“The curtains are very thin.”
“I’ll mention that as well.”
“And the light in here is rather?—”
“Mother.” Cressida reached for her wine. “I shall speak to Mrs. Agnes.”
“You are managing well,” Lady Bardwell observed, with an expression hovering between surprise and something akin to approval.
“One learns,” Cressida said composedly.
Theodore watched his wife navigate her family, pride brewing in his chest.
Later, when the gentlemen rejoined the ladies, Lord Bardwell detached himself from the fire and crossed the room with the deliberateness of a man who had prepared remarks.
“A word, Ashmere, if I may.” He settled into the adjacent chair and clasped his hands together. “I wish to say that this marriage has been of considerable benefit. To Cressida, naturally.” A pause in which something uncomfortable moved beneath the businesslike surface. “She has always been a good girl. Independent. Too much so, perhaps, for her prospects.”
“She argued because she was correct,” Theodore said. “In most instances, her position was the more defensible one.”
Lord Bardwell sat with that for a moment. The fire crackled.
“Yes,” he said, more quietly. “I suppose she takes after Norwell. That side.” Another pause. “She seems well.”
“Sheiswell. The tenants think very highly of her. She has also improved the library by approximately forty volumes, which I consider an unqualified benefit.”
Something moved across Lord Bardwell’s face that would have looked like pride on a man with a different history with his daughter. He stood, straightened his coat, and the moment folded itself away as though it had never occurred.
“Good,” he said. “That is good.”
He returned to the fire.
Across the room, Cressida looked up from her conversation with Mary and met Theodore’s gaze.
She didn’t look away, and neither did he.
Lady Bardwell came to find her.
That was the first surprising thing. In her twenty-four years, Cressida could count on one hand the number of times her mother had sought her out without an agenda attached.
She set down her pen. “Is everything all right?”
“Perfectly.” Lady Bardwell smoothed her skirt and looked at the view. “This is a good room. The light is excellent.”
“It is.”
She nodded and let another pause pulse between them.
Cressida waited, having learned long ago that pressing her mother produced defensiveness rather than disclosure.
“At dinner last night,” Lady Bardwell began, “when your father said that thing about Burke… you didn’t correct him.”
“No. Peter did.”
“Yes, I recall that. What I meant to say is… Well, you would havebefore.” She said it without accusation. “You would have corrected your father and then explained at length why he was wrong, and he would have adjusted his cravat, and he and I would have exchanged a look, and—” She stopped. “I’m not saying you were wrong to correct him all those times before, nor that your brother was. Your father was wrong about Burke. He is frequently wrong and rarely aware of it.”
Cressida said nothing, startled into silence.
“I am saying,” her mother continued, more carefully, “that last night you caught your husband’s eye instead and let it pass, and it struck me that… that you have become someone who chooses her battles.” She paused again. “That is not a small thing, seeingas I did not teach you that. It is good to see you arrive at it by yourself.”
