She stood in the centre of the nursery with the solemnity of a monarch addressing Parliament, the velvet rabbit held aloft in both hands. Arrayed before her, seated on the nursery carpet with the expressions of men who had long ago accepted their fate, were Tristan and Adrian.
Adrian had a paper crown on his head. It was not, Rosamund noted from the doorway, a fresh one. It was the original — the one that had lived on the nursery mantel for months, its watercolour flowers faded, its newsprint creased from handling. At some point in the last half-hour it had migrated from the mantel to Adrian’s head, where it sat at a jaunty angle that suggested he had adjusted it for optimal dignity.
Tristan did not have a crown. He had a velvet rabbit placed ceremonially in his outstretched hands, which he held with the gravity of a man receiving state papers.
“The Earl of Carrots,” Clara continued, in the carrying tones of a girl who had learnt from her earliest experience that the key to commanding a room was simply to speak as though the room had no alternative but to listen, “is hereby elevated to the rank of Duke. His Duchy shall comprise the windowsill, the bookshelf, and the area behind the rocking horse which has hitherto been ungoverned and is therefore in great need of administration.”
“An astute territorial decision,” Adrian said. “The ungoverned area behind the rocking horse is precisely the sort of region that requires a firm hand.”
“It is extremely ungoverned,” Clara agreed. “There are dust mice.”
“Dust mice are a menace to sound governance.”
“His Grace,” Clara said, addressing Tristan with an authority that had never once, in the months since their return from Hertfordshire, diminished, “will confirm the promotion.”
Tristan looked down at the velvet rabbit with the expression of a man who had faced Parliament and courts and the combined hostility of the English legal system and had never once been made to feel as thoroughly subordinate as he was made to feel in this room. Then he looked up at Clara, and the expression changed entirely into the thing it always changed into when he looked at her — the unguarded warmth of a man who had been chosen by a child and had made his peace with the fact that he would never fully deserve it.
“His elevation is confirmed,” he said. “Long may he govern the ungoverned territories. With firmness.”
“And compassion,” Clara added. “He must also be compassionate. Rosamund says governance without compassion becomes something else entirely.”
A silence fell over the nursery.
Adrian turned to look at Tristan. Tristan met his cousin’s gaze across the velvet rabbit and the faded paper crown and the seven-year-old standing between them, and the corner of his mouth did the thing — the fractional shift that meant he was not going to smile, and which served as confirmation to anyone who knew him that he absolutely was.
“Your wife,” Adrian said, with considerable satisfaction, “has entirely reformed you.”
“He was always reformable,” Clara said, with the authority of someone who had arrived at a conclusion through direct evidence. “He simply required instruction.”
From the doorway, Rosamund pressed her knuckles against her mouth.
She had been watching for three minutes without either of them knowing, because the scene before her was the kind that required witnessing properly — silently, without the performance of response, with the full attention of a woman who had spent four years learning that the presence of joy required the same vigilance as the presence of danger, because joy was considerably less accustomed to being trusted and would vanish if startled.
She no longer startled it. She had learnt, in the months since they came home, to simply let it be present without bracing against the moment it would end.
The moment rarely ended.
Tristan looked up. He found her in the doorway with the unerring instinct he had always had for her location in any room — the attentiveness she had catalogued for months before she understood it as what it was, which was simply a man who had reorganised his entire orientation around where she happened to be standing.
“You have been there some time,” he said.
“Long enough.”
“Long enough to witness the promotion?”
“Long enough to have formed serious opinions about the governance of the area behind the rocking horse.”
“The dust mice situation is well in hand,” Adrian said. “The new Duke takes his responsibilities with great seriousness. Greater, I would say, than certain other titled individuals in this room who shall remain nameless.”
“You are wearing a paper crown,” Rosamund said.
“I am wearing the symbol of legitimacy and continuous authority. There is a distinction.”
“Clara made it from an old broadsheet.”
“The finest crowns are made from impermanent materials. It emphasises their ceremonial rather than material value.” Adrian removed it, examined it, and replaced it at the same angle. “I have given this considerable thought.”
“He has been giving it considerable thought for forty minutes,” Tristan said, rising from the carpet with the unhurried movement of a man who had been sitting cross-legged long enough for his knees to register their displeasure. “He arrived uninvited, as is his custom, consumed most of the nursery biscuits, appointed himself the presiding officer of a rabbit’s elevation, and has been explaining the theory of ceremonial headwear at intervals ever since.”
