No,James thought desperately.You do not.
But he did not stop her.
She picked up her gloves and bonnet and turned toward the door.
“Isadora.” It came out rougher than he had intended.
She stopped but did not turn.
“Violet,” she said shakily. “Don’t let anyone take her. Whatever Mortimer does, whatever the letters say or the courts decide, don’t let anyone take her away.”
James closed his eyes. When he answered, his voice was scarcely more than a whisper. “Never.”
“She needs—” A pause. “She needs people who come back. Who stay.” She stopped. “Make sure she has that.”
He could not answer.
A single tear fell onto the polished floor between them. Then she walked out of the house.
James remained where he was, listening as the footman handed her into the carriage and closed the door behind her. He stood in the entrance hall and listened to the crunch of gravel and then the clip-clop of horses’ hooves and then silence.
Briggs materialized, his head deeply bowed. “Your Grace,” he said. “Shall I have your bags taken upstairs?”
James nodded once. “Yes. Thank you, Briggs.”
He went to the window and stared down the drive. It was full, the elms on either side of it blossoming now at the end of August, the gravel pale in the morning light.
He thought about the pain in Isadora’s eyes, about the tears she could not hold back. He thought about the letter in his breast pocket.
He ran a hand through his hair, his eyes stinging with tears.
He had let her go.
He stood at the window for a very long time, looking at the empty drive and feeling the heavy regret of having said nothing when he had everything to say.
CHAPTER 28
She had managed four hours.
That was what she concentrated on—managing the journey. The four hours of it, the rhythm of the wheels and the passing countryside and the gradual shift from Ashbourne’s grounds to the roads she had known all her life.
She looked out the window and breathed, perfectly composed. She did not think about the entrance hall or the silence or the tear she had felt fall before she could stop it.
She was perfectly composed all the way through Blackmoor’s gate and up the drive, and when the house appeared, she looked at it with the steady eyes of a woman who had simply come home for a visit and nothing more.
The carriage stopped, and the door opened.
She saw William first. He stood on the steps, with Cecily beside him. Letitia was half a step behind, still pulling her shawl around her shoulders as though she had come out quickly.
They were all looking at her.
She got out of the carriage.
William came down the steps and said her name, and that was all it took. She burst into tears right there on the drive.
“Izzy…”
William didn’t move to stop her. No one did. For a long moment, they simply stood there and let her cry.
