Page 56 of A Highly Unlikely Duchess
Theodore looked at his own hand as though it had done something without consulting him. Then he did it again. Thesame slow movement, the same deliberate pace, and Frederick's breathing changed within seconds, deepened and steadied.
It was strange.
He could say that plainly, at least to himself, strange and entirely outside anything he had done before. He had spent years being responsible for nobody but himself, answering to nobody but himself. Now he was sitting in a child's bed in his own house with his hand moving through a child's hair, the weight of a small sleeping body gradually leaning into his side, and he did not know what to call any of it.
But he did not want to move.
That was the thing he had not expected. Not the strangeness of it, but the fact that the strangeness did not bother him. He was doing something he did not know how to do, and it felt, inexplicably and without any warning, like exactly the right place to be.
Frederick's hand found his forearm in his sleep. Small fingers curling around it without any intention behind them, simply finding something solid and holding on.
Theodore looked at the small hand on his arm.
He kept his hand moving.
Everything, he thought, was starting to feel new. The house. The corridors at night. This room. This boy. The particular quality of being needed by someone who didn't ask for much and trusted you anyway.
New, and quieter than he expected, and considerably more than he had bargained for when he rang that bell pull an hour ago.
He looked at Frederick's sleeping face, and he began to shut his eyes too.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Emily blinked rapidly, shaking her head as if to clear a lingering dream.
She had to be seeing things.
She stood at the threshold of the nursery, the early morning light filtering through the heavy drapes in soft, golden slats, and there, in the center of the bed, was a sight she hadn't prepared for in a thousand years.
Theodore was fast asleep, his frame curled awkwardly, but protectively around Frederick. Fully dressed, above the blankets, his back against the headboard, his long legs stretched out in front of him, and his head dropped forward at a particular angle. Frederick was tucked against his side with the boneless, absolute trust of a sleeping child, his small face turned into Theodore's arm, one hand curled loosely around the fabric of his shirt.
She looked away. She looked back. The scene remained exactly as it had been.
Slowly, Emily moved forward on instinct, her heart hammering against her ribs. Her first thought was to check Frederick’s fever. She leaned over Theodore's sleeping form, reaching out to press the back of her hand to Frederick’s forehead to check his temperature.
But before her fingers could make contact, a hand shot out with the swift, mindless precision of a hunter.
Theodore caught her wrist.
She froze.
He was still asleep. She could see that immediately, the slow, even breathing, the weight of him still entirely relaxed, the eyes still closed. Slowly, as if guided by some deep, subconscious instinct for comfort, he drew her hand down.
His head turned toward her hand. She felt his breath against her knuckles, warm, and then he did something that undid her entirely. He brought her hand toward him, still in his sleep, tucking it against his chest. He snuggled into her hand, pulling it closer until it was pinned against the heat of his chest, his cheek resting perfectly in her palm as if she were a pillow made specifically for him.
The sensory overload hit Emily like a physical blow. She had to bend low, her knees hitting the rug by the bedside as she was pulled into his orbit. The heat of him was staggering, radiating through her skin and sending a violent swarm of butterflies through her stomach. Her heart wasn't just beating; it was thrumming, a frantic, tingling rhythm that made her fingers tremble.
She looked at him.
At his face in the early morning light. At his jaw, which was sharper than usual without the animation of expression over it. At his hair, which had given up entirely and fallen across his forehead, dark gold and entirely without order, curling slightly at the temple.
She had never seen him like this. She had seen him charming, infuriating, sharp, teasing, and, on one occasion, on a staircase, unexpectedly gentle. She had never seen him unguarded. She had never seen him simply asleep, unaware, and human in the way that everyone was human when nobody was watching.
She thought, with a clarity she could not have produced at any other hour, that he was the most unreasonably handsome person she had ever been this close to.
His heartbeat was very steady under her palm.
She was going to have to remove her hand.
