“She cried for two hours yesterday,” he said, “and I could not—” He broke off, pressing his fingers briefly to his jaw. “I have managed estates and creditors and my father’s catastrophic finances, and apparently one baby of twelve months is entirely beyond my capabilities.”
“Babies,” Isadora said, “do not respond to management.”
“So, I have discovered.” He looked at her. “How long will she sleep?”
“I do not know. The crying wore her out. An hour, perhaps, if we’re fortunate.” She glanced toward the nurse. “Has she a proper routine?”
“We’ve been attempting one,” the nurse replied in the diplomatic tone of someone being generous. “The changes in the household have made it difficult to keep. And His Lordship—” She caught herself. “His Grace does not always?—”
“I come at irregular hours,” James cut in, with the flatness of someone admitting to a charge. “I am told this is counterproductive.”
“It unsettles her,” Isadora confirmed. “Predictability matters to them at this age. She needs to know what comes next.”
He absorbed this. “She is one year old.”
“Yes.”
“She cannot possibly understand.”
“She understands more than you think.” Isadora adjusted the baby, who stirred and then resettled with a small, decisive sigh. “She cannot understand words. But she understands consistency. She understands when a person is calm or frightened. She understands whether the arms holding her feel certain or uncertain.” She looked up at him. “She is not confused by the house or the new faces. She is confused because the people around her are frightened, and she has no framework for what that means.”
James regarded her for a long moment.
“You’re saying that she knows that I do not know what I’m doing,” he said.
“I’m saying that she knows you’re afraid of getting it wrong.” She held his gaze. “There is a difference.”
He said nothing.
The June light poured through the window into the quiet room. For a moment, it was only the three of them and the small sound of a baby finally, if not temporarily, at rest.
“Stay,” he said. The word came out low, and she watched him register it in the slight shift of his expression. “That is, if you are willing. With her. While she sleeps.” He looked away. “The nursehas not had more than four consecutive hours of sleep. I would rather she rest while the child is quiet.”
“Of course,” Isadora agreed.
The nurse left with quiet, exhausted gratitude.
James did not follow immediately. He stood where he was, looking at the baby, at the small weight of her against Isadora’s shoulder.
“What is her name?” Isadora asked.
“The solicitor calls her the child,” he said. “The nurse calls her little one. The former Duke apparently called her Violet in his letters.”
“Violet,” Isadora repeated softly, testing out the name. The baby’s small hand curled against her collarbone. “She looks like a Violet.”
James watched her for a moment.
“Yes,” he agreed quietly. “I think she does.”
He picked up his coat from the chair. He did not put it on. He stood for another moment in the doorway, looking at them both—at the baby, at Isadora, at some point in the space between them. Whatever he was thinking, he kept it to himself.
“I’ll be in the study,” he said. “If she?—”
“I’ll send for you,” Isadora assured him.
* * *
The study smelled of someone else. James had noticed it the first evening and noticed it again now. It smelled of leather and old paper and something faintly medicinal that probably belonged to the late Duke’s physician and had simply never been aired out.
