Franny had elected to stay above stairs, and every once in a while, her pale, happy face would peer down at them from a window. But more often, that window remained empty. Because Franny was too busy tending to Matilda and little Katherine to mind the celebration outside. Franny had been planning May Day since February, revising her preparations over and over again until she thought them just perfect. She’d been so excited. But this, Matilda and little Katherine, the beginning of a new generation, mattered to her more.
Raph would not leave his child and wife for long. They’d not even hired a wet nurse. Clara had even had one. Matilda called it beingeconomical. Clara knew better. They just wanted little Katherine all to themselves.
Clara would not mind another child of her own, with Atlas’s blue eyes. But it would have to wait for him to leave and heal and then come home again. And then it would depend on whether he still wanted her; on whether he viewed her as an obligation, a burden, or as his true wife. On whether he still loved her.
A heavy weight, warm and comforting, settled at her side. She knew without looking and smiled into the greeting. “Atlas. Come to celebrate the spring with all the rest?”
“No. I have something to show you.” He threaded his hand with hers. “Will you come?”
“Of course.”
She followed Atlas to the music room where the rest of the family, Matilda and Raph and the baby included, waited. But waited for what?
Raph fussed about Matilda, who was stretched on a low sofa, draping blankets across her legs and tucking a swaddle around little Katherine’s sweet face. Matilda swatted him away, and he pulled a chair close to her, settled himself into it, and stretched one leg long before crossing his arms over his chest.
Atlas took up residence by the pianoforte, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot under the gazes of every single person in the room. Raph and Matilda, Franny, Zander and Fiona, even Alfie, who ran to Clara’s side when she entered.
“What’s happening?” he asked.
“I confess I do not know,” she said. “I suppose we shall see.”
Atlas cleared his throat and seemed to focus on a point somewhere on the wall above everybody’s heads. “Thank you for assembling. I wish to play a song for you.”
Franny lifted halfway from her seat then plopped down again, clutching her hands to her chest. “Is it— Are you… finally giving me a song? For your inheritance?”
He nodded.
She inhaled deeply and exhaled with a nod. “Very well. Go ahead.”
Clara and Alfie sat as silence descended on the room, and Atlas sat at the bench behind the pianoforte. Breathing slowly, he bent his neck and dropped his gaze to the keys. His fingers poised above them flexed and curled, froze, and then he inhaleddeep and strong and raised his head. His gaze caught Clara’s, and he gave a little stretch of his fingers.
Then the opening note of a song thrilled through the air as he parted his lovely lips and sang. “On distant shores I lost my way, the sky came crashing down. Star-shaped wounds across my skin, the clouds my burial gown. Home was lost and beauty dead, until she gave me life.”
Clara’s chest tightened. This was not his usual sort of song, jolly and sweet and about the first buds of love in a man’s heart or the rowdy spiraling of lust through a man’s body. This was shadowed, and this was raw, and this brought tears to her eyes. She dared not look at the others.
She looked only at Atlas as his lips parted once more.
“The ocean brought me home again, but night still held my soul. Home welcomed me with open arms, but my heart had become a coal. Home was lost and beauty dead, until she gave me life.” His voice was the most perfect thing she’d ever heard, deep and rich, a warm bath she wanted to soak in. It possessed the bitter taste of sorrow and yet the notes did not wobble or shake. They rose into the air with the heat and strength of the summer sun, promising something beyond the sadness.
“An unexpected joy did rise before my eyes, a woman’s lovely form like welcome springtime skies. Her tears, they gave me purpose. My heart, it leapt to life. The dark lifted from my shoulders every time I kissed my wife.” He lifted his head and met her gaze on the final word. His fingers stilled, dropped into his lap, and the pianoforte’s tremble disappeared from the air.
A sob escaped her lips, and she clapped it silent behind both hands.
The rustle of skirts broke the spell of silence that had gripped them, and Franny glided like a ghost across the room, sank to her knees beside her son at the pianoforte bench. She folded his hands between hers as if they were sacred relics and rested herforehead on top of their hands. With a breaking voice, said, “I am filled with sorrow.”
“Bollocks, Atlas.” Raph pinched the bridge of his nose, his gruff voice quiet. “Why didn’t you tell anyone? Have you been… miserable? All this time?”
The bench scraped across the floor as Atlas stood, tugging on his cravat and pulling his mother to her feet. “Not miserable. Not all the time. But not truthful, either. My leg has never quite been the same. And I am… troubled at times. Guns. Gunpowder. The mere scent—” His face paled, and he closed his eyes. “I didn’t want you to know.” He walked his mother back to her seat. “It’s fine, Mother. Truly.”
But tears rolled down her cheeks.
Zander paled. “All those things you’ve always done for years around the estate. Have you been in much pain?”
“No. It’s manageable.” Then he shook his head, said softer, “At times it’s not. Truthfully, at times it’s not.” He swallowed. “Truthfully, it hurts here more.” He pushed his fingertips into his chest. “Not all the time. Very little recently.” His gaze locked onto Clara’s once more. “I had planned to leave.”
“And go where?” Matilda demanded.
Atlas shrugged. “Europe. All places I’ve been before. I wanted to see them differently. Without the sounds and smells of war. I thought I needed to, but I’m not going to go anymore.”
