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He motioned for her to take her seat again, and sat down beside her. “We leave in a week, and everything’s been remarkably calm. I’m beginning to believe we may pull this off.”
“I hope so,” she said. “They’ve been working so hard. And they helped with James; I think they do want a better life.”
“As do I,” he agreed, nodding. “But they aren’t the only ones who’ve worked to bring all this to fruition. You continue to astound, Emmeline.”
Her cheeks warmed. “As do you,” she returned, “though I have to say that Rose’s fencing skills strike me as haphazard, at best.”
Will chuckled. “She’s as likely to wound an ally as an enemy. But she’ll do it very enthusiastically.” He took her hand, twining his fingers with hers. In response, a quiet thrum began humming through her, warm and deep. Once he’d been a playmate, a sharer of adventures, and then someone she thought she could use, as long as she helped him achieve what he wanted. And it had taken eight years for her to begin to realize that they’d both changed, both grown, and that she very much liked the man he’d become.
“I wrote out a paragraph this morning, using words I’ve been working on with George, and he read it perfectly,” she said. “And he’s learning to sound out the words he doesn’t know. I don’t envy the next adult who attempts to censure him or Rose in writing.”
“That does lead me to another topic,” he said slowly, pausing as thunder rumbled through the house. “You know we’ve run out of local residents to query about taking in the children.”
That wasn’t a question, but she knew what the question was. “I just don’t—I meant to make another attempt to ask for Father John’s help, but—I still don’t have much confidence in his criteria for finding a family for the children.” She sighed. “But not only have we run out of neighbors, we’ve run out of time. I’ll send him a note in the morning.”
“Emmeline, y—”
“We promised to find them parents,” she interrupted. “It’s in the agreement. I just… I haven’t gotten to that particular task yet.”
How could she explain it to him? She, who’d had every intention of shedding the orphans once they’d played their part, couldn’t make herself take that last step. Once she did, she would have to put a date to the end of this experiment. This different sort of life she enjoyed more than she’d thought possible. A life much more interesting than the one she’d conjured in her journals.
“In fact, I’ve been thinking,” she went on. “We don’t have to be back in London until February. That would give us much more time to find the perfect place for them. I doubt St. Stephen’s would object. We haven’t intended to return them there since nearly the beginning, anyway.”
“I want to agree with you,” he said after a moment. “But if we have them here through Christmas, I don’t know that my heart could withstand seeing them go.” Will took a breath. “Not a very manly thing to say, I suppose, but because I want them to stay, the sooner they go, the better.”
Emmeline wished she didn’t know exactly what he meant. “I’ve become very fond of them,” she whispered. Any louder, and she would begin weeping.
She couldn’t even say how or when it had happened. On the day they’d visited St. Stephen’s she’d seen George and Rose as a godsend—poor little darlings whom she and Will could spoil and return to London with a bucketful of fond memories. Five weeks later they’d become clever little scamps who stole everything not nailed down, presumably to fund their inevitable flight from the house. And at the same time, they’d turned on their own brother when he’d threatened to take even the nailed-down things. One day that might make sense, but today she was simply… grateful.
They were smart and devious and far wiser than she’d been at their age. They considered themselves to be self-sufficient and independent, and she had no idea whether to fear more for them or for England if they returned to their previous lives of petty thievery and hiding in church cellars.
That was the rub, though. She had hopes for them. She wanted good things to happen for them. She wanted them to have parents who loved them and cared for them and who could ensure that they had safe, happy, and comfortable lives. And with every ounce of her being she refused to think the next sentence, the one that would pull everything together, because that could never happen. It couldn’t. Even if her mother had been wrong in saying she wasn’t meant to be a parent, Emmie had created still more circumstances to make it impossible.
When she’d begun her lies, she’d made a mistake; she’d created children on paper and in London, but hadn’t carried it into her life in Gloucestershire. All she would have had to do was purchase some children’s clothing in Birdlip, add a pony or two to the stable, mention from time to time during one of her Winnover Hall dinners that the children had wanted to attend, but she’d promised them a trip to the fair instead. That was all it would have taken.
She knew several couples socially, knew for a fact they had children, but had never met the youngsters. There was no reason at all that she couldn’t have created her children in precisely the same way, and then George and Rose might have stayed.
“I found a family for them,” Will said into the silence, and she whipped her head up to stare at him, every thought in her head crashing together.
“What?” she gasped, barely remembering to keep her voice down.
“I have possibly found one,” he amended. “Michael and Caroline Fenmore. I didn’t go see him just to gain his aid with James.”
“But he’s in Brockworth. That’s an hour away.”
“Yes, it is. But the Fenmores are a good match. Their son, Patrick, is five now. Brockworth is a small enough village that the children couldn’t disappear into it. The family isn’t wealthy—some of Michael’s clients pay him in pigs—but I told him we would be willing to support the expense of adding two children to their household with an annual stipend of a thousand pounds.”
“You didn’t ask me.” With all the noise in her head, that statement was the loudest. “You just went and gave them away.”
“Emmeline, I didn’t give them away.” He scowled, his grip on her hand tightening as if he worried she would flee. “You know that. Michael and Caroline are good people. They don’t live far away. They don’t. We’ve considered every single adult in the area, and none of them satisfied either of us. Who else would we ask?”
“I don’t know.” A tear ran down her face. “You mean they’re leaving?”
He swore under his breath. “Michael was to speak with Caroline and send me word within the next few days. He’s met them now, so he has an idea of what they’d be in for.”
It might not have happened yet, but it would. The children had a family. Two adults who would love them and not send them away because of a stupid lie begun years earlier. Will should have told her what he meant to do before he’d done it, but she would have come to the same conclusion. Michael had helped them when he had no incentive to do so but friendship. Even if they didn’t travel in the same social circle, she knew the Fenmores, and she knew Michael and Caroline were good, kind people.
“A penny for your thoughts,” Will murmured.