“Mary.”
“What?”
“You are listing tasks. I asked how you are, not what you have been doing.”
Mary set the embroidery hoop in her lap and pressed her thumb against the spot where the needle had pricked her.
“May I show you something first?” Mary asked.
Isabella raised an eyebrow. “That depends. Is it more needlework? Because I cannot be kind about that rose a second time.”
Mary smiled, set aside the hoop, and led Isabella upstairs to the nursery.
Once they arrived, Isabella stood over the crib with both hands pressed to her mouth. Tommy lay on his back, awake and alert, his eyes tracking the two faces above him.
“Oh, Mary.”
He was nearly a month old now, and the newborn scrunch had given way to round cheeks and bright, curious eyes that followed movement across the room.
“May I hold him?”
“Of course.” Mary lifted Tommy from the crib and transferred him into Isabella’s arms, adjusting the angle the way Mrs. Bridwell had taught her. “Support his head. Yes, just there.”
Isabella cradled him carefully, as though holding something precious and breakable. Tommy studied her face with solemn intensity, his brow furrowed, his mouth working. Then, his fist shot up and caught the ribbon at Isabella’s collar, and he gripped it with the iron determination Mary had come to recognize as his signature.
“He’s strong.” Isabella laughed. “Lord above, he’s got a grip.”
“Mrs. Bridwell calls him the dock worker.”
“He’s beautiful.” Isabella laughed and looked down at Tommy’s face, and her expression softened into something tender and aching. “He has Charlotte’s coloring.”
“I know.” Mary smoothed the blanket across Tommy’s chest while Isabella held him. “Every day, a little more of her comes through. The shape of his face is changing. His nose.”
“Does it make it harder? Seeing her in him?”
“It makes it everything.” Mary sat on the edge of the rocking chair. “Some mornings, I look at him, and I miss her so much I want to cry. Other mornings, I look at him, and I feel like she’s still here, in some small way. Both things are true at the same time.”
Tommy began to fuss, his face scrunching, the warning signs Mary had memorized over four weeks of close study. She stood and took him from Isabella, settling him against her shoulder with the practiced motion that had become second nature.
“You are good at this,” Isabella said. There was no surprise in her voice, only recognition. “You were born for this, Mary.”
“I was born for needlework and marrying well, according to our governess.” Mary rocked Tommy until the fussing subsided. “This part I learned on my own.”
Mrs. Bridwell appeared in the doorway, and Mary passed Tommy to her with the quiet choreography they had developed over the weeks. The nursemaid settled him in the crook of her arm and carried him toward the window, humming softly, and Mary touched Tommy’s cheek once before turning back to Isabella.
“Come,” she said. “I believe I owe you an honest answer.”
They went back downstairs to the parlor and sat together on the sofa, where Mary recounted everything to Isabella.
“He kissed you?” Isabella gasped once Mary had finished, her embroidery hoop sat forgotten in her lap.
Her tea had gone cold. She stared at Mary with an expression caught between delight and disbelief, her needle suspended in midair.
“Keep your voice down,” Mary said. She glanced at the drawing room door, which was closed, though the habit of caution had become instinct in this house. “And yes. Nine nights ago. In the kitchen. At three in the morning.”
“The kitchen.”
“He came home injured. A cut on his arm, a deep one. I was making tea, and he walked in bleeding, and I cleaned the wound and bandaged it, and then we argued, and then he?—”
