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Lord Harwood looked at her, mouth open and eyes wide. He was clearly scrambling for something to say.

“Iris,” the Duke interjected, shaking his head. “It isn’t polite to meddle in other people’s farewells. Everyone says goodbye in their own way.”

“It’s all right,” Laura said quietly, before either of them could say any more.

She looked at her father and searched for something, anything that truly tied them. But then he looked at her husband… and was visibly startled into motion.

“Well,” he mumbled, almost to himself. “Come here, my girl.”

He stepped forward awkwardly and drew her into an embrace so brief and so cold it might as well not have happened. His arms barely closed around her before they began to withdraw.

Laura felt the shallowness of it more sharply than she’d felt any of his shouting the morning before.

Something in this small, hollow gesture was almost crueler than outright anger. It was as though he could not even stomach the pretense of tenderness now that nothing further could be gained from her.

The deal is done. That’s all I ever was to him.

He leaned close to her ear. “Be a good wife,” he said, his voice pitched low. “Give the Duke a son, and quickly. Make your mother proud, as nothing else you’ve ever done has managed it.” Then he stepped back.

Laura went very still. The words landed somewhere beneath her ribs and settled there, cold as ice. For a long moment, she could not make herself speak.

“Goodbye, Father,” she said, looking at him one last time. She turned to the Duke before her composure could crack any further. “Are we ready to depart now, Your Grace?”

The Duke’s gaze moved from her face to her father’s and back again, and something in his expression hardened. He took a deep breath, gave a curt nod, and extended his arm to her.

“We are ready, Duchess,” he answered, then led her out to the waiting carriage, with Iris skipping between them.

They had not been on the road a quarter hour before Iris, seated across from them with her small boots swinging above the floor, began her interrogation in earnest.

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?” She tilted her head.

“No,” Laura replied. “I am an only child.”

“That’s terribly sad. I’d hate to be an only child,” Iris said, shaking her head.

“Aren’t you an only child too?” Laura pointed out, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Yes, but I have Buttons.”

“Ah, I see,” she said, stifling a giggle.

“Do you have a favorite color?” Iris asked next.

“Yes, I⁠—”

“Mine’s yellow. I wanted to have the curtains in my room made of a new yellow fabric, but Uncle says yellow isn’t a proper color for curtains, which I think is nonsense.”

“Iris,” the Duke interjected, “Laura has had a very long day. She needn’t answer every question you can think to ask her right now. You have all the time in the world.”

“I don’t mind.” To her surprise, Laura found that she meant it.

Despite the emotions she had battled since the auction, something about the girl’s easy chatter grounded her. Little Iris radiated warmth that asked nothing of her except simple answers to simple questions.

Laura liked that. It was a relief, after a morning spent parsing the careful cruelty hidden inside every well-wisher’s smile.

“Yellow is a lovely color for curtains,” she offered, smiling at the girl in encouragement. “I don’t see why it shouldn’t be. I bet it would catch the sun quite well.”

Iris shot her uncle a look of pure vindication and raised an eyebrow.