allow a brown-haired boy to exit. Andrew grasped the handle as he navigated the steps and stopped not far from where Fairfax stood.
Clara’s heart pounded wildly, her blood filling with a chaotic mixture of joy and despair. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think past the single desperate thought that her son stood a scant distance away and had no idea she was right here.
Fairfax turned, lifting his arm as a breeze threatened to tip his hat from his head.
In that instant, Clara saw it. Andrew flinched, hunching his shoulders into his coat and taking a half-step back. The movement was almost unnoticeable, or at the very least attributable to a gust of cold air or unpleasant odor…but Clara knew her son’s reaction for what it was, and the very marrow of her bones froze to ice.
“No.” The word scraped her throat like rusted metal. “No.”
She wrenched her hand from Sebastian’s grip and flung open the carriage door. Rage swamped her so fast, so hard, that murder felt within her grasp. She plunged with reckless abandon across the street. “Andrew!”
“Clara!” Sebastian shouted from behind her.
A screeching noise filled the air, the yell of a cart driver, the whinnying cry of a frightened horse.
“Andrew!”
Her father and son both turned. Fairfax moved with the swiftness of a lizard, shoving Andrew toward the town house steps and snapping orders at one of the footmen. The man rushed between Clara and Andrew, blocking the boy from her line of sight.
“No!” Blinded by tears, Clara reached the other side of the street the instant the town house door opened and the second footman pushed Andrew inside. “I won’t let you do this! I won’t let you keep him from me!”
“Stay away, Clara.” Fairfax faced her, pointing his forefinger as if to condemn her. “You have no right to him.”
“I do have a right to him!” Clara’s chest burned with anguish. “I’m his mother. Andrew!”
The footman at the door grunted suddenly and grabbed his shin. A small figure darted around him and back down the steps.
Tears streamed down Clara’s cheeks as Andrew approached closer…closer…a few more steps and he would be in her unbreakable embrace, his arms around her neck, and she would run and run and keep running.…
“Stop.” Fairfax flung his arm out to arrest the boy’s flight. Andrew slammed into the barrier and stumbled backward, his wide-eyed gaze locked to Clara’s. Even then, she saw the desperation seething in his young soul.
Before Clara could move forward again, the footman hurried down the steps to grasp Andrew’s shoulder and pull him back toward the house.
Fairfax stepped in front of Clara. Her breath lodged in her throat as she lifted her terrified gaze to her father. Cold laced his expression, his features as immovable as the rocky outcropping of a cliff.
“Please…” She whispered the desperate, broken plea. Sebastian’s hand closed over her arm.
Her father didn’t acknowledge the other man’s presence. Fairfax stood rigidly, feet apart, the stance of a man of power. He stared at Clara, his eyes stamped with utter detachment, stark and hard as a fossil.
In that instant, Clara knew whatever love he might have once felt for her had dissolved into nothing. Just as she knew her own heart had long ago cast him out.
A second footman stepped in front of her.
“Get out of my way.” A flame of renewed fury spilled over Clara. She lunged at the man, clawing at his face, kicking his shins, but he was an unbreachable wall until his big hands closed over her shoulders and pulled her toward the dark interior of her father’s carriage.
Another pair of arms closed around Clara from behind, yanking her from the footman’s grip. Sebastian half-dragged, half-carried her away as Clara frantically struggled to get loose.
People had stopped to gape at the commotion, but there was no sign of a seven-year-old boy with eyes the color of toffee…
The black door of the town house slammed shut.
He was gone.
Clara collapsed to the ground, sobs wrenching her, every breath pulsing anguish through her entire body. Sebastian pulled her closer, his arms tightening, the wall of his chest solid against her back. He was saying something, she felt the movement of his lips against her hair, but she couldn’t hear him past the sobbing inside her head.
Finally, when her last cries had left her wrung out and empty, she let him guide her back to his carriage and crumpled against the seat. She wanted to beat on the town house door until her knuckles bled, but no