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Iris burrowed into her side and picked up the book. “Let’s finish the story.”

She went to Stancastle House, Kitty’s family townhouse, on the fifth day, unable to bear the quiet of Duskwell House a moment longer. She arrived shortly after breakfast, and within minutes of being shown into the drawing room, she unraveled.

“He looked at me as though I were one more person confirming every cruel thing Society has ever said about him,” she sniffled. “And perhaps I did, but I was frightened, Kitty.”

“Of him?” Kitty asked.

“Not of him, never of him, but of what I saw happen in that ballroom. He couldn’t hear the difference. He only heard fear and decided that meant I saw him the way the rest of London does,” Laura said, wringing her hands.

“Oh, Laura.” Kitty drew her into a tight embrace, rubbing her back and letting her cry.

“It’s so awful,” Laura rasped, her sobs beginning to subside. “I needed to let these tears out. I’ve been holding them in for days.”

“He is wrong,” Kitty murmured. “Whatever he’s telling himself in that study of his. But grief like his makes even good men foolish, and I think he is drowning in more of it right now than he knows how to carry.”

“I don’t know how to reach him when he’s like this,” Laura said into her shoulder, her breath shuddering.

“You may not be able to, not yet.” Kitty pulled back enough to look at her and brushed a tear from her cheek. “Some men must sink to the bottom of the barrel before they’re ready to be pulled back out of it. It can take days, weeks, months.”

“And if it takes months? How will I live like this?” Laura whispered.

“Then you’ll have months of missing him,” Kitty said gently, “which is a great deal easier to survive than a lifetime of never having him at all. You told me yourself weeks ago that you’d rather face the hard things spoken aloud than locked away in silence. This is simply that same lesson, asking to be lived rather than only believed.”

Laura let out a small, watery laugh despite herself. “When did you become so wise?”

“I have always been wise,” Kitty said, motioning to the settee. “You’ve simply been too besotted these past months to remember it.” She squeezed Laura’s hand as they sat down together. “When you go home, be patient for as long as you can bear to be. And if a week becomes two, or two becomes three, come back here and cry again as many times as you need to. That’s what I’m here for, and I know he will get through this. He cares for you; he just needs to finish his quest.”

“You make him sound like Sir Gawain,” Laura snorted, picking up the teacup that was set down before her.

“Perhaps he is,” Kitty said, clinking their glasses before taking a sip from her own.

Laura returned to Duskwell House that evening no less heartsick than when she had left, but steadier somehow, for having talked to someone who truly loved and understood her.

Climbing the stairs to her cold chambers, she found the study door below still shut. Only a thin line of candlelight was visible beneath it long after the rest of the house had gone dark.

CHAPTER 29

Aweek later, the morning began bright, with only a handful of high clouds moving fast across the blue sky.

Laura thought, as Iris tugged her toward the park with a kite tucked under one arm, that a few hours outdoors might do them both some good.

“Higher,” Iris commanded, and Laura let the kite string out further, the small paper diamond climbing and swaying against the sky. “It wants to go higher, Laura. I can feel it pulling.”

“It’s trying to escape you, I think, and I don’t blame it,” Laura laughed, letting more string loose and chasing the kite across the open green with Iris shrieking with delight beside her.

She managed to forget the cold quiet that had settled over the house this past week like a storm that wouldn’t break. She forgot the study door that stayed shut long past midnight. She forgot the ache of missing a man who slept beyond a connecting door, but might as well have been on the other side of the earth.

“This is so fun!” Iris giggled as the kite caught the wind. “Look!”

Suddenly, a roll of thunder cracked without warning, distant but unmistakable. Laura looked into the distance. The horizon had gone the color of a fresh bruise, dark clouds massing from the west with incredible speed.

“We should go,” she said, reeling in the string. “Now, Iris, quickly. I fear this will be quite a storm, and we do not want to be caught in it.”

Iris did not argue, and they quickly wound in the kite.

They’d barely reached the edge of the green when a hard, cold sheet pelted them, soaking through Laura’s pelisse within moments and plastering Iris’s curls to her small, startled face.

“We need to move. I will have to carry you,” Laura said, wrapping her arms around Iris.