I need to say something to you. And I need you to let me finish before you respond. He nodded once.
She took a breath, not of uncertainty, but of the kind of precision she applied to everything. Do I came back to London because of you? Not entirely.
The season was always the plan and I was always going to come. But I came back willing, without dread, because for 10 years the thing I most wanted to do when I returned was stand in the same room as you, at 20, and understand whether what I felt at 10 was a child’s fantasy or something true.
He was very still. I have spent 6 weeks in the same rooms as you. And the answer is that it was something true, which is inconvenient.
And I am aware that it is inconvenient. And I am aware that you are 40 years old and have decided, thoroughly, publicly, and with impressive consistency, that you are too old and too finished for this sort of thing.
You have said it to your mother. You have said it to your club. You have said it to anyone who asked. She held his gaze.
And yet here you are. A pause. Precise. Deliberate.
Lord Hereford has written to my father. He will arrive from the country this week. I have not decided anything.
And I will not decide anything without a stop, a breath, a new start. I have been waiting 10 years for you to see me.
Not the child in the corridor. Me. And I am standing here now telling you exactly what I mean, because I am finished with patience and I have run out of time for it.