Because every person who encountered the Duke and Duchess of Ashvale together in a room reported the same thing. The man who had built composure into an identity was in the presence of his wife.
Entirely and permanently at ease. He laughed differently. He occupied rooms differently.
He had stopped building walls and started opening windows, which is a thing that happens to people when they finally permit themselves to want what they want. Ada did not need anyone to report this.
She had the original in front of her every day and every day she found it exactly as true as the night before. They were in the library at Ashvale House in September.
She reading, he at his correspondence. Both of them in the familiar quiet that had become the texture of their days together.
When he looked up without preamble and said, You were 10 years old. She looked up from her book.
As I know. It is a very young age to decide something. It is.
She considered him across the room with the same composure she’d carried through 10 years of Bath winters and one very particular London season. But I decided again every year.
That should count for something. He looked at her for a moment.