Chapter 12
The back door let them out into the walled gardens, which then opened through the east gate onto the wider path that followed the parkland, the grounds opening out on the left into the long grass and old trees of Ashbourne proper.
The roses had all bloomed, the beds in their late summer state, full and slightly untidy in a way that was either charming or requiring attention depending on one’s view. The air was cooler than it looked from the window, the light filtering through the trees.
Isadora was glad she had brought out her shawl.
It was a good walk. She could see why the nurse had suggested it.
“She is taking the afternoon feeds better,” she said with a small smile. “The ten o’clock feed was easier today. She did not fuss at the transfer.”
“Henderson mentioned that Mrs. Plum’s contract needs renewing before December,” James revealed. “I want to make sure she stays. She has been steadier than I expected after the first week.”
“She is very good with Violet.” Isadora paused. “Though she does not always warm her hands before she picks her up, which Violet does not like.”
“Reasonably.”
“Very reasonably.” She adjusted her shawl. “I mentioned it, and she took it well.”
“You mentioned it to Mrs. Plum?” James asked.
“Was I not supposed to?”
“No. You—” He paused. “No. You were right to. I simply—” Another pause. “I would not have thought of it.”
“You would have noticed Violet’s reaction and attributed it to something else entirely,” she guessed.
He was quiet for a moment. “Probably.”
They walked on.
The path took them along the kitchen garden wall, the espaliered trees neat against the stone, and then widened toward the longer stretch running down to the lake. The water was visible at the bottom of the slope, flat and silver in the fading light.
“She’ll need skating lessons when she’s old enough,” James murmured. “The lake freezes some years, and the children from the village are used to skating on it. My cousin allowed it.”
“And you’ll continue it.”
“I see no reason not to.” A pause. “By the time she’s old enough to skate, it will already be a tradition.”
Isadora looked at the lake.
By the time she’s old enough…
He had said it without thinking—the future arranged simply and without drama, Violet growing up at Ashbourne as though it were a simple fact.
Isadora said nothing and kept walking.
“She’ll need more than that,” she spoke up after a while.
He looked at her. “Who?”
“Violet.” She kept her eyes on the water.
“You said you would let the children continue skating on the lake because by the time Violet was old enough to skate, it would already be a tradition. That is—that’s stability.
Consistency. Which matters.” She paused.
“But she will need more than a well-managed estate and reliable routines.”
“What else would she need?”
“Warmth,” she said simply. “Happiness. The understanding that the world is not only duty and order.” She glanced at him. “That some things are allowed to be joyful simply because they are joyful and for no other reason.”
“I am not opposed to joy,” James stated mildly.
“You… manage it,” she pointed out. “You manage everything, including joy. You experience it in controlled quantities at appropriate intervals, and then you move on to the next item on the—” She broke off.
“On the list,” he finished.
“I was not going to say that.”
“You were.”
“I was,” she relented. “I’m sorry.”
He was silent for a moment, and she bit the inside of her cheek.
“And this is a flaw?”
“It is when you apply it to children.” She looked at him steadily. “Stability matters. Of course, it does. But a life built only on order and duty…”
“Stability is not misery.”
“Stability without warmth is. I grew up in an extremely stable household, James. Predictable. Well-organized. My parents’ marriage was a model of propriety.
” She looked at the path. “It was also the coldest place I have ever been. Stability without warmth is not safety. It is simply a different kind of misery.”
“This is not the same,” he argued.
“I know it is not. I am not saying that it is.” She looked back at him. “I am saying that Violet needs both. Order and warmth. One without the other is… it is not enough. It is not sufficient.”
James seemed to consider for a moment.
“What she needs,” he said carefully, “is to know that the world is reliable. That the people around her will not change. That she can depend on the structure of her days.” He looked at the lake.
“Warmth is… Warmth fluctuates. It is dependent on feeling, and feeling is not reliable, and a child who is taught to depend on feeling rather than structure will find herself without ground when the feeling changes.” He paused. “Which it does. Always.”
Isadora heard the architecture of it—the logic of a man who had built his entire understanding of safety on exactly this, because at some point the feeling had changed and the structure had not been there.
“James,” she said quietly. “That is not protection. That is anticipating loss before it happens and building walls around it.”
“That is experience,” he countered.
“That is…” She shook her head. “That is removing all feeling from your life and calling it wisdom.”
“You still see the world too romantically,” he scoffed.
Something sharpened inside her.
“And you,” she said, “have removed all feeling from your life so thoroughly that you have mistaken the absence of pain for the presence of happiness.” She paused. “Which is not the same thing.”
He stopped walking. She had taken two more steps before she realized it and turned around.
He was standing on the path, looking at her with an expression she had not seen before, raw at the edges.
I have gone too far.
She opened her mouth—she was not sure what to say—but then turned back to the path.
Her foot found the hollow in the ground before she saw it.
It was a shallow dip where the path curved, half-hidden by the longer grass at the lake’s edge.
Her foot slipped into it at the wrong angle, and she pitched forward.
James’s arm came around from behind her, his hand settling firm and certain on her waist, the momentum interrupted so abruptly that for one disoriented moment, she was not sure what had happened except that the ground was still there and she was still upright and he was very close.
She found her footing.
She did not step away, though she noted he was standing extremely close.
His hand was still on her waist. She became aware of it slowly and then all at once, the warmth of it seeping through the fabric of her dress. Her heart thumped, then kicked into a faster beat.
She turned her head. Just slightly. Just enough.
His face was closer than she had expected, close enough that she saw the exact moment he registered that neither of them had moved. His eyes slid over her face slowly, deliberately.
The argument lingered in the air, unfinished, hanging somewhere above the lake path where they had left it. She could feel it, but she did not care about it.
Say something. Say something ordinary and let the moment end.
He exhaled, and his breath tickled her face, sending goosebumps all over her skin. That jolted her back to reality.
She took a step back, clearing her throat. His hand dropped from her waist as if burned. He stepped back, and the cold evening air immediately flooded into the space between them, as though it had been waiting to be let back in.
She faced forward and looked at the lake. “Thank you.” Her voice was level, which she was absurdly grateful for.
“Uneven ground,” he said.
“Yes.”
A pause.
“Are you—”
“Perfectly fine,” she assured him. “Completely.”
She began walking.
The warmth of his hand lingered on her waist the whole way back to the house, which she tried not to think about.
They came in through the back door to find Mrs. Holt waiting in the corridor. She took one look at Isadora’s flaming cheeks but said nothing, which Isadora was immensely grateful for.
“Forgive me, Your Grace,” she addressed James.
“The Ashfields have sent confirmation of their attendance tomorrow evening, as have the Pembrokes. Colonel Hartley has also sent confirmation along with the note that he will arrive slightly before the hour, as he distrusts the northern road in the dark.”
“Six for dinner, then,” James said.
“Eight, Your Grace. Colonel Hartley is bringing his nephews, who are visiting from Bath. He asks whether this presents any difficulty.”
“None at all.”
Mrs. Holt nodded, satisfied, then turned to Isadora. “Will Your Grace wish to speak with Mrs. Farrow this evening about the menu, or shall I relay your preferences?”
Isadora felt James glance at her. She did not look at him.
“I’ll speak with her myself,” she replied. “After supper.”
“Very good, Your Grace.” With that, Mrs. Holt withdrew.
The corridor fell quiet.
“Eight,” James said.
“So it seems.”
Isadora looked at him. He looked back. Something lingered in the air between them. Not the argument, not his hand on her waist, but the ghost of both.
“Good evening, James,” she said.
“Good evening, Isadora,” he returned.
She went downstairs.
The warmth followed her, which she had expected.
What she had not expected was that she would find herself looking forward to a dinner because it meant an evening in the same room as him, which was a significant development that she intended to consider very carefully at a later time.
Now, she was going to speak to Mrs. Farrow about the menu and think about nothing else whatsoever.
She thought about it the entire way to the kitchen.