“I need some tea,” she said. “And I need to stop crying. And I need…” She exhaled. “I need to think.”
“Tea first,” Letitia said immediately, reaching for the pot. “Thinking after.”
“Is there anything to eat?” Isadora asked. “I haven’t had anything since breakfast.”
“There is everything to eat,” William said, shifting with the energy of a man relieved to have something to do. “I’ll ring for?—”
“William,” Isadora called.
He stopped.
She looked at him. At his clenched fists.
“Thank you for being here,” she said.
He looked at her tenderly. “Always,” he promised.
She picked up her tea and drank some.
All she could think about was the fact that the man she was completely in love with had never loved her.
CHAPTER 29
James had not slept.
That was not in itself unusual. There had been nights in the first few weeks after he had inherited the duchy that had yielded no sleep, the accumulated weight of the title and the child and the household pressing in from every direction.
He knew what sleepless nights looked like from the inside.
This was different.
This was sitting in the study, in the chair he had occupied for hours after the carriage disappeared down the drive, still in his travel coat, the letter he had written in London still in his breast pocket because he could not bring himself to take it out.
The fire had gone out sometime around two in the morning, and he had not called for it to be rebuilt. The decanter on the desk was untouched. He had simply sat in the cold study and lookedat the window and felt the silence that was not peaceful but simply empty.
Violet had cried at three.
He had gone up before Mrs. Plum could. She emerged from the adjoining room with a startled expression.
“Your Grace.” She looked at him, at the travel coat, the undone cravat, the fact that he clearly had not slept. “I was just going to?—”
“I have her,” he said.
Mrs. Plum hesitated. “She may be hungry. If you’d like me to?—”
“Go back to bed,” he insisted. “I have her.”
She withdrew without further comment.
He lifted Violet from the cradle. She was warm and indignant. He held her against his shoulder even though his heart ached.
“I know,” he murmured. “I know. I’m here.”
She grabbed his lapel. “Oh no.”
“She has to come back,” he told her.
He was not certain whether he believed it.
