Page 86

“Of course. Thank you for coming, Dr. March,” Laura said as he walked toward the door. “Thank you so much.”

“You’re most welcome.”

With that, he let himself out.

For a long moment, neither of them moved. They only listened to the sound of Iris’s breathing, so pleasant and soothing after all the worry.

“Go,” Nathaniel said quietly. “Bathe. Change. Sleep, if you can manage it, though I don’t imagine you will.”

“I don’t want her to wake without⁠—”

“She won’t be alone. I’ll stay with her for now.” He caught her hand briefly, the first time he’d touched her in over a week, and something in the gesture made her throat tighten. “Laura, you’ve been wearing the same gown for more than a day, and you haven’t slept for more than three hours. Please.”

She hesitated a moment longer, then crossed to the bed and bent to press a firm kiss to Iris’s forehead. Cool now, blessedly cool.

“Send for me the instant she stirs,” she told the maid waiting by the door. “The very instant. I don’t care what I’m doing.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

The bath was blessedly warm, and she sat in it longer than was necessary. She tipped her head back against the rim, letting the heat work the ache out of her shoulders while Sarah moved quietly about the room, laying out fresh linen.

She closed her eyes and thought of Nathaniel in Iris’s room at three in the morning, rocking the girl against his chest and telling her about a garden that bloomed only after dark. She thought of the blanket she had woken beneath, tucked carefully around her shoulders by hands that had spent the previous week determined to keep their distance.

She did not know what to make of any of it, and she was too tired to try.

She had just been buttoned into a clean day dress, her hair hanging damp down her back, when someone knocked.

Laura opened the door wide.

Nathaniel stepped through the door, looking very nearly as ragged as she felt, still in yesterday’s shirt with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His beard had grown, and his eyes were still shadowed with exhaustion, but also held another emotion.

Her heart skipped a beat.

“May I have a word?” he asked. “In private.”

Laura glanced at Sarah, who set down the hairbrush.

“Just ring if you need anything, Your Grace,” she said and withdrew, the door clicking shut behind her.

Then it was just the two of them, a week’s worth of things left unsaid filling the space between them.

Nathaniel didn’t sit. He stood a few paces from the door with his hands at his sides, looking like he had something to say and did not know where to begin.

“I don’t know how to let her go,” he began, his voice rough.

Laura went very still. She had not expected to hear that.

“Isabella…” He didn’t look away when he said it, which she understood was the whole point. “These past three years, I have tried to find a way to set it down, and every time I come close, some part of me decides that setting it down would be the final betrayal. That grieving her properly and moving forward means agreeing that what happened to her was simply unfortunate.” He drew in a breath. “And I am terrified, Laura. I have been terrified for months now. Of failing you and Iris exactly the way I believe I failed her. Of not seeing what’s in front of me until it’s too late.”

“Nathaniel—”

“Let me finish,” he said quickly. “Please. I’ve spent too long preparing myself for this, and I’m not certain I can do it twice.”

Laura closed her mouth and nodded.

“I have spent my whole life believing I could not afford to be anything but strong.” He crossed the room to the window, to the light. It shone around him like a halo. “My cruel father made certain of it. A duke does not weep, does not falter, does not require comfort from anyone. And then Isabella died, and it confirmed everything he’d taught me, only in reverse.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, taking a small step toward him.