Beatrice stilled. She hated the way her heart sank.
“There isn’t… a life between us,” she said carefully. “Nothing that would resemble a marriage.”
Margaret didn’t respond.
“We’ll raise Pip until… until her mother is found. Or until we know she’s safe.” Beatrice swallowed. “And then we’ll go our separate ways. That was the agreement.”
Margaret studied her face with an unsettling tenderness. “And you’re content with it?”
Beatrice looked toward the cradle, then toward the hall, where Edward had walked earlier, his footsteps firm and steady. Her voice came quieter. “It’s what makes sense.”
“But that’s not what I asked,” Margaret said.
Beatrice didn’t answer. She couldn’t.
Margaret reached over and laid her free hand atop Beatrice’s. “You’re allowed to want more than sense, you know.”
The fire crackled. Pip sighed in Margaret’s arms, her tiny body settling into perfect trust.
Beatrice wished she felt as certain.
As the last course was cleared, the soft clatter of servants cleaning the table gentled the end of the meal. Silver dishes were lifted away, leaving behind only the smaller dessert plates, a crystal compote of sugared apricots, and the decanters of port and ratafia.
Beatrice folded her napkin neatly and rested her hands atop it, watching the last of the servants bow and withdraw.
The main dining room always felt cavernous during formal dinners, but once the doors closed and only the four of them remained, the space seemed to fold in around them, becoming almost intimate.
Margaret leaned back in her chair with a pleased sigh. “I believe I will never eat again.”
Sebastian reached for the port. “You say that at every dinner, but you end up eating only a little.”
“And I always mean it. I say that so I have renewed appetite,” Margaret replied, plucking a sugared apricot.
Beatrice smiled. She felt Edward’s gaze from the opposite end of the table. It was unreadable, except for the faint tension in his jaw. He reached out to pour the port, his sleeve brushing the candlelight.
Oliver and Pip had long been fed and settled, both asleep in the nursery under the watch of Oliver’s nurse. It left the adults unusually free.
Margaret toyed with her napkin, smiling. “I shall be perfectly spoiled after this visit. London dinners are never this quiet or this comfortable.”
“Comfortable?” Sebastian huffed, leaning back in his chair. “I have been attacked at least twice by your cook’s insistence on offering me a fourth helping.”
“She only asked whether you wanted more,” Beatrice pointed out, amused.
“Precisely,” Sebastian insisted. “It’s a trap. If I agree, Margaret will say I’m greedy. If I refuse, Cook will think her food is lacking. And Edward”—he gestured across the table with his fork—“will smirk at me.”
Edward did not look up from his cup, but Beatrice saw the twitch at the corner of his mouth. “Smirking is not a crime,” he said mildly.
“It is when you do it,” Sebastian scoffed. “It always means you’re thinking something insufferable.”
Margaret laughed. “He says the same about you, dearest.”
“And he’s right,” Edward added.
Sebastian pointed at him. “There! Did everyone hear his tone? That’s the tone of a man who believes he is always correct.”
Edward’s eyebrows rose, perfectly aligned. “I do not believe I am always correct. Only… mostly.”
“Mostly,” Sebastian repeated, shaking his head. “You hear him, Margaret? This is why we can never dine in peace.”
