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“Indeed, all thanks to your mother.”

Iris laughed so hard that she had to set the right slipper down before she dropped it.

She moved on to a smaller trunk near the writing desk, and beneath a folded shawl, she found a wooden box, carved simply, its hinges stiff with disuse. Inside, nestled in faded velvet, sat a collection of pressed flowers gone brittle and brown with age, each one labeled in a careful, looping hand: first primrose, April, rose from the east garden, my birthday, violet Nathaniel gave me when I was cross with him.

She studied that last one for a long moment. “You gave Mama flowers?”

“Once. When we were children, and I’d said something cruel about her drawings, I think. I don’t even remember what it was, only that it made her cry, and I felt wretched about it for days. I picked every violet I could find in the garden and left them outside her door with no note.”

“Why no note?” she asked, her eyes swiveling to Nathaniel.

“Because I didn’t have the courage to apologize to her face.” He shook his head ruefully. “She knew it was me anyway. She always knew.”

“That’s not very brave,” she said bluntly.

“No,” he agreed. “I suppose it was not brave at all. I’ve tried to be braver since, though.”

Iris rummaged further through the trunk and pulled out a faded miniature portrait, small enough to fit in her palm. It showed a woman with dark hair and a wide, warm smile. Isabella, unmistakably young and laughing at whoever had held the brush.

“That’s her,” she said quietly. “That’s Mama.”

“Yes.” Nathaniel nodded.

Her lower lip began to tremble. “I don’t remember her face very well. I used to, but it’s gotten fuzzy, like when you look at something through fog.” She looked up, her eyes filled with tears. “Is it bad that I forgot?”

“No, sweetheart.” Laura crossed the room at once, knelt beside her, and gathered her close, portrait and all. “It’s not bad. It’s not bad at all. You were very small when she died. It’s all right to be sad about it. It’s all right to miss her, even the parts of her you can’t quite remember anymore.” She smoothed Iris’s hair back from her damp face. “And you’re not alone in missing her, not even a little.”

She looked over Iris’s head at Nathaniel. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. It was all on her face.

Come here. Tell her. She needs to hear it from you.

For a moment, he hesitated. She saw the old instinct in him. She knew that the years of training himself to swallow his grief rather than show it were not easy to undo.

Then something in him gave way, and he crossed the small room. He lowered himself to the floor beside them, his long frame folding awkwardly among the trunks and hatboxes.

“I miss her, too.” His voice cracked on the words. She had never heard him sound so vulnerable. “Every day.”

“Really? Every day?” Iris asked, turning to face him.

“I don’t talk about her much because it’s… it’s easier sometimes not to. But that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten her. I could never forget her.”

She leaned into him, the miniature still clutched in one fist, and pressed her face against his waistcoat. He wrapped his arms around her without hesitation, resting his chin on top of her head.

Laura watched them hold onto each other, and her eyes stung.

“She would be so proud of you,” Nathaniel murmured into Iris’s hair. “Do you know that? She used to say, before you were even born, that she hoped her daughter would be exactly as much trouble as you’ve turned out to be.”

A watery laugh escaped her. “That’s not very nice, Uncle.”

“It was the highest compliment your mother knew how to give.” He pulled back enough to look at her, brushing a tear from her cheek with his thumb, clumsy and careful all at once. “Do you want to know something silly about her? Something she’d want you to know?”

She nodded, sniffling.

“When she was about your age,” Nathaniel said, settling more comfortably against the trunk, Iris tucked into the crook of his arm, “she decided that our father’s prize hunter—an enormous, bad-tempered beast of a horse named Goliath—was a prince who’d been turned into a horse by a wicked sorceress…”

“Oh!”

“… and that it was her sacred duty to break the curse,” he continued.