“I am beginning to understand that.”
“And what are these practical matters, then?” she asked, resting her hand lightly beside her plate, her tone lighter now, but her attention entirely on him.
“Joseph,” Harper said.
She smiled immediately, because there was something so inevitable about beginning there that it felt almost right.
“Yes,” she said. “Joseph.”
“We should speak to him soon,” Harper continued, his voice quieter now, more considered, as though this was something that mattered to him in a way that went beyond simplearrangement. “I would prefer that he hear it from us, rather than from anyone else.”
“I agree,” she said, and her expression softened without her intending it to. “Though I do not think he will be surprised. He has already decided, in his own way, that I belong here.”
Harper’s gaze lingered on her for a moment, something warm and steady passing through it.
“He is not the only one who has come to that conclusion,” he said.
The words were simple, but they carried something beneath them that made her look away for a moment, her fingers tightening slightly around the stem of her glass as a quiet warmth spread through her chest.
“Well,” she said after a brief pause, her voice softer than before, “we should still tell him together. He would like that.”
“Yes,” Harper said immediately, as though there had never been any question of it. “We will tell him together.”
“And my mother,” she added, lifting her gaze again, her smile returning as she thought of Albina. “Though I suspect she will behave as though this has been her plan from the very beginning.”
“I would not be surprised if it has been,” Harper said, and this time he did not quite hide his amusement.
“She will pretend to be shocked,” Temperance continued, the laughter returning to her voice, “and then she will say something outrageous and insist she always knew this would happen.”
“That sounds entirely accurate.”
The servants moved quietly around them again, clearing plates and refreshing wine, and for a moment the conversation paused, but it did not feel interrupted so much as it felt suspended.
“And the dogs?” he asked once they had left, as though the subject belonged just as naturally in the conversation as anything else they had discussed. “If we are discussing the future of the household, then I think it only reasonable that the dogs be included in that discussion.”
She smiled more fully at that, the warmth of it lingering as she studied him for a moment, clearly enjoying the way he approached even the most ridiculous matters with such quiet authority. “And what, precisely, have you decided about them?” she asked.
“They are staying inside,” he said without hesitation.
“They’ve grown on you,” Temperance said, gleefully. “I never thought I would see the day.”
“They have not grown on me,” he said, with a composure that might have been convincing if not for the faintest shift at the corner of his mouth, “so much as I have come to recognize that resisting them is both impractical and, in Joseph’s case, entirely futile.”
“I’ll take whatever explanation you are choosing to provide.”
He inclined his head slightly, accepting the remark with more ease than she might have expected only a short time ago, and for a moment the quiet between them returned.
Temperance traced the rim of her glass absently before glancing up at him again, something softer entering her expression. “You have changed your mind about many things rather quickly,” she said, not accusingly, but with a quiet curiosity she did not try to disguise.
Harper did not look away.
“I have had reason to,” he said.
He rose then, slowly, deliberately, and came around the table. Temperance found herself standing to meet him without quite deciding to, drawn forward by something she no longer tried to resist.
And then his hand found hers.
“I want to kiss you again.”
