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“I am determined because it is what is best for Emma. She was delighted to see the sun at the window when I held her just now. I wish you could see it.”

He sighed. He had seen it. For a moment, at least. She’d stood at the window with Emma in her arms and had looked contented, and so had Emma. He looked down at his niece. The baby looked up at him with what he thought was a smile.

Then Marina turned Emma toward him.

“Give her your finger,” Marina said quietly. “She wishes to hold it, I am certain.”

He hesitated but did as she’d asked. Emma’s eyes focused on his index finger and she grabbed it. Feeling her little hand around his finger was strange and yet delightful.

Emma let out a small giggle, and his heart almost melted on the spot. “She is warm,” he noted.

“From the sun,” Marina explained. “There was a bird on the sill, perhaps your cardinal, for it was certainly a cardinal. We watched it for some time.”

His heart almost broke then. He adored birds, always had, but he had never been able to watch them in daylight. He would have liked to see the cardinal the footman had attempted to do away with, for example.

Was it fair of him not to let his niece experience such things? It wasn’t.

He hadn’t liked the way she had gone about any of this, but she had a point.

“Would you like to hold her?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No. That is quite all right. She seems perfectly contented with you.”

“She does,” Marina replied. “She seems to have taken to me rather quickly. I am truly delighted.”

He nodded, pleased to hear it.

“I had a mind to take her outside for a little while.”

“Of course. Whatever you see fit to do.”

“Now,” she said, “the curtains? We cannot continue to go round and round in circles about this matter.”

He sighed. “No, indeed we cannot. Very well. We shall do as you proposed. The curtains in her room may stay open. I shall knock if I wish to enter.”

“And elsewhere in the house?” she asked.

“Do not press your luck, my dear,” he said. “If you wish to take breakfast on your own, you may open the curtains then. You must close them before you leave again. If you open the curtains in any chamber you are in, you must take care to close them after you. If you should forget, I will rescind this agreement immediately.”

She nodded. “Very well.”

“Good,” he said. “Well, that is that.”

He turned to let her go, but then she called after him.

“Your Grace… Although I suppose I should call you Ambrose now that we are married.”

“You may,” he said, confused by the way hearing her speak his name made him feel.

“You said that a carriage could be dispatched to fetch the remainder of my belongings from the cottage. When do you think that could be accomplished?”

He paused. He had been about to tell her she was welcome to take a carriage whenever she liked, when it occurred to him that this might be the solution to his problem.

Proximity to her was growing more and more troublesome. Already, he had caught himself looking over his shoulder more often than usual—not to avoid her, but to watch her.

That simply would not do.

But she had just given him the perfect excuse to avoid her without seeming rude.