bed and a door of her own.

Poppy felt tenderness for His Grace, for the child who had learned that love must look like provision before it looked like closeness. At the life that had made him Duke before it had allowed him to be Uncle.

“What do you miss about the small room?” she asked.

Aurora shrugged, but it was not indifference; it was a child’s attempt to make pain smaller by giving it a smaller gesture. “I could listen.”

“Listen to what?”

“To Princess’s breathing.”

Poppy’s throat tightened.

“She is not with me,” Aurora said. “She has her own room.”

“Would you like her to be with you?” Poppy did not like that they were separated either, but the duke commanded it be done so the sisters would not depend on each other.

“At the orphanage, I could hear everybody. Even when they snored.” She made a face, then seemed to remember she was miserable and folded back into herself. “It was noisy.”

“Did the noise trouble you?”