Clara smiled and folded her hands together on her knee, pulling her shawl closer around her shoulders.
“None of us knew then what would come,” she said. Any more than we know now what may happen next, she didn’t say. “I thought he said he had written to you on the matter. And I hoped you were the sort of man who keeps his correspondence.”
Issandrian laughed, and the lines around his mouth seemed deeper than they had. How odd that they should both have suffered so much, and so differently.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I am that man. But a letter from Lord Kalliam would have been something to remark on. I can’t think I’d have forgotten it.”
“Would it be forward of me to ask that you check? Just to be sure.”
“If you’d like,” he said.
“Excellent. Thank you so much,” Clara said, rising to her feet as if he had invited her to his private study and she were only accepting. To his credit, he saved her the embarrassment of being corrected and went along with the pretense. The corridors of the manor were wider than her own had been, and the red carpet that marked their center seemed faded and dusty. Through the great windows, she caught glimpses of the estate across the courtyard where Feldin Maas had lived when he lived. Where Clara and Vincen had faced the traitor’s blade with Geder Palliako and Minister Basrahip at their side. Somewhere in that garden, Vincen had tried his best to bleed to death in her arms. He had kissed her for the first time there. It was Geder Palliako’s now, since he’d been named Baron of Ebbingbaugh. It was where he would retire to when Aster claimed the throne.
Without knowing what would come or what shape the world might take, it struck Clara as quite unlikely that Geder would ever live in that house again.
“I hear that Ernst Mecilli is doing quite well for himself these days,” Clara said. “You and he were close, weren’t you?”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Issandrian said. “A few philosophical debates one time and another, and an unfortunate attempt to negotiate sugar rights in Pût that we both came to regret. But I wouldn’t say we know each other particularly well.”
“It’s just I was thinking of letters, I suppose. Dawson always said Mecilli’s were awful pieces of work. Impossible to tell what the man meant.”
“Really?” Issandrian said as he opened a wide oaken door. “He always seemed cogent enough to me.”
Clara suppressed a smile. Mecilli had written to Issandrian.
“I suppose it might only have been Dawson’s temper,” Clara said. “He would sometimes see what he chose to see.”
“We’re all like that, one way and another.”
So we are, she thought.
Issandrian’s private study was a thing of beauty. If all the rest of this manor house was gone slightly to seed, this, at least, was maintained. The windows looked out on a small garden, and a stone Cinnae woman looked back, her skin the mottled texture of granite, ivy curling up her side. A whole wall was taken up with books, the leather spines in a dozen different shades. Clara sat on a divan of yellow silk and pretended to look out the window at an angle that let her watch Issandrian’s ghostly reflection in the glass. He took a parquet box down from a shelf and began extracting bundles of folded paper, each wrapped in ribbon. One, she guessed, for each correspondent. As his attention was on the pages, she unwrapped the shawl and pushed it discreetly between the divan and the wall. Her heart was beating fast. Everything was going so well, it was difficult not to giggle.
“Your gardener is doing a lovely job,” she said.
“Hm? Oh, yes, I suppose so. He seems a little tolerant of snails and slugs sometimes.”
“I suppose they need their advocates too,” Clara said.
Issandrian sighed and sat behind his desk.
“I’m sorry, but there is no letter. If there was one, it never arrived here. There was a time I pinned some not inconsiderable hope on hearing a kind word from your husband.”
“Well,” Clara said. “Thank you for looking. It’s probably silly of me. I just hoped to find something written in his hand. We lost everything when they took the estate.”
“You know,” Issandrian said, “Palliako hasn’t named a new baron for Osterling Fells. I’ve heard tell that he’s only waiting until he can give the title back to Jorey. If he does, there may be things you only thought were lost.”
“I can hope,” Clara said.
“It’s been a bad few years, hasn’t it?”
“It has,” Clara said. A brief pang of guilt touched her. Curtin Issandrian was an unlucky man, but he wasn’t a cruel one. If anything, his errors in judgment spoke of too much compassion. To exploit him seemed … not monstrous, but rude. It wasn’t a thing that a well-bred lady would do. She rose to her feet, smoothing the fabric of her skirt, and Issandrian stood as well.