“I am indifferent to his politics.” Jason was shaking his head. “Forgive me, I’m spinning the conversation around to myself. Rude, I know. It’s only that your comment made me think of my own seat in the House of Lords. Another expectation of the dukedom.”
“It does not interest you?”
“Parliament is more interesting to me than farming, I suppose,” he sighed, “but to do it properly, one is expected to research taxation and write opinions and loll about in smoky clubs, convincing other researchers and writers that your view is superior. It’s so...”
“Established?” she guessed.
“Sedentary,” he said on a breath. “Established, certainly. It’s simply that I thrive ondoingthings, not... considering them.”
“Was school a great chore for you?”
“You have no idea.”
“If only you’d had my education,” she said.
“Indeed. I hope you do not regret that part of yourhistory. You were very fortunate, in my view. I did more damage to Oxford, I believe, than the school did good for me.”
She chuckled. “I don’t regret my cobbled education. But I would’ve also enjoyed traditional school, I think—or at least the traditional schooling afforded to girls. I meet girls in the travel shop almost weekly. Some of them know so very little of life beyond England. Others are knowledgeable but have been taught to be afraid of the outside world. These sorts of restrictions were never part of my experience.”
“I could tell this about you from the start,” he said. “I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I can see now it was a lack of fear and an open mind.”
“So transparently fierce, was I?” she asked.
“So exciting,” he corrected. “To me. But I digress. Will you finish your story?”
She made a noise that was half sigh, half moan. “Far less exciting—that.”
“I would hear it,” he said. “If you are willing.”
“Right.” She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “Cranford. Well. He was a fixture in our lives, and honestly? A jolly, doting father. He was clever and sweet and full of surprises. I adored him—loved him like any girl loves her papa, I assume.
“And my mother? Goodness. His presence brought immediate delight, which is saying quite a lot. She is prone to moodiness and petulance on a good day, but not in his company. She loved him so very much. We both did.”
Jason nodded. “My parents enjoyed a love match. As a boy, I took it for granted, but as a man, I can see the foundational benefit of their harmony on my life. And I remember my shock upon witnessing the unhappymarriages of my friends’ parents. My mates from school were equally as shocked when they witnessed my father’s open affection to my mother.”
They came to a giant bolder and worked their way around it, walking their hands along the cold, damp stone.
Jason added, “Their love is one of the many reasons I must return to Syon Hall and look after things properly. My father would be outraged, knowing how I have left his duchess adrift these last eighteen months.”
“You will go when we finish here,” she assured him.
“Yes,” he said bleakly. “I will go.”
“I cannot say for certain,” Isobel said, “but I assume my father’s actual marriage to Lady Cranford wasnota love match. He was happy when he was with us, but it was more than that. Even as a child, I could see he regarded our flat as a refuge. His secret sanctuary. Of course, I was unaware of what—or from whom—exactly he was taking refuge. Well, until I became aware.”
“Isobel,” he said sadly. He was already so very sorry for whatever she would tell him.
She shot him a wan smile. “When I would ask my mother why ‘Papa’ did not stay with us always, why he did notlivewith us, she simply said that he was a very important man, anobleman, and he did the important work of leading the country and advising the king, and all of this kept him terribly busy.”
“Advising the king is a stretch,” said Jason. He’d been indifferent to the Earl of Cranford before, but his opinion was rapidly sinking.
“When he visited our London flat,” she continued, “it was like Christmas morning. The best meal wasprepared, Mama and I dressed in our most beautiful clothes, and the house was filled with flowers.
“Some months, he would send for us to join him in Brighton, near his seaside estate—a house that sat empty most of the year. We were never invitedtothis home, mind you, but he arranged for us to have a lovely suite of rooms in a hotel overlooking the sea, and he met us for meals and stayed overnight with my mother.”
Jason took her hand. He found he could notnottouch her. She gathered her skirts in one hand and held to him with the other.
She said, “The only thing more delightful than receiving him in London was meeting him at the seaside.
