“She is not going to scream,” Beatrice countered.
“Beatrice, I watched her scream at the vicar last Sunday, and he was simply walking past.”
“That was a different kind of scream. This will be–” Beatrice paused and looked at her daughter, who was sitting in Cecily’s arms in the front pew, looking at the baptismal font. “Actually, that might also be the same.”
“Eloise,” Edward said, crouching to her level. “We talked about this.”
Eloise looked at him.
“We agreed,” he said carefully, “that you would be quiet.”
“You are four years old,” Beatrice added. “You are the eldest, and you are setting an example for–”She looked at the baby in Cecily’s arms. “–for your cousin, who is very small and watching everything you do.”
Eloise looked at the baby seriously. The baby looked back. A negotiation that required no words seemed to pass between them.
The vicar was brief and sensible, which Cecily appreciated. The baby cried when the water touched her head and then calmed against the vicar’s arm.
“Eleanor,” the vicar said, “we receive thee.”
Eleanor.
Cecily had not told William why she chose that name until last week, while sitting in the library with the violet notebook in her lap—the one with the tiny stamped covers, the one that had traveled from her mother’s house to Brighton to Blackmoor and back again. She had opened it to the page with her fourteen-year-old self’s handwriting.
“Eleanor,” she had said, “was the heroine of the first novel I was not supposed to read. She refused three suitors and chose the right one, and I decided at fourteen that she was exactly who I intended to be.”
He had looked at the name. Then at her.
“Yes,” he had said simply.
Eleanor, now in the vicar’s arms, looked at William. He looked back with a smile, which she appeared to find satisfactory. She grabbed his finger.
The reception was being held at Edward and Beatrice’s house—warmer than a church hall and better supplied, as Letitia noted, which was why Beatrice had insisted on it.
Mrs. Peel came, which Cecily had not expected, and which moved her more than she let on. She stood with her for a long time near the window while Beatrice managed Eloise’s investigation of the refreshments table with tactical diplomacy.
“She’s well?” Mrs. Peel asked, looking at Eleanor across the room, where Isadora was burping her on her shoulder.
“Very well,” Cecily replied. “She is–” She stopped, because the word still did something to her chest. “She is entirely herself. She always has been.”
Mrs. Peel looked at her. “I wanted you to know, Your Grace, that what you found in those accounts, what you did with it, changed lives. Twelve requests. Thirty-one children this winter who have warmth that they would not otherwise have had.” She paused to let that sink in. “I wanted you to know that.”
Cecily smiled. “I just did what I thought was right.”
“And we thank you for it,” Mrs. Peel said, then moved to speak with Edward.
Cecily turned and found William by the window, watching her with a look that was only hers. He tilted his head slightly, toward the door.
She said something to Beatrice about a breath of fresh air. Beatrice looked between them and smiled.
The shore was February cold. They walked side by side with no particular urgency, his arm wrapped around her waist, her shoulder pressed against his. She was aware of the warmth of him despite the cold air.
“Here,” she said, slowing down.
He stopped.
She looked at the waterline. At the stretch of pale sand she had walked through in September, when the season was still in full swing and she had needed fifteen minutes of not being talked to. The tide was different now, but the shore was the same. The same long, cold reach of it.
“This is the spot where you found me?” William asked.
