"This is your father," Catherine said, her voice steady now. "He has come to meet you."

A pause. Henry stepped forward, his small face serious.

"Are you here to make Mama sad again?"

The question arrived without malice, spoken with the blunt curiosity of a child who had learned that men could hurt his mother. Rexam felt it lodge beneath his ribs like a splinter.

"No," he said, and the word scraped his throat. "I am here because I made a terrible mistake, and I want to put it right."

Margaret rose and walked to her mother's side, slipping her hand into Catherine's. She did not speak, but her gaze held the same weariness as Henry's. Catherine touched her daughter's hair.

"Your father would like to know you. Whether you wish to know him is your choice."

The afternoon sun slanted across the garden. A bee droned among the lavender. Rexam crouched down, bringing himself to the children's level, and said nothing more. He simply waited, letting them study him, letting the silence do its work.

After a long while, Henry extended the trowel. "There are worms," he said. "Do you like worms?"

The Duke of Rexam, who owned half a county and had sat in the House of Lords, accepted the muddy implement with a gravity befitting a knighthood. "I have no strong opinion on worms," he said, "but I am willing to learn."

Part Six

The weeks that followed were a quiet campaign. Rexam came to the Bloomsbury garden every Tuesday and Thursday, and he did not leave until the children tired of his company. He brought small gifts, a wooden horse for Henry, a book of pressed flowers for Margaret, and he never complained when they ignored him or forgot his name. He learned that Henry liked to be read to about ships and that Margaret could outrun any boy in the square.

Catherine observed from the parlor window or a bench beneath the pear tree, saying little. She answered his questions about the children's habits and preferences, but she did not invite him into the house, nor did she speak of the past. Her trust was a locked room, and he had no key.

At midsummer, he invited them to Ashford Chase. It was a risk. The estate was his grandmother's territory, and the Dowager Duchess had made her opinions on Catherine known with surgical precision over the years, but the twins deserved to see the land that would one day belong to Henry, and Rexam wanted them there, even if only for a day.

The Dowager received them in the great hall, a woman carved from ivory and old velvet, her silver hair crowned with a widow's cap. She looked at Catherine as though examining a stain on the carpet.

"So," she said, her voice dry as dust. "You have returned."

Catherine curtsied with faultless composure. "I have not returned, my lady. I am visiting at His Grace's invitation."

"And these are the children." The Dowager studied Henry and Margaret, who stood close to their mother, their small faces wary. "They have the look of the family. I grant you breeding will out even under adverse circumstances."

The insult hung in the air like smoke. Catherine's expression did not change.

"Children," she said softly. "Greet your great-grandmother."

Henry executed a clumsy bow. Margaret curtsied. Neither child smiled.

Rexam stepped forward, placing himself between his grandmother and his wife. "Madam," he said, and his tone was the one he used in the Lords when debate had exhausted his patience, "Mrs. Ashby is the mother of my children and the Duchess of Rexam in all but the world's acknowledgment. She will be treated with respect in this house, or I shall close it and remove to the dower house for the remainder of your stay."

The Dowager's mouth tightened. The battle of wills lasted only a moment before the old woman inclined her head a quarter of an inch, the closest she would come to surrender.

Afterward, they walked the long gallery, the twins racing ahead between suits of armor. Catherine paused before a portrait of a long-dead Ashby duke and said without turning, "You did not need to defend me. I am accustomed to her barbs."

"You should not be."

She glanced at him, and something softened in her face. "No. I should not be."

That softening was a crack in the wall, a sliver of light. He reached for her hand, and she let him take it for a full three seconds before withdrawing.

The next day, back in London, Catherine stopped at a shop in Bond Street to purchase ribbon for Margaret's hair. As she exited, Lady Anoria descended from a passing carriage. She was dressed in mourning, though no one had died. The gossip had turned against her.

The confession Rexam had circulated had vindicated Catherine and exposed Anoria's malice. Invitations had dried up. She was leaving London, she announced, but not before imparting a final confidence.

"You think he loves you," Anoria said, her smile thin as a blade. "He does not. He learned of the children, and duty consumed him. You are the obstacle between him and his heirs."

"Nothing more. Once he has secured them, your purpose will end. Men like Rexam do not change. They only wait."

She climbed back into her carriage and departed, leaving Catherine standing on the pavement with a packet of ribbon clutched in her hand and a cold hollow opening beneath her ribs.