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Alexander turned toward her, his brow creasing. “I am merely waiting for a suitable moment.”

“She has finished her tea,” Charlotte said.

He shook his head. “Eleanor is speaking.”

“Eleanor has been speaking since we arrived. You may have to interrupt her,” Charlotte said, with a tilt of her head.

His mouth twitched. Beside them, his sister paused in her account of a disastrous fitting, a pin still pinched between two fingers as evidence, and regarded them with narrowed eyes. “If you are discussing me, I insist upon being included,” Eleanor said.

“We were admiring your perseverance,” Alexander said, with perfect gravity.

“How unusual. Generally you complain of it.”

Charlotte pressed her lips together, but her amusement must have shown, because Alexander glanced down at her, and the answering warmth in his eyes, soft and a little rueful, made her forget, briefly, what they had been discussing. Three weeks married, and he could still do that with a look.

He had done it that morning across the breakfast table while she read a letter from the friend who had offered advice about their journey to Venice, the sunlight pouring over the marmalade and his tousled hair. He listened as she explained a change she wanted to make to their route, his chin propped on his hand, then asked a question that sent them both back to the map, bent over it with their heads together. By the time the toast grew cold, they had settled upon a plan that pleased them both, and she had thought, with a small, glad shock, that she’d once felt the old need to defend her opinion.

His hand found hers, resting between them on the sofa, his fingers curling around hers and giving a small, private squeeze.

Across the hearth, his mother smiled, her silver head tilted and her eyes bright with interest. “Alexander, I have been exceptionally patient. Is that parcel intended for me, or have you brought something to occupy yourself should my conversation disappoint?”

“For you, Mother.”

“Then do let me have it,” she told him.

He rose, taking the parcel from the table, the ribbon trailing from his fingers. Charlotte felt the loss of his hand at once, a small cool absence. She folded her fingers in her lap and watched him approach his mother’s chair, her heart beating a little faster, suddenly as eager as he was to see the gift opened.

“Happy birthday,” he said, bending to kiss her cheek, and Charlotte saw how his hand lingered a moment on his mother’s shoulder.

His mother accepted the parcel with a pleased smile, weighing it in her lap. “Thank you, my dear.”

She loosened the ribbon with careful, unhurried fingers and drew back the paper, which crackled softly in the quiet. Beneath it lay the small volume, its leather binding the color she loved best, a warm, deep green like the inside of a leaf. She passed her fingertips over the cover before opening it, as though greeting an old friend.

For a moment, she said nothing, and the silence stretched until Charlotte saw Alexander’s throat move. Then his mother looked up, her eyes bright with sudden tears. “Oh, Alexander.”

He rubbed his thumb along the side of his forefinger. Charlotte recognized the gesture now. He did it when he cared very much about an answer, and her heart ached with tenderness at the sight. “It is a collection of recollections,” he explained, a little too quickly. “Family stories, chiefly. Eleanor supplied several.”

“Some of which he tried to exclude,” Eleanor said.

“Only because your account of the overturned pudding was inaccurate.”

“You were underneath the table. I had a considerably better view.”

Their mother laughed, though her eyes had begun to shine, and she pressed her fingertips to the corner of one. “I remember that pudding,” she said.

“So, unfortunately, do I,” Alexander said, groaning.

She turned a page and found a drawing of the house, its chimneys and gables inked in a careful, slightly crooked hand. Charlotte knew how many sheets of paper he had spoiled before he was satisfied with that sketch. One evening, she found him at the library table, staring out the window he had placed too close to the chimney, the pen forgotten in his hand and a smear of ink on his cheek.

She had offered to look. He had asked whether she wanted to, or was being kind. “Both,” she had told him, and he had laughed.

They had spent a pleasant half hour over it, her shoulder against his, after which she had returned to her novel, and he had begun again. Now his mother bent closer to examine the drawing, her spectacles sliding down her nose. “You have even included the old pear tree.”

“It seemed unwise to omit the tree you always told us not to climb,” Alexander said.

“And which you climbed whenever my back was turned.”

“Not whenever,” Eleanor said. “Sometimes you were still watching.”