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A soft blush spread across her cheeks. “Well, I suppose it’s beneficial every few years to turn everything on its head.”
“We’re overdue, I think. Eight years into a marriage is not when a husband is supposed to discover that his wife is a fine storyteller, or that she’s been single-handedly keeping a roof over our heads by inventing offspring.” He tilted his head, gazing at her pretty brown eyes. “For God’s sake, Emmeline, we’ve known each other for most of our lives. I had no idea you possessed such an imagination.”
“That’s a nice way of saying that I’m a complete, useless fraud.”
“You are no such thing. We are both proficient at playing our parts. And I will do my part with the children.” He put his hand over hers.
Her fingers were warm and soft, and the caress made him want to kiss her, made him wish all over again that before he’d signed the wedding register, he’d told her that he adored her. But he hadn’t. She’d said friend and partner, and now he was stuck. And still wishing and dreaming.
A slow smile touched her mouth. “I’d stopped imagining children in this house, but if they continue to be as eager for new experiences as they have been, we should be able to manage it. Together.”
“Yes. Together.” Briefly squeezing her fingers, he climbed to his feet again. God’s sake, perhaps she’d begun to catch his interest all over again. But he wasn’t that young idiot any longer. If he’d learned one damned thing, it was the necessity of being patient where Emmeline was concerned. “By the way, as the children seem to find the way we address each other odd, do you have any objection to me continuing to refer to you as Emmeline?”
Another soft, attractive blush touched her cheeks, and his fingers twitched in response. “I do not object. I can’t quite remember when we stopped using our Christian names.”
He could; it had been when she’d returned from the physician in London. “Neither can I,” he said anyway.
“Then do you still prefer Will, or is it to be William now?”
“Will.” He smiled. “Perhaps we might find some benefits to this that we’d never have expected, after all. Good night, Emmeline.”
“Good night, Will.”
“Rose. Rosie. Wake up.”
Rose opened her eyes. “What are you doing?” she asked her brother. His face looked big and ghost-white, looming over hers in the dark. “I was dreaming about horses. I was riding a white one with a horn on its head.”
“That’s a unicorn,” he said, standing upright and then yanking the warm blankets off her.
“Hey!”
“Shh. We’re leaving.”
She sat up, but gave up trying to get her sheets back. “We can’t leave. You promised Sister Mary Stephen we wouldn’t run.”
“This ain’t the stone jug.” He picked up her dress for tomorrow from where it rested over the back of a chair, and tossed it at her head. “But in eight weeks it will be again.”
Making a face, she straightened out the dress over her lap. It was the pink and yellow one, and that was good, but it was dark outside, and that was bad. “It’s nighttime. And I want to learn to sword.”
He came back to stand beside the bed. And he had his sack of treasures with him. “Didn’t you hear the missus?” he asked. “They want you to learn to curtsy and say ‘yes, please’ and ‘no, thank you’ and be able to embroider a flower. That’s it. Only what you need to know to pretend to be fancy for an hour.”
“But swords. And horses.” They hadn’t promised, but she’d asked in a very nice way. People gave her pennies sometimes when she asked for them in that same nice way.
George sighed. “Even if they did teach you riding, we’d still end up back at the stone jug. They ain’t got horses there. Or swords. All they have is folk who want to adopt you and leave me behind to be a long-haul boy. And we’re well rid of London.” He moved closer to whisper. “And you know who. We got to stay together, Rosie. You know that.”
She did know that, and she knew it was good to be far away from some of the everyones in London. Especially the ones they couldn’t trust. “Where are we going, then?” Sliding down from the soft bed, she pulled off her night rail and wiggled into her dress. Nighttime or not, she was going to wear her bonnet, too. And her new shoes.
“We’ll go to Birdlip,” he said. “There should be wagons and such there. We can get a ride to Gloucester, or Birmingham. Those are big enough we could find a place to stay. When we get enough money, we can rent a room.”
“Are you certain we don’t need to learn to sword fight before we go?”
Instead of answering, he opened her blanket box and pulled out her treasure sack. It was heavier than before, she knew, because now it had a new brush, a pair of pretty earbobs, and a dozen biscuits from the fat lady at the dress shop. She’d meant to eat some more of them tonight, but the lemon biscuits Mrs. Brubbins had made them for after dinner had been very good. And now she could save the dress-shop cookies for breakfast. She was very practical.
“Ready?”
“Just a minute.” Taking her sack, she added the pretty silver candle holder from beside her bed, and the fluffiest of the pillows.
“Can you even carry that?”