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“Better than I anticipated.” He swirled the brandy in the glass once. “I never quite expected her to be good at as many things as I have discovered she is good at; that is true, but…” He stopped.

“But?” Daniel coaxed now.

He exhaled through his nose. “But nothing. She is my wife, because she is meant to care for Eloise, and she does it well enough.”

Aside from the episode at the lake, Juliet really did find joy in caring for his daughter, and for that reason alone, he would always be grateful.

“I have no intention of making a shambles of what is working by—” He put the glass down again. “I will not be a fool about it.”

Did it matter that thoughts of seducing his wife kept him wide awake at night most nights since… since that kiss? No, of course not. He couldn’t let his emotions control him so blatantly now. Not now.

Maybe not ever⁠—

“Passion is not foolishness,” Daniel said, and Adam blinked before his brows furrowed in displeasure.

“It has cost me enough to feel otherwise.” He spoke quietly, and Daniel barely resisted the urge to groan out loud.

Then, very carefully, he said, “She is not Charlotte.”

Adam looked at the fire across the room. “No,” he agreed.

And that, he thought, was entirely the whole problem.

Lady Worthington moved through the covered market arcade with ease, her expression serene even in the bustle. One would not realize that she’d accepted a call by her granddaughter mere hours prior, having been beset by Juliet and the young Eloise at the break of dawn.

Seeing them standing there had reminded the dowager marchioness too closely of the dreadful morning when Juliet had arrived in that ghastly and expensive wedding dress, blubbering about being sold off to that carcass of a viscount.

The stalls were close-set under high glass panes that scattered the afternoon light, and the air smelled of beeswax and old wood and something floral Juliet couldn’t quite place.

Eloise had found the ribbon display two stalls in and was engaged in a critical consultation with the merchant’s assistant.

“That one is too pink.” She held the spool up to the light.

“The coral?” the assistant offered.

Eloise pressed it against her cuff, considered, then held it out to Lady Worthington. “This one.”

Lady Worthington bought two yards of it and moved on. She did not smile until Eloise had walked ahead.

“She has been grown up on books,” her grandmother said when Juliet fell into step beside her.

“She’s had no one else,” Juliet said. “Only her father and her governess.”

“The governess, from what I observed, is not much of a conversationalist.”

“She is not.”

Lady Worthington was watching Eloise stop at a jar of pressed flowers and hold it up to the light. “And the father?”

Juliet watched the jar turn in Eloise’s hands. “He says what matters and leaves out the rest.”

“Mm.” Her grandmother walked on a moment. “And how is the marriage?”

“We are managing well.”

“That is not what I asked, my darling.”

On their left, a stall spread its goods across dark baize: shaving sets, pen cases, letter seals, a pair of ivory paper knives. Juliet slowed.