The Duke Hadn’t Laughed Since the War

my mother.”

“Yes,” Constance said. “She is.”

He looked at her for a moment with full attention—a genuine mode of being entirely present in the way that people are only when they are no longer performing anything at all.

“You said,” he told her, “that you would give me an answer when this was over.”

The passage was quiet. Somewhere above them, a door opened continue reading …