They stared at each other across the breakfast table, the air between them charged.
“You made a decision that affected us both,” Isaac said, more quietly now, “without consulting me.”
The words landed with precision. Christina felt the truth of them. “Yes. I did. Because you were not here and George was, and the decision could not wait.”
Isaac looked at the floor, at the ceiling, at the sideboard — anywhere but at her. His hand went to his cuffs, straightening them with compulsive precision.
“You are right that George needed shelter,” he said finally. “And you are right that your compassion is what won his trust. But Christina — when I learned that Pennington was looking for George, and I did not know where George was or where you were, I was — ” He stopped. “I was frightened.”
The admission cost him. She could see it in the way his shoulders dropped.
“I am sorry I did not send word sooner,” she said. “That was a mistake.”
“And I am sorry for raising my voice.”
The silence that followed was different from the charged one before. This was two people recognizing the shape of a recurring problem — his instinct to protect overriding his trust in her judgment, her instinct to act independently overriding her trust in their partnership — and choosing, deliberately, not to let it grow.
“Show me the testimony,” Isaac said.
Christina went to her writing desk, unlocked the drawer, and placed George’s written account on the table between them. They sat side by side — closer than before, shoulders touching — and read through the careful, cramped handwriting together.
The testimony was damning. Dates, amounts, instructions — everything George had told Christina the night before, now set down in ink and signed. The payments from Pennington. The placement in both households. The sealed letter delivered to Christina on the morning after the engagement.
“Thirty pounds,” Isaac said, his voice barely controlled. “The price of our happiness was thirty pounds.”
He was quiet a moment, his hand clenching briefly on the table before he forced it flat again. “Kinsley pulled me aside after the dancing last night,” he said. “He told me he had watched Pennington’s face from the terrace while we were beneath the roses. He said he had never seen a man so barely containing himself. He was warning me, Christina. Kinsley saw it, and he knew enough to warn me.”
Christina placed her hand over his on the table. His fingers were rigid, the tendons standing out. Slowly, feeling the warmth of her palm, his hand relaxed.
“We have enough,” she said. “George’s testimony, the letter comparison, the things we have observed. The question now is what we do with it.”
Isaac was quiet for a long moment. Then he looked at her — really looked, not through the haze of anger but with the steady attention of a man who had learned, painfully, that his first impulse was not always his best.
“What do you think we should do?”
The question cost him something. She could see it in the effort — the deliberate setting aside of his own instinct, the conscious choice to defer. It was the beginning of a repair between them. Not a grand gesture. Just a question, asked sincerely.
“We secure George first,” she said. “Lord Kinsley’s country household — today, if possible. Then we gather Sophie and Lord Wickton and decide, together, how to confront Pennington in a way that protects my reputation.”
Isaac nodded. “I will send word to Kinsley at once.” He paused. “And Christina — the next time a decision must be made, we make it together. Even if that means I pace the floor of my study at midnight.”
She smiled — the first real smile either of them had worn all morning. “I would not mind being rescued, on occasion. I would simply prefer to be consulted about the timing.”
He took her hand. His thumb traced the arc across her knuckles —I am here— and she pressed his palm —I am yours. The gesture was familiar now, worn smooth with repetition, but it had not lost its power. The argument had sharpened it. They were choosing each other not in a moment of passion but in a moment of friction, and that choice was worth more than a thousand kisses in moonlit gardens.
15
“My lady, you have a letter.”
Sarah crossed the room with the careful tread of a girl still finding her place in the household. She was young — not long out of her first position in the country, as Christina recalled — and she handled the silver salver with a determined attention that made Christina’s mouth soften each time she saw it.
“Thank you, Sarah.” Christina took the letter and offered a smile, which Sarah returned shyly before stepping back to her corner. The girl’s timidity was offset by a steady willingness that Christina had come to appreciate in the weeks since her arrival.
Reaching for her tea, she turned the letter over in her hand, trying to identify from whom it had come.
“If it is from Lord Coventry, then you can respond to him with a remark from me,” Sophie said, a glimmer of laughter in her voice. “You must inform him that I will only permit you a few minutes away from my company in the darkness of the gardens on very rare opportunities. Such a thing will not happen again very soon, I am afraid.”
Christina’s cheeks warmed as she broke the seal. “I am glad you have come for afternoon tea, Sophie, but pray, do not embarrass me.”
