Page 57

“I did not. I’m only… I’m fine.” He exhaled. “Come along.”

He opened the door.

The room beyond was smaller than Laura had expected. It was tucked beneath the eaves, lit by a single tall window that threw dancing shafts of afternoon sunlight across the floor. Trunks were stacked against one wall, a dress form draped in yellowing muslin stood beside hatboxes tied with ribbon gone dull with dust, and a writing desk sat at the center, its inkwell still capped as though someone had simply stepped away one afternoon and never came back.

A woman’s room.

Isabella’s room, she realized.

Dust motes drifted lazily through the shafts of sunlight, and the air was heavy but not unpleasant, even though the room had been locked for so long.

“These were your mother’s things,” Nathaniel said to Iris, his voice rough. “I haven’t touched anything… after she died. I couldn’t…” He stopped and looked at her. “I couldn’t bear to have them thrown out, but I also couldn’t bear to look at them. So I locked the room and told myself I would deal with it eventually.”

Iris had gone very quiet, her small hand slipping into Laura’s as she leaned against her.

“I should have given them to you sooner,” Nathaniel continued, crouching down before her. “They’re yours, Iris. Her gowns, her letters, her jewelry box. Everything in this room belonged to your mother, and now it belongs to you. It is time you enjoy it.”

For a moment, Iris only stared at him.

Laura held her breath, uncertain how the girl would react. Then Iris let out a sound that was half laugh, half sob, and launched herself across the room toward the nearest trunk, throwing back the lid with more strength than a girl her age should possess.

“Oh, thank you, Uncle!” she cried.

“Careful,” Nathaniel started, but Laura touched his arm, and he fell silent.

Inside the trunk were folded gowns in faded blues and rich creams, a fan with mother-of-pearl sticks, and a small porcelain box that contained a tangle of ribbons and hairpins. It smelled like jasmine and lavender.

“Oh,” Iris breathed, lifting a strand of pearls to the light. “Are these… Were these really Mama’s?”

“They were,” Nathaniel confirmed. “She wore them for her coming out. I remember because she made me tell her ten times that she looked beautiful, and I told her eleven times, just to be cheeky.”

Iris laughed, the sound bright and unburdened, and dove back into the trunk. She pulled out a child’s sampler stitched with crooked letters, a locket, and a stack of letters tied with a yellow ribbon. She clutched them to her chest.

Laura’s heart clenched as she imagined how she might feel if she were afforded the same experience with her mother’s things. Unfortunately for her, most of her mother’s belongings had been disposed of by the time she was Iris’s age.

She watched the girl go from trunk to trunk, exclaiming over each new treasure. She watched Nathaniel watch her, his expression so tender and so raw that her throat tightened. She caught his eye and smiled.

Look what you’ve done. Look what you’ve given her.

He gave her the smallest smile back, as if he could hear her thoughts, and for a moment, the room felt less like a mausoleum of grief and more like a cherished memory being slowly reclaimed.

Iris had moved on to another trunk, this one a rich mahogany and deeper. She dug through layers of tissue paper until she found a small pair of black dancing slippers, so worn at the toes that the leather was white.

“Whose are these? They are not pink like Mama’s other slippers.”

Nathaniel came closer and gently took the left slipper in his hands, turning it over. Surprise flickered across his face, followed by a slow smile.

“These were mine. My breeching ceremony.”

“Oh my goodness, what a thing to imagine!” Laura laughed, bringing her hands to her cheeks.

“Isabella must have kept them,” Nathaniel said, shaking his head. “I wore holes clean through the soles trying to learn a quadrille our dancing master insisted I master before my first ball, and I was so mortified by how badly I danced that I threw them into the fire the moment the lesson ended. She fished them back out before they caught. She always looked out for me…”

“You couldn’t dance?” Iris looked scandalized, as though this was the single most shocking revelation of the entire afternoon.

“No,” Nathaniel confirmed gravely. “I had all the grace of a newly foaled colt. Isabella laughed at me for a solid week and then, when she had finished laughing, spent every evening for a month teaching me herself.”

“Is that why you’re not terrible now?”