Chapter 17: Learning Each Other

Tuesday settled quietly over Kingsley Manor. The newspapers still carried Olivia's interview. The television still debated it.

Inside the estate, breakfast arrived at precisely seven-thirty. Some routines, Emma was learning, refused to acknowledge headlines.

When she entered the dining room, Ethan was already there. Black coffee. Untouched toast. Three financial reports arranged in perfect alignment.

"You've been awake long?"

"Since five."

"You really do enjoy mornings."

"I tolerate them."

"I suppose that's enthusiasm by your standards."

"Probably."

Nathan entered carrying another folder. "The Singapore call has moved to nine."

"It was eight."

"They apologized."

"I doubt they meant it."

"They didn't." Nathan turned to Emma. "Mrs. Kingsley, the gardeners wanted to know whether you'd still like the roses moved to the southern terrace."

"They asked you?"

"They assumed I'd know."

"I don't."

"I'll go ask them myself," she said, laughing.

"I suspected you might."

She found the gardeners behind the east greenhouse, debating where a row of climbing roses should go.

"They're beautiful," she said.

"They're stubborn."

"So am I."

That earned a smile. They spent twenty minutes deciding where the roses would get enough afternoon sun.

"Thank you for asking instead of telling," one of them called after her.

"I've killed enough houseplants to know I shouldn't pretend to be an expert."

Later that afternoon, Ethan crossed the entrance hall just as a housemaid nearly dropped a stack of folded linen. He caught it without breaking stride.

"Thank you, sir."

"You're welcome, Maria."

"You remembered."

"I try."

He kept walking. From the staircase above, Emma had seen everything.

Not the linen.

The name.

That evening she found Nathan in the study. "Can I ask you something? Does Ethan know everyone's name?"

"I assumed you'd noticed."

"I have now."

"He makes a point of learning them."

"Why?"

"He says it's difficult to expect loyalty from people you've never bothered to know."

That sounded exactly like him.

The next morning, Emma stopped by the kitchen before work. "I wanted to thank you for yesterday's lunch. The lemon rice was wonderful."

The cook beamed. "It was Mr. Kingsley's suggestion. He remembered you ordered it at the foundation gala."

Emma searched her memory. She had. One plate, one evening, weeks ago.

She hadn't realized he'd noticed. Again.

The nonprofit was unusually busy. Rachel appeared balancing three clipboards. "If one more volunteer forgets where we keep the donation forms, I'm resigning."

"You've threatened that every Tuesday for three years."

"I mean it this time."

Emma took two of the clipboards from her, then noticed one of the younger volunteers sitting alone near the supply shelves, crying quietly and hoping no one would see.

Emma changed direction without thinking and sat beside her. Neither spoke for a while.

"I'm sorry," the girl finally said. "I made a mistake."

"So have I."

The girl laughed through her tears. It wasn't much. Sometimes it didn't need to be.

That evening Ethan signed the last document on his desk. Nathan waited with tomorrow's schedule.

"One item left. The anonymous donations."

He handed over a slim folder. Every year the Kingsley Foundation funded hospitals, schools, shelters, and scholarships worth millions. Every year the final page carried the same instruction.

Donor Name: Anonymous.

"They'd happily put your name on every building," Nathan said, watching him sign it.

"I know."

"You've never been tempted?"

"The buildings aren't for me."

Nathan closed his own folder. "For what it's worth, Mrs. Kingsley sat with one of the younger volunteers today. The girl had been crying. Nobody asked her to."

Ethan didn't look up from his signature. "No. She wouldn't need to be asked."

"She also remembered it was one of the drivers' birthday last week. Sent a note down with the car."

His pen stopped on the page.

"I didn't know that."

"I imagine there's quite a lot you don't know yet."

Emma got home just as Nathan was leaving the study.

"I interrupted," she said.

"No."

"Busy day?"

"The usual."

Neither said much after that. Neither mentioned the roses, or the cook, or Maria, or the volunteer at the nonprofit.

But over the past few weeks, without either of them intending it, they had begun collecting quiet evidence about one another. Not the kind people announced. The kind they simply remembered.

Respect, Emma thought as she climbed the stairs later that night, wasn't loud.

Perhaps it was never meant to be.

She didn't notice Nathan lingering a moment longer than usual outside the study door before he finally went home, or the second folder still sitting closed on Ethan's desk, unrelated to donations, marked only with a date from several weeks before the wedding.