Chapter 23
Everyone looked at James.
“My apologies, Your Grace,” Mortimer said with a bow of his head. “I understand the attachment. But you must see that the legal position—”
“Let me be very clear,” James said coldly.
“You have come into my house with letters of unknown provenance, obtained from a dead woman’s aunt under circumstances you have not disclosed, to tell me that my cousin’s child may not be his, and that therefore the inheritance he left her…
the inheritance he spent nine years securing, deliberately and with full knowledge of what he intended, should be challenged.
” He scowled at Mortimer. “Is that an accurate summary of your purpose this morning?”
Mortimer maintained his expression with admirable discipline. “I understand it is difficult to hear.”
“You have not answered my question.”
A pause. “Yes, that is an accurate summary.”
“Good.” James did not look away from him.
“Then I want you to hear mine with equal accuracy. That child is upstairs at this moment, in the care of her nurse, and she is my ward and my responsibility and my family, and I will not have her discussed in this room as a financial variable by a man who has spent the past two months calculating how to acquire what my cousin left her.” He paused.
“That is what this is. We are past the point of pretending otherwise.”
“Your Grace—”
“I am not finished.” His voice did not rise, which Isadora thought impressive.
“Whatever those letters contain, whatever they claim, Clara Bennett is dead and cannot speak for herself. My cousin is dead and cannot speak for himself. And you have come here with words filtered through her family to make a claim about a child who cannot speak for herself either.” He looked at Mortimer with a clarity that had no performance in it.
“You will understand why I find your concern for her welfare unconvincing.”
Mortimer’s composure remained intact. This, Isadora thought, was the most dangerous thing about him—the discipline of a man who had anticipated resistance and prepared for it.
“I expected your reaction,” he said. “Naturally. But the legal question remains regardless of your feelings about it. Which is why I have taken the step of making sure the formal petition holds water and is irrevocable.”
“I do not care what those letters say,” James scoffed.
“I do not care what they claim, or who produced them, or what argument your solicitor has constructed around them. I do not care what society believes or what questions are raised or what the financial implications are for anyone at this table.”
Isadora almost nodded. She looked at him instead.
He looked at Mortimer, his gaze sharp. “She will remain here. No petition, no investigation, no amount of letters from any source will change that. She is not leaving Ashbourne.”
Mortimer opened his mouth.
“I have not finished,” James cut him off.
He closed it.
“You came here this morning believing you would find a man sufficiently concerned about reputation and inheritance to be manageable. I want you to understand that you have miscalculated. The inheritance my cousin left his child does not interest me. What interests me is that she has it, that it exists to protect her as he intended, and that no one with a competing financial interest is permitted to redirect it.”
He paused. “I would rather lose every penny of it than remove her from this house. I want that to be understood so there is no ambiguity going forward.”
Calder blinked.
Mortimer looked at James, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “You understand,” he said carefully, “that pursuing this course will place you in direct legal opposition to the family. The Ashbourne name—”
“Is her name,” James pointed out. “Whatever her parentage, my cousin gave it to her. I will not take it back.”
“The inheritance—”
“Is hers.”
“The reputation of the family—”
“Is not your concern,” James cut him off. “It is mine. I am the Duke of Ashbourne. The family’s reputation is precisely mine to manage, and I will manage it by protecting a child who has no one else to protect her.” He paused to let that sink in. “That is the end of this conversation.”
Mortimer sat in stillness for a moment.
“This will go to court,” he warned.
“Then it will go to court,” James said. “You have delivered your papers, and you have said what you came to say. I have an excellent solicitor and a forty-three-page will drawn by a man who anticipated exactly this. I am not afraid of your petition, and I will respond through the appropriate legal channels.” He stood, and Isadora followed suit. “Briggs will see you out.”
He moved toward the door and opened it, a gesture that required Mortimer either to leave or to remain seated while standing was expected of him, which was the kind of social physics that men like Mortimer could not easily ignore.
“I trust you can find accommodations in the village. I’m afraid Ashbourne cannot offer you rooms at present.”
Mortimer rose with a grunt. At the door, he turned.
“I hope,” he said, looking between James and Isadora, “that sentiment does not cost you more than you expect and that you will consider the child’s interests above your own attachment to the current arrangement.”
James’s lips thinned. “The child’s interests are the only thing I have considered since the day she arrived.
I would not expect you to understand the distinction, but I want you to know that I see exactly what you are doing, and I want you to know that I will not be taken lightly. ” He paused. “Good day, Lord Mortimer.”
Mortimer grunted again and left. Calder followed.
The door closed behind him, and the room fell quiet.
James stood at the window, his back partly turned to her, looking out at the drive where Mortimer’s carriage was already moving. His hands were clenched at his sides. Isadora could see the tension in them from across the room.
She sat very still.
She thought about what he had said. It had landed in the moment with the weight of something important. But now, in the quiet after the door had closed, she heard it differently.
She thought about him in the nursery on the first night, rocking Violet with the rigid uncertainty of a man who did not know how to do what he was trying to do. She thought about him learning Violet’s sounds, her rhythms, the difference between her hungry cries and frightened ones.
She thought about the carved fox named Sebastian and the daisy he had kept in his hand at the lake and the way he had stood in the center of the nursery at midnight, unable to leave, because the thought of something happening to a child he had known for three weeks was sufficient to override every other consideration.
“James,” she called.
He turned.
“They are not taking her,” she said firmly.
“No,” he agreed. “They are not.”
She studied him. The line of his jaw. His hands, which had relaxed now. The hands that had held Violet and moved chairs and reached for hers without deciding to.
“She is lucky to have you,” she murmured.
He looked startled for a brief moment. “I am not—” He stopped and looked at the window. “I am simply not willing to—”
“James.” She stood. “You told a man you would rather lose a very significant inheritance than abandon a child who has lost everything else.” She crossed the room toward him, slowly, without hurry.
“You did not say that because of duty. You did not say it because of obligation or management or anything else; you usually say things because of. You said it because you love her. You love Violet.”
He looked at her for a long moment. Something in his expression gave way, simply and completely.
“What happens now?” she asked.
He exhaled and looked at the door, then back at her. “I need to consult with Henderson and Harding, my solicitor in London. The petition will need to be answered formally. The letters will need to be assessed.” He pressed two fingers briefly to his jaw. “It will be a fight.”
“We will fight it,” she asserted.
He looked at her. “We,” she stressed. “We will fight it.”
A lock of hair fell across his face, and she had to clutch the sides of her dress to keep from smoothing it back. She didn’t think they had gotten to that stage yet, despite the kiss they had shared.
“Yes,” he agreed. “We will.”
She smiled, pushing the memory away.
“What is on your mind?” He tilted his head.
“Hm? Nothing. Just… nothing. I want this to be over,” she said quickly.
“It will.”
* * *
“I’ll come with you.”
James looked up from the letter he was folding. He was already dressed for travel in a dark coat and a white cravat. Papers were stacked in three piles in front of him, two of which he had already dealt with and one of which he was in the middle of.
“You do not need to.” He returned to the letter.
“I know I do not need to.” Isadora stood in the doorway with her arms loosely folded. “I thought it might be useful. You’re looking for information about Clara Bennett… about the letters. Two pairs of eyes, two sets of—”
“Henderson and Harding have contacts in London. I know whom to speak with.” He finished folding the letter and reached for the seal. “It will be faster alone.”
“Faster,” she echoed, walking in.
“Mm.” He was already looking at the next document.
She stopped in front of the desk and looked at the top of his head. “James.”
“I’ll send word as soon as I learn something new.” He glanced up briefly. “A few days at most.”
“Henderson could manage things here for a few days, and Mrs. Plum has the nursery well in hand—”
“It’s better if you stay.” He had said it simply.
“Better,” she said. “How so?”
“Violet needs consistency.” He began rifling through the papers in his desk. “You said so yourself. Disrupting her routine again so soon after Mortimer’s visit—”
“Is a reasonable consideration,” Isadora finished. “I’m not dismissing it. I’m asking whether it’s the reason.”
He looked up, and she held his gaze steadily.
“It is the most practical reason,” he said.
“But is it the only one?”
A pause.
“Isadora.” He set down the letter. “The next few days will be difficult. Solicitors and paperwork and conversations with people who will not want to have them. It is not…” He seemed to search for the right word. “It is not the kind of errand that benefits from company.”
“It might benefit from yours,” she argued.
“Mine is the errand,” he said with slight impatience. “Violet needs someone here who knows her. Who she trusts. That is you.” He picked up the letter again. “I’ll send word when I know more. I’ll say goodbye before I go.”
“All right,” she relented after a moment.
Silence followed. He did not appear to notice it.
“Good.” He nodded, already reading the letter.
He did not say goodbye before he left.
She stood in the corridor outside his study for perhaps thirty seconds.
She was not sure what she had expected him to say.
Something different, perhaps. Something that acknowledged the week they had had—the terrace, the roses, the kiss.
Something that suggested he had been as affected by it as she had.
She walked toward the nursery.
It was practical. He was right that it was practical. Plus, Violet did need consistency. Mrs. Plum was good, but she was not Isadora. And the trip to London was not for pleasure.
She picked up Violet, who was in excellent humor, carried her to the window, and stood looking out at the drive. Violet grabbed her hair and made the sound she made when she found something satisfying.
“Yes,” Isadora murmured absently. “I know.”
Violet pulled. “Ba-ba.”
“That is attached,” Isadora said, untangling her hair delicately.
Violet pulled again, with more conviction.
Isadora heard the gravel crunch as the carriage rolled down the drive, and she looked at Violet, who was looking back at her.
Violet released her hair and patted her cheek—a new habit.
“I am perfectly fine,” Isadora assured her.
Violet looked at her with large, assessing eyes. “Oh no.”
“I am,” Isadora insisted. “He just forgot.”
Violet made a sound.
“He is busy,” Isadora said. “He has a great deal to manage.”
Violet continued looking at her.
“It does not mean anything,” Isadora muttered.