The whole table turned to her.
She was staring at him for the first time that evening, her glass hanging midair, a faint color in her face that had not been there a moment ago.
She looked, James thought, as surprised as anyone by what she had just said.
* * *
Everyone was looking at her.
William, with a frown that was deepening by the second. Cecily with concern and surprise. James, with the composed, attentive expression of a man who had just asked a question and genuinely intended to wait for the answer.
Isadora set her glass down.
William frowned. “Isadora?—”
“Why not?” James asked.
“Caroline Pembley,” she said, her voice even, each word placed with deliberate precision, “is entirely wrong for this household.”
William’s frown deepened. “That is not?—”
“Miss Caroline,” she spoke over him, “has made it very clear across two Seasons that her interest in you is mainly the title and the life that comes with it.”
“Most people’s interest in a duke involves the title,” William pointed out. “That is rather the nature of a title.”
“There is a difference between a woman who sees a man who happens to hold a title and a woman who sees a title that happens to be held by a man,” she argued.
The table was very quiet.
William opened his mouth and closed it again.
“She is cold,” Isadora continued with focused calm. She had no intention of stopping. “She is ambitious. She has no warmth to speak of, and warmth is precisely what Violet needs.” She looked at James steadily. “You cannot bring a woman into this house who will treat that child as an inconvenience.”
The candles flickered.
James looked at her across the length of the table. She almost wished for the floor to open up and swallow her whole.
“Miss Caroline,” she said, her voice steadier now, finding its footing, “is accomplished and beautiful and will stand beside you at every occasion society requires. She will manage this household efficiently. But she will look at Violet and see an inconvenience she did not agree to inherit. A problem attached to the position she wanted. A child who complicates the life she imagined for herself.”
James said nothing.
“Violet does not need efficiency,” she stated. “She does not need management. She has lost everything familiar to her, and she—” She stopped, her jaw tightening.
William turned to her. “Isadora,” he said quietly. “This is not your?—”
“She deserves better,” Isadora said hotly. “Violet deserves better than a woman who would come here to become a duchess and consider her an obstacle to the life she imagined. She needs warmth. Genuine warmth, not performed warmth, not the warmth of a woman who would decide it is required of her because the Duke expects it.” Her voice had lowered slightly. “She will know the difference. Children always know the difference.”
More silence.
Cecily set her glass down very carefully and looked around the table.
William pinched the bridge of his nose. “Isadora, you have met Miss Caroline on perhaps four occasions.”
“Five.”
“Five occasions. That is not sufficient to?—”
“I am a woman,” Isadora interrupted, looking at him. “I have sat in the same rooms as Miss Caroline and watched her watch other women, and I am telling you that what I saw was not warmth.” She paused. “I could be wrong. I am allowing for the possibility. But I am not wrong.”
