“Izzy—”
“No.” Isadora set down her tea. “I am not ready to read them. When I am, I will. Until then, I would appreciate it if everyone would stop telling me about their arrival.”
“Everyone is William,” Letitia said. “And me. That is only two people.”
“It feels like considerably more.”
“That is because we are both very present.” Letitia reached for the toast with the composure of someone regrouping. “Cecily thinks you should read them.”
“Cecily has not said that to me.”
“Cecily says it with her eyes every time someone mentions James in your presence, which is a form of saying it.” Letitia eyed her narrowly. “They are very expressive, your eyes.”
“Please stop.”
“I am stopping.” A pause. “I have stopped.” Another pause. “Also, he rode here, in the rain, without a carriage.”
Isadora looked up. Letitia held her gaze pointedly.
“It has been raining the whole day,” Isadora said.
“Yes.”
“He rode through that.”
“Apparently.” Letitia buttered her toast with great serenity. “He is in the library as we speak. William let him in twenty minutes ago. They spoke for a few minutes, and then William came to find me and told me to find you, which I am now doing.”
Isadora looked at the window. Outside, the rain was driving sheets against the glass. The grounds were entirely grey beyond it.
She thought about James riding through that.
She pressed her lips together. “I don’t know what he could possibly say that would change anything.”
“I know,” Letitia said.
“After everything?—”
“I know, Izzy.”
“I told myself—” Isadora stopped and pressed her hands flat against the table. “I told myself very clearly what this was, and I allowed myself to believe otherwise, and the result is—” She gestured to herself.
“The result,” Letitia said carefully, “is that a man rode in the rain to reach you.” She put down her butter knife. “Which isnotnothing. I think it is the most romantic thing I have ever seen.”
Isadora looked at her tea, which had gone cold.
“He’s in the library,” she mumbled.
“Yes.”
“My library.”
“Technically, his library, since the system?—”
“Letitia.”
“Go,” Letitia urged, without drama. “Whatever happens, go.”
Isadora heard the storm before she reached the library door.
