Nathan was crouched in the grass at the edge of the polo field, one knee pressing into the damp earth, and the boy was still attached to his jacket like a limpet. The crowd had thinned slightlyy, and the jazz band had started another song.
"So," Nathan said. "Do you like horses?"
The child stared at him.
"I don't," Nathan continued, a bit unnerved by the child's wide eyed gaze peering into his soul. "They're too big. And they smell."
Nothing.
"Okay. Different topic. Do you like champagne? No. Forget I said that. You're what, four? Five? You didn't hear that."
Nothing.
"Great talk," Nathan said. "We should do this again. Where are your parents?"
He was running out of material. That almost never happened. He had spent his entire adult life in rooms full of people who expected him to say something funny, and he had never once failed to deliver. But the child was not a room full of people. The child was a small, rigid boy with tear tracks on his cheeks and his fists in Nathan's jacket, and Nathan had no idea what to do with him.
He was about to try a third conversational gambit when the crowd parted. People simply moved, the way water moves around a stone, and Nathan looked up to see what they were making room for.
The man walking toward them was tall and straight-backed, with dark hair falling past his shoulders in waves. Nathan noticed that first, and then he noticed the way the man was dressed in a perfectly tailored dark suit. His eyes were on the child, and only the child.
"Theo."
The name came out of him quietly. Nathan watched the child's head turn, and the small body stiffen. Watched the grip on his jacket tighten instead.
The man's face did something complicated. Then it went smooth again.
He crouched down, bringing himself to Theo's level. He reached out a hand, slowly, as though approaching a wounded animal.
"Theo," he said again. "It's me. It's Papa."
Theo didn't move.
Nathan felt a strange, unexpected pang somewhere in his chest. He didn't know what to do with it, so he ignored it.
The man sighed, and raised himself to address Nathan. "Mr Beaumont?"
Nathan blinked, noticing the resemblance in their faces except the mouth. He had expected gratitude, maybe a handshake or a relieved parent saying thank you and taking the child off his hands so he could go back to his champagne.
"You seem to know me," he said. "You are?"
Up close, Nathan could see that the man was shorter than him, a couple of inches, maybe, and leaner, and the discovery was somehow annoying. The man carried himself like he was the tallest person in any room, and Nathan had the uncomfortable feeling that he usually was. The man smelled like spiced rum. It made Nathan want to lean in and take a second breath, which was irritating, because he was becoming annoyed.
"Benedict Huntington," he said. "That's my son."
Nathan knew the name. Everyone knew the name. The Huntingtons were old money. You heard about them in boardrooms, in the pages of the financial papers, in the quiet conversations his mother had with his father.
And he knew, too, the other things. The things that had been in the gossip columns, the whispers at dinner tables. The rumors that Benedict Huntington about his omega partner's mysterious death.
"Right," Nathan said.
"Thank you for your assistance," Huntington said, his tone flat. He might have been thanking Nathan for passing the salt. "I'll take him now."
He turned back to Theo. "Come here," he said, and his voice was gentler now. "It's okay. I'm here. We'll go home now."
Theo shook his head. "I want him."
Huntington's hand, half-extended, hung in the air.
Nathan watched the man's face. There was no anger there. No frustration. Just a quiet, controlled hurt that was somehow worse.
"He's frightened," Huntington said, as though explaining it to himself.
"He's been frightened for the past ten minutes," Nathan said. "You know, for future reference, it helps if you keep an eye on your child."
Huntington's head turned. His hazel eyes were gold around the edges and flat as he observed Nathan.
"Excuse me?"
"I'm just saying. He was running through a crowd of strangers and a man was chasing him."
The silence that followed was not comfortable.
"I'm aware," Huntington said. His voice was quiet. "I'm also aware that you were the one who intervened. That doesn't give you the right to lecture me on my parenting."
"No," Nathan agreed.
Huntington looked at him for a long moment. Nathan looked back. He had no idea what he was doing. He had no idea why he was picking a fight with a man he had just met. But he had been handed a child who was terrified, and the man responsible for that child was standing in front of him with his perfect suit and his perfect face, and Nathan's mouth had run ahead of his brain again.
"I see," Huntington said finally.
Nathan felt his jaw tighten.
Huntington turned away and crouched down again. "Theo," he said, very quietly. "I know you're scared. I know. But we need to go home now. Can you let go of the gentleman's jacket?"
Theo's grip tightened.
"Please, Theo."
A long moment. Then, slowly, the small fingers began to loosen.
Nathan watched as Huntington lifted his son into his arms. Theo's head dropped onto his father's shoulder immediately, his small body curling inward, and Huntington's arms closed around him with an ease that spoke of long practice.
Nathan stood there, feeling oddly bereft.
Huntington turned to go, and Nathan thought that was the end of it. But Theo lifted his head from his father's shoulder and looked back at Nathan. His small hand came up in a wave.
Nathan waved back. He didn't know what else to do.
Then they were gone, and Nathan was left standing with his racing heart and a sudden desire for a glass of rum.
He looked down at his hand. There was a faint smudge of something on his fingers, dirt, probably, or grass, or something the child had been holding.
What the fuck, he thought.
"Nathan."
His mother had materialized at his elbow. She was immaculate as always, her dress a deep burgundy that matched the evening, her hair pinned back in a style that probably had a name. She was holding a glass of white wine and looking at him like he had just tracked mud across her favorite rug.
"What was that?" she asked.
"What was what?"
"Don't play stupid. The Huntington man. What were you doing talking to him?"
"His son was being kidnapped. I intervened."
His mother's mouth pressed into a thin line. "The Huntingtons are not the kind of people you want to be associated with right now."
"There is always something."
She took a sip of her wine. "You should be courting a girl here. Any girl." She eyed him as if realising she needed to specify. "Any girl with golf parentage and class."
"Mama."
"Don't be a child."
"But I'm your child."
His mother's eyes narrowed. "Nathan."
"Mother."
She stared at him for a moment longer, then shook her head. "The Fairbanks girl is still at the dessert table. Go talk to her. And for God's sake, don't be crude."
She walked away before he could respond, already turning to her next conversation.
He caught sight of Cecilia who shrugged. It was an apologetic shrug that also said you're on your own.
He looked down at his hand again. The smudge was still there. He rubbed at it with his thumb, but it didn't come off.