be with him. Alice, who had passed away two years after her mother, at just five years old.
Some losses eased with time. These days, his grief over Caroline’s death was just a faint ache. But even now, fifteen years later, Alice’s loss had the power to overwhelm him.
As the years wore on, it felt like Henry was the only person who remembered her, his darling youngest girl. Guarding her memory had begun to feel like a sacred responsibility. One that both pained him and was, somehow, the pinnacle of everything he had ever been: Alice’s father.
Henry thought of her every day—that was something no one else knew, not really. He spoke to his other children of Alice from time to time, and they would humour him with kind words and memories of their little sister. But he knew they did not really understand how altered—how fundamentally altered—he had been by her death. That he had lost a part of himself that day that could never be made good.
Caroline would have understood, and while he was glad she had been spared that grief, sometimes it was hard to bear alone. To have no one who shared the depths of his sorrow, or missed Alice as he always would.
His sorrow would always be there, but he was fortunate to have joy in his life too. And if he was a little melancholy just now over the slowly growing distance between him and his children, perhaps those feelings were the impetus he needed to force himself out of his comfortable existence.
Like a fledging trembling on the edge of the nest.
Henry eyed the grey temples of the man in the looking glass.
A rather elderly fledging, in his case.
Sighing, he turned away and went to get dressed.
Marianne and Jeremy were in the breakfast room when he arrived downstairs.
Henry had made a wedding present of the townhouse to his daughter and her new husband prior to their marriage, and Marianne had promptly redecorated the place from top to bottom. The old breakfast room, which had been a rather dark and chilly room at the back of the house, had been turned into a music room, and the new breakfast room, which got the morning sun, was warm and cheerful.
“Good morning, darling,” Henry replied fondly, dropping a kiss on her dark head. He was taking the opportunity to enjoy as many of these affectionate moments as he could while he had her. Soon she would be gone—Marianne and Jeremy planned to leave London within the next two weeks for Jeremy’s estate in Kent, where the baby would be born. Indeed, since Henry had arrived in London two days ago, all Marianne seemed to talk about was how eager she was to go, and how busy and uncomfortable London was at this time of year.
Henry smiled at his son-in-law. “Good morning, Jeremy.”
“Morning,” Jeremy returned. “Did you sleep well?”
“Yes, thank you,” Henry lied, as he made his way to the sideboard, where he filled a plate before returning to the table where Marianne was pouring his tea. He watched as she added the precisely correct amount of milk and passed the cup and saucer to him.
She was the only one who ever got it just right. It was a thought that made him happy and sad at once.
He smiled brightly at her. “So,” he said. “Do you have any plans for the day?”
“Two morning calls,” Marianne said. “A duty one to Aunt Tilly”—she pulled a face, making Henry smile. His older sister, Mathilda, was something of a trial to say the least—“and one to see Becky Sanderton—do you recall Becky? We came out the same season and got on famously. She’s marrying Auberon Smyth in the autumn. He hasn’t got two feathers to fly with, but she tells me it’s love.” She rolled her eyes. “Then I’m going into town to get some lace and ribbons to trim some of my old gowns with—the dressmaker is letting them out.” She sighed. “Clothes are such a tedious business when one is in an interesting condition.”
Jeremy looked mortified, a faint flush across his cheeks. Henry had to check a smile. Poor Jeremy always got so embarrassed when Marianne made even subtle references to pregnancy or married life in front of Henry.
“Well,” Henry said, “how about I relieve some of the tedium by taking you to Gunters for an ice after?”
Marianne brightened. “That would be lovely! Though I’d rather go to Mercier’s on the Strand.