“You didn’t have to get up,” she said, quietly enough so as not to disturb the baby.
“I was awake.”
“You were awake becausehewas awake.” She said it without any guilt, nodding toward the other chair. “Sit, then. Keep me company.”
Cecily sat, tucking her feet beneath her, and looked at her nephew. He was five months old and already possessed of the particular gravity that his father wore in formal portraits—Edward’s expression in oils always suggested Parliament might be convening at any moment. She had decided she would notmention the resemblance to Beatrice until the boy was old enough to find it amusing.
“There now,” Beatrice murmured. “I know. I know.”
The baby’s cries softened to hiccupping breaths.
“He does this every night?” Cecily asked.
“Only when he senses I’ve had enough sleep to spare.” Beatrice adjusted the baby gently. “He has excellent instincts.”
“He gets that from you.”
“He gets that from Edward. I was never this relentless.”
Cecily raised an eyebrow and said nothing, which was its own form of commentary. Beatrice caught it and smiled, the small private smile she wore when she chose not to argue because she knew she’d lose.
A faint sound came from the adjoining room—movement, a soft rustle of linens. Beatrice glanced briefly toward the door, then relaxed when it stilled again.
“Eloise,” she said quietly. “She will sleep through anything, eventually.”
Cecily nodded, her gaze returning to the baby.
They sat in the comfortable quiet for a moment, the lamp flickering, the sound of the sea just barely audible through the window. Brighton at this hour was entirely itself—the grand social performance of it stripped away, nothing left but salt air and the distant pulse of water.
“So,” Beatrice said, in a tone that meant she had been waiting to say something and had decided the middle of the night was as good a time as any. “Mr. Alderton.”
Cecily closed her eyes briefly. “Must we?”
“He called three times.”
“He did.”
“He’s very well-regarded. His estate in Wiltshire is–”
“Beatrice.”
“–apparently quite beautiful. Cecily, I’m only–”
“I know what you’re doing.”
“I’m making conversation.”
“You’re making a case.” Cecily looked at her. “There’s a difference.”
Beatrice had the grace to look mildly caught out. She shifted the baby to her other shoulder and tried again, in a different register—less prosecution, more genuine curiosity. “What was wrong with him? Truly.”
Cecily considered the question with more honesty than she usually allowed herself. Mr. Alderton had been perfectly pleasant. Soft-spoken, attentive, the kind of man who stood when a lady entered a room, not because he’d been reminded to but because it had long since become instinct. He had asked her opinion on things and listened to the answers. He had a good face, not remarkable but kind.
“Nothing,” she answered. “Nothing was wrong with him.”
“Then–”
“When he talked about his estate, his face didn’t change. He described it the way you’d describe a piece of furniture you’d inherited. Accurate. Dutiful. And when I said I’d heard the gardens were lovely, he said yes, the previous owner had invested heavily in the grounds, as though that were the end of it.” She looked down at her hands. “He was kind, Bea. But there was nothing—there wasn’t anythingunderneathit. I kept waiting for something to light up in him, and it never did.”
