“Can I speak to you for a moment?”
* * *
The corridor was dim. James was leaning against the wall opposite the door with his arms folded and his coat still off, the way he had been for the past hour, close enough to be summoned immediately and far enough not to disturb what was happening inside.
He looked up when Isadora stepped up to him. He exhaled, turning his face away as though he was not ready for whatever she had to say.
She gave him a moment.
“The physician said she’ll recover,” she began. “Under the right conditions.”
“Consistency and care,” he said flatly. “I heard him.”
“I know you did.”
He clenched his jaw.
“James.”
“She was fine an hour ago.” He looked at the nursery door. “I checked on her at eight. She was perfectly fine. And then twenty minutes—” He stopped. “I did not know what to do. I was standing there, and I did not know what to do. I have managed… I have handled things considerably more complicated than—” He stopped again. “She is twelve months old, and I had absolutely nothing to offer her.”
“You stayed,” Isadora reminded him.
“That is not?—”
“You stayed in the room. You did not leave her with the nurse and go back to your study.” She looked at him steadily. “You were frightened out of your mind, and you stayed anyway.” She paused. “That is not nothing, James.”
He looked at her.
“It felt like nothing,” he muttered.
“I know.” She held his gaze. “But it was not.”
Silence settled between them. Somewhere downstairs, a clock chimed the hour.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Yes.”
“If I say yes, do you understand what you are agreeing to?”
He frowned slightly. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that I am not Caroline Pembley.” She said it quietly, without an edge. “I am not going to manage your household from a polite distance and appear when appropriate and leave you on your own the rest of the time.” His eyebrows flew up in shock, but she continued nonetheless. “If I come into this house, I come into it properly. That means Violet is my responsibility as much as yours. That means I have a voice in how this household runs. That means you do not treat me like a convenient solution you have installed and then forgotten about.”
“I would not?—”
“I want to make sure we understand each other before anything is decided.”
He looked at her for a moment. Then, with the seriousness of a man making a promise he intended to keep, he said, “You will have a say in everything. The household, the child’s upbringing—all of it.” He paused. “I will not forget about you, Isadora. That I can promise.”
She studied him, seemingly thinking about what it meant to choose this.
She took a deep breath. “The library.”
He blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“You offered to build me a library,” she reminded him. “Larger than the one at Blackmoor. I want that in the agreement.”
