“Then tell me.” The words came out with a quiet directness that stopped her.
She looked at him, at the steadiness of him in the low light, the exhaustion behind his eyes that he was not bothering to conceal, the fact that he was still here, still asking, with the patience of a man who had made a decision and intended to hold it.
It unsettled her more than it should have.
She looked at him. He looked back.
He had the expression of a man who had played a card he thought might work and was watching carefully to see whether he’d been right.
She looked away first.
“You are impossible,” she muttered.
“I am practical.”
“Those are not opposites in your case. They are the same thing.” She smoothed her hand over Violet’s back again, more for her own steadiness than for the baby’s. “Even if I accept—and I am not saying I do—my brother would never allow it.”
James was quiet for a moment.
She looked up to find him watching her with an expression that was not quite a smile and not quite something else.
“Your brother,” he said, “is not the one I’m asking.”
She frowned. “He is my guardian.”
“He is your brother. There is a difference, and you know it. Besides, your brother’s opinion is not what matters most.”
She stared at him.
“Hematters to me, greatly,” she said.
“He does. And his opinion will be… harsh, and I will deserve most of it.” He held her gaze without flinching. “But it is not his answer I need, Isadora.” A pause, quiet and precise. “It is yours.”
Violet breathed against her shoulder, steady and small and entirely trusting.
One dangerous moment. That was all Isadora permitted herself. One moment in which she let the picture assemble—the quiet mornings, the grounds, Violet growing steadier in a house that felt like a home. Books in a room built for her. Peace, genuine peace, the kind that three Seasons in London had convinced her society had no interest in providing.
Just this. The quiet and the baby and the books and?—
She stopped that train of thought there.
Reality was harsher.
He was asking her to bind herself to him. James, who had spent thirty-one years moving lightly through the world, committed to nothing. Who wore charm the way other men wore coats and had never once, to her knowledge, allowed anyone close enough to see what was underneath it. Who was standing in this nursery not because he wanted her, but because the solicitor had identified a solution and she happened to fit it.
A rake who spoke about marriage the way he spoke about estate management. Practical. Efficient. Nothing more.
She stood carefully so as not to wake Violet, then shifted the baby and lowered her into the cradle with the slow, deliberate patience the task required.
Violet’s face tightened briefly, and Isadora held her breath. The baby’s features smoothed again, her breathing evening out, and Isadora straightened and turned.
James was standing still, watching her quietly.
She lifted her chin. “Then it is fortunate,” she said softly, “that you shall never have it.” A pause. “Because my answer is no.”
He went very still.
She moved toward the door, unhurried and composed, her hands folded before her with the steadiness she had been maintaining since the age of ten and had never needed more than she did at that moment.
