She thought, not for the first time, about the man who had stood by the stone wall with an empty cup saying he was more interested in the question than he had been before. He had found his answer. So had she. The afternoon meeting with the Dowager Duchess Heloise took place in the private sitting room and lasted 1 hour and 14 minutes, which Nora knew because she had quietly checked the mantel clock when she sat down and again when she stood to leave. The Dowager asked her about her father, about Ketmore, about the trust account in Edinburgh, about her views on estate management, on household governance, on the responsibilities that came with a title she had never in her life imagined carrying.
She asked her about her relationship with Lady Farrow, about her friendships, about what she considered her greatest weakness. And then, as without pause, what she considered her greatest strength. Nora answered everything honestly, even the difficult answers. Especially those. At the end, the Dowager looked at her for a long moment with those clear, sharp eyes.
"My grandson," she said, "has been managing things since he was 23 years old. Managing them brilliantly. Managing them alone. The one thing he has never been able to manage is wanting something for himself without immediately converting it into a responsibility. " She paused. "You have made him want something, genuinely want it without the armor. " She folded her hands in her lap.
"Do not let him put the armor back on. He will try. He is accustomed to it. Do not allow it. " "I will not," Nora said. The Dowager studied her face, then she nodded once, did with the finality of a woman closing a question she had fully investigated.
"Welcome to this family, Miss Vane. " She said. "You will find it complicated, occasionally exhausting, and never boring. " "That sounds entirely manageable. " Nora said. The dowager's eyes held something warm. "Yes. " She said. "I believe it does to you. " The announcement was made to the household that evening before dinner.
Calder stood in the drawing room with the assembled company around him and said it plainly because he did not perform things and the plainness of it made it more real than any elaborate declaration could have. Tilda made a sound that was not entirely ladylike and immediately covered it with both hands. Then she reached over and gripped Nora's arm with both of them and held on. Delia sat very straight and looked at the middle distance with an expression that was not a smile but was definitely the architecture of one. The bones of it present without the surface, yet committed.
Clarissa looked at her mother. Lady Farrow looked at Nora. What passed between them was complicated and layered and would take years to fully resolve but it was not hostile. Not anymore. Lord Cecil Barton raised his glass immediately and with genuine enthusiasm.