Dominic kept his voice level. “Fairmont. Sit, if you like.”
Lucien sat. He set his hat on the arm of the chair and looked at the fire.
Dominic studied his profile and ran, not for the first time, the mental accounting he’d been running since the morning Lucien had put his fist through Dominic’s cheekbone in his own study.
Lucien had looked at him.
Miles produced conversation easily, as though he did not sense the tension between them: a horse he was thinking of acquiring, a property matter in Wiltshire, a woman of his acquaintance who had behaved remarkably at the Portland dinner. Lucien contributed to each in the manner of a man raised correctly and defaulting to it under pressure. Dominic contributed as well. They managed eleven minutes of civil exchange without any of them touching the actual difficulty.
“How… how does she settle?” Lucien said, still without looking at him.
“Well.” Dominic turned his glass in his hand. “She’s taken to the house, and the house to her. James has taken to her more efficiently than I managed in three months.” He paused, chose it. “She’s teaching him daily. She set up the music room herself, determined the instrument, arranged the lessons. He’s sleeping better. Eating. He talks more.”
Lucien said nothing.
“She’s comfortable,” Dominic said. “I wanted you to know that clearly.”
Lucien turned from the fire and looked at him directly, and the look was level and cold. “I know Annabelle is comfortable,” he said. “She would be comfortable in a ruin with the walls coming in. That has never been the concern.”
Dominic’s jaw clenched, but he did not flinch away from them.
Miles said, “I hear the Ashmeres are back. Theodore’s taken the Grosvenor Square house for the season.”
Lucien looked at Miles with the expression of a man recognizing a conversational lifeline and choosing not to take it. He stood. Collected his hat.
“I have somewhere to be.” He looked at Miles. “Keldwick.” He looked at Dominic. The look held two full counts. “Silverford.”
And with that, he left.
Elinor arrived that afternoon with the brisk purpose of a woman who had allotted a specific portion of her day to this visit and intended to use it efficiently.
Newton appeared in the entrance hall before the footman had finished relaying the card, and conducted a thorough inspection of her boots before she was through the door.
James came down the stairs. “Newton knew,” he said. “He went before anyone knocked.”
“He always does,” Elinor said, crouching to give the cat what he had clearly decided he was owed.
Annabelle led Elinor to the drawing room. James returned to the library with Newton restored to his window seat, the ship book open at the plate of Cape St. Vincent.
“Honestly,” Elinor said, accepting tea. “Not the version you’ve been practicing for Lady Rosenhall.”
The prepared version dissolved. “It is manageable,” Annabelle said. “James is wonderful. The music room has done more forhim than I expected. Dominic tries. He doesn’t always know the method, but the intent is there.” She looked at her hands. “He left the house today rather than stay in the room while James played. But he arranged the piano. He arranged the tuner. He found the right instrument, and had it gone over twice before we touched it.”
“He does it sideways,” Elinor said.
“Yes.” The word came out a little too quickly because it was exactly right. “He does everything sideways.”
Elinor was quiet in the way that meant she was processing, not done. “I’ve been speaking to Lucien,” she said. “Not pushing. Only reminding him what he already knows about Dominic, which is considerable, if you arrange it correctly.”
“I know.” Annabelle set down her cup. “Elinor. I need you to let us manage Lucien ourselves. I am deeply grateful, truly, but Dominic has to be the one to reach him. Lucien needs to see it come from Dominic, unassisted, and I think in some small way he is beginning to. If it’s arranged for him, it won’t hold.”
Elinor looked at her steadily, then nodded. “You’re probably right.”
“He’ll come around,” Annabelle said. “He always does. He needs to decide it for himself.”
From the library: “Newton. Those pages are not a cushion.”
And Newton, by the evidence, continued to treat them as such.
