The Firstborn

Chapter Twenty

"My lord?" Sophia whispered, and placed her hand on his shoulder, giving him a gentle shake.

Haughton responded with a sort of snuffling sound, and then a snore, and then he turned his head so that she could see his face.

Dark, untidy strands of hair fell across his forehead, while his beard had grown in even more since when she'd last seen him only a few hours before. But what caught her attention was the lack of lines and strain on the skin around his eyes and mouth, the smooth, almost boyish expression that graced his slumbering face, an expression she wondered if he was even capable of achieving during his waking hours.

But she felt sorry for him... No, not sorry. Strangely, it seemed to be more of a kinship that she experienced with him, despite the differences in their sex and station. This man who strove to do what was right, even when he sometimes went about it in the most high-handed of ways.

Her hand still resting on his shoulder, she leaned forward until her mouth was quite close to his ear. "My lord," she said again, and did not back away until his eyelids flickered and he raised his head from his arm.

He blinked at her, his eyes bleary and unfocused, as if he could not see her. And then he passed his hand over his face, scratched his knuckles against his unshaven jaw, and looked up at her again.

"Sophia."

It was not the first time he had neglected his manners and failed to address her by her surname. Last night, she had heard her Christian name on his lips several times, though her own exhaustion and the urgency of the situation had deemed it one of the least of her concerns.

He looked at her this morning as he had the previous night. Gone was the disdain she remembered him exhibiting on their first meeting, several months ago in her cottage in Stantreath. It had been during her stay in Derbyshire, she realized, that the tension between them had begun to relent, and for the first time in their acquaintance, they had begun to work together towards making the best future for their nephew.

Another blink, and some of the shadows of tiredness returned to his face. The lines returned as well, and she thought he looked older than his years, though the state of his hair and his clothes were not helping him in that regard.

"It is morning," she pointed out, even though he was perfectly capable of looking over his shoulder at the light coming through the windows into the study. "I wondered if you had heard anything during the night..."

Haughton rubbed his eyes and swept his hair back from his forehead, unwittingly setting it standing up in several directions at once. "If I had received any news, I would not have hesitated to wake you at once. I sent off a dozen messages, have garnered only a single reply as of yet, and did little more than twirl my thumbs until I... Well, until you found me here."

He sat up in his chair, only to then notice the mess the spilled ink bottle had made of his shirt and the contents of his desk. "Damn it all," he muttered, and attempted to organize the mess while Sophia gathered up the papers he had knocked to the floor as he slept. "There's no need for you to..." he said, but stopped himself when she stood before him, a stack of crumpled papers in her hands. "Thank you," he amended, contrite, and took the stack from her.

"Did you get any rest?" he asked without looking over at her. She had given him her handkerchief to help sop up the ink, and she watched as he continued to fumble over the mess until she put a hand on his elbow to stop him.

"More than you, I gather." Her fingers tightened on his arm until he abandoned his cluttered desk and turned around to face her. He looked broken, she thought. Tired and disheveled and only half-dressed, and bearing the strain of a problem she had brought to his doorstep. "Is there anything that can be done right now? Anything we can accomplish beyond... twirling our thumbs over tea and buns?"