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"She sounds wonderful," Arabella said.

"She was," he agreed.

The pang was there now. But it was soft, as it had been of late. It was no longer laced with the bitter notes of regret and what ifs.

He supposed at some point over the last two years, he'd stopped arguing with God's plan. He'd stopped trying to make sense of it and had come to accept it.

It was still sad, yes. And he suspected he'd never fully stop missing her. But he no longer fought it, and that… That made the sadness more sweet. He could focus on the happy memories without regretting the future they'd lost.

"Lucy must miss her terribly," Arabella said.

"She does. Though she doesn't—" He stopped. He was not sure how to say this without it sounding like a failing. "She doesn't speak of her. Not anymore. For the first year she talked about Eleanor constantly. And then one day she simply…stopped."

Arabella was quiet for a moment. "Perhaps it hurts too much."

He dipped his chin. "Perhaps."

Though that did not ring true.

"Or perhaps no one is letting her." She said it gently, but it still took his breath away. "Children are remarkably perceptive. If the adults around her have decided that Eleanor is too painful to discuss, Lucy will have decided the same."

After a moment of strained silence, Arabella leaned forward, her brows knit together. "I'm sorry, John. I did not mean⁠—"

"No. Don't apologize." He cleared his throat. "I think… I think you may be right."

She winced. And then she let out a rather unladylike huff. "Right or not, it was insensitive. I did not mean to judge. No one should, but certainly not someone like me."

There was a derision in her tone he did not care for. Not one bit. It did not suit her, and it was far too genuine.

What did she mean by “someone like me?”

Before he could ask, small feet appeared on the staircase and then Lucy showed up in the doorway, squinting against the lamplight.

"I can't sleep," she announced.

John held out his arms and she crossed the room and climbed onto his lap. She still fit there, but just barely. "Where is Mrs. Lennox?"

"Asleep. She lasted until chapter four." Lucy yawned. "I finished the book without her. I must tell Aunt Clarissa so we can discuss it."

Arabella smiled at that and he kissed the top of Lucy's head. "Would you like some warm milk?"

Lucy nodded. "Yes, please."

He settled her in the chair he'd been sitting in. "I'll be right back. Stay with Lady Arabella."

The kitchen was dark, the cook long since retired. He heated milk himself and burned his thumb on the pot handle. He stood in the kitchen for a minute longer than necessary because he was thinking about what Arabella had said.

Perhaps no one is letting her.

Was that true? Had he, in his grief, made Eleanor's name into something Lucy couldn't say?

He carried the milk back down the corridor. The drawing room door was ajar. He could hear their voices—Lucy's higher, faster, and Arabella's low murmur beneath it. He slowed.

"—and she'd read to me every night," Lucy was saying. "Even when she was tired, she'd read to me until I slept, and half the time she'd be yawning."

John stopped walking.

Lucy's giggle filled the air along with Arabella's soft laugh. "Could you make out what she was saying while she was yawning?"