Isabelle bit her lip. “Well… she must care for you more than she’s admitting.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he snorted in his usual dismissive manner. “She is merely a guest, nothing more.”
His sister lifted an inquisitive eyebrow. “And since when doyouhave guests?”
“It is all Mother’s doing,” he explained. “You know how she is. I didn’t have the heart to say no.”
Isabelle pressed her palm to her brother’s chest, exactly where his own heart was beating. Sometimes, he wondered if he still had a heart. He must have. Only he had buried it under layers and layers of forced indifference.
She took him by the hand and led him inside, and a moment later, the children followed suit. The kitchen was small, uneven-floored, and forever infused with the warm scents of flour and woodsmoke. A fire crackled cheerfully in the hearth, casting soft golden light over the faded brick walls and crooked wooden shelves stacked with mismatched crockery and wild herbs tied with twine. The curtains were thin, floral, and always just a little too short for the windows, letting the late-afternoon light dapple the rough table where Isabelle now placed a chipped blue plate full of buttered scones.
Mason had been in this room hundreds of times. He knew the exact groan the third floorboard made near the sink, the way the kettle lid never quite fit, the faint scratch marks on the hearth from when Henry tried to ride a broomstick like a horse.
And yet, with her here, it felt different.
Cordelia sat stiffly at the table at first, like a bird too delicate to settle. But as Isabelle poured tea and handed her a warm sconewith the ease of a woman who knew how to calm startled things, Cordelia’s shoulders began to lower by fractions.
“Where’s Robert?” Mason inquired.
Isabelle glanced out the window, her smile dimpling. “Oh, Robert? He’s in the village, fixing Mr. Jennings’ cart again, I imagine. He’ll come back with mud on his boots and something ridiculous to tell me as usual.”
She said his name like it was a secret language, almost like a charm that was to keep her safe at all times. Mason tried not to smile, but there was something in the way she said it that pressed on the oldest ache in his chest.
Her own family had stripped her of her title, of her place, of the name she was born to wear. And still, Isabelle hadwon. She had a family who adored her, a husband who loved her more than breath, and children who didn’t know what it meant to walk in fear.
Robert Wheeler was a nobody, once… just a carpenter’s son. Now, he was someone’severything.
Mason swallowed. His tea had gone cold.
“Still mending things for the old man?” he said, attempting a lightness he didn’t feel.
Isabelle gave him a sideways look. “He likes to be useful. You remember what that’s like, don’t you?”
He huffed then shook his head. “Must be exhausting being so beloved.”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be stupid.”
But her smile lingered, half-smug, half-wistful. “Robert would cross the country barefoot if I asked him to. He nearlydidonce when I was ill after Henry was born and couldn’t keep down anything but those awful apple tarts from the baker in town. He rode three hours to fetch them and pretended it was on some errand for the fence.”
Mason said nothing because what could he say?
He’d grown up believing men like Robert were fools: sentimental and reckless, making decisions with their hearts instead of their heads. But as Isabelle talked, Mason found it harder and harder to hold onto that old logic.
Because look at her.
She’d given up fortune, title, and comfort, all for love. And yet she sat now with three children, a fire crackling in the hearth, and a house full of the kind of warmth that no ballroom or drawing room ever offered. And Robert Wheeler, the low-born, honest, good-hearted Robert, had beenchosen.
God, Mason thought, watching his sister smile as she wiped jam from Thalia’s nose,I hope he knows how lucky he is.
Isabelle continued to pour tea as she spoke, keeping a constant eye on the children. Cordelia didn’t speak often, just a murmur here, a polite smile there, but Mason saw her eyes wandering, taking it all in. Her eyes fluttered over the lace doily poorly mended at one edge then over the lopsided portrait of Robert and Isabelle on the mantel, sketched by a local artist with very enthusiastic technique. Next, her eyes focused on the scattering of children’s toys near the corner rug and the half-sewn curtain laid over the back of a chair like a surrendered flag.
He watched her too much, probably, but he couldn’t help it because she had brought something into the room that had not been there before.
Sunshine.
And he realized, in that moment, howlittlehe truly knew her. He knew her sharp tongue, her disobedience, her stormy moods and madcap bravery. But this gentle warmth was new. It was something that shimmered just out of reach, like a reflection on the surface of a lake. And Mason had the sudden, irrational desire to dive in and learn every secret she carried.
Chapter Eleven
