Harris pursed her lips, but she knew better than to contradict her mistress. She set down the pile of clothes she’d been holding and marched out of the room, closing the door behind her.
Emeline got up and went to the bed, shoving aside the mound of petticoats laid out on the surface to make a space. Then she sat, her back against the great oak headboard, her legs straight in front of her on the bed. “Come here.”
Daniel scrambled toward her like an eager puppy. “I don’t want you to go.”
He squirmed against her, smelling of little boy sweat, his knobby knees digging into her hip.
She stroked his blond curls. “I know, darling. But I shan’t be gone overlong, and I shall write you every day.”
More silent squirming. His face was hidden against her breast.
“Tante Cristelle will stay here with you,” Emeline whispered. “I don’t suppose you shall have any currant buns or sticky sweets or pies at all whilst I’m gone. You’ll have quite wasted away by the time I return and look like a stick boy and I shan’t recognize you.”
Breathy giggles came from her side until his blue eyes surfaced once again. “Silly. Tante will give me lots of sweets.”
Emeline feigned shock. “Do you think so? She’s very severe with me.”
“I’ll be fat when you come back.” He puffed out his cheeks to show her.
She laughed appreciatively.
“I can talk to Mr. Hartley, too,” he said.
Emeline blinked, startled. “I’m sorry, darling, but Mr. Hartley and his sister will be at the house party as well.”
Her son’s lower lip protruded.
“Have you been talking to Mr. Hartley often?”
He darted a look at her. “I talk to him over the wall, and sometimes I go to visit him in his garden. But I don’t bother him, really I don’t.”
Emeline was skeptical about this last. Right now, though, her mind was more taken up with the notion that Daniel and Samuel seemed to have formed a bond without her even knowing it. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the squirming imp beside her. “Can you sing me my song?” he asked in a small voice.
So she stroked his hair and sang “Billy Boy,” changing the name to Danny as she had since he was a baby, making it his song.
Oh, where have you been,
Danny Boy, Danny Boy?
Oh, where have you been,
Charming Danny?
And as she sang, Emeline wondered what the next fortnight would bring.
THE RENTED CARRIAGE was not as well-sprung as Lady Emeline’s vehicle, and Sam was beginning to regret deciding to ride inside with Rebecca instead of renting a horse for himself. But he and Becca had hardly talked in the week since the disastrous Westerton ball, and he’d hoped that the enforced time together would break the spell.
So far, it hadn’t.
Rebecca sat across from him and stared out the window as if the view of hedges and fields were the most fascinating in the world. Her profile wasn’t a classic one, but it was very pleasing to him. Sometimes, when he caught sight of her out of the corner of his eye, he’d have a flash of recognition. She looked a little like their mother.
Sam cleared his throat. “There’ll be a dance, I think.”
Becca turned and wrinkled her brow at him. “What?”
“I say, I think there’ll be a dance. At the house party.”