Gemma sat in a wingback chair, set her carpetbag on the floor beside her, and waited. Alone. The library contained more volumes than it had three years earlier but was still nowhere near full. Books came dear, and Baz had never laid claim to a fortune. The money his doctoring brought him went, in large part, toward his rescue efforts. She knew that firsthand. He had a heart as good as gold. She’d always admired that about him.
Her gaze fell on a shelf with a long line of thin, booklet-sized items. She knew what they were: penny serials.Hispenny serials. Baz’s first had been published while this house had still been her home. Now, she saw his tales being read all over. She’d nearly burst with pride in him.
Voices sounded in the corridor. Gemma perked up her ears but kept still.
“Claims to be family,” the nurse said. “But I know you don’t have any living family. Leastwise, none you know of.”
Gemma knew Baz hadn’t the first idea who his father was or of anyone connected to his mother’s family. But he did have family. He hadher.
“Did she give you a name?”
That was his voice. She hadn’t heard it in years but knew it in an instant.
“Gemma Milligan.”
“Oh, brilliant.” He sounded excited.
Gemma couldn’t have been more pleased if she’d been given keys to a palace.Brilliant.Her Baz was excited to see her. She’d wanted that for three years.
She stood and faced the door as Baz stepped over the threshold. Hair still black as a stovepipe. Eyes filled with intelligence. Bearing tall and confident. Features so handsome even his thick side-whiskers did nothing to hide them. Her heart sighed.
“Gemma.” He was one of the only people who didn’t say her name as if it sat sour and distasteful in his mouth. “You—There wasn’t—You didn’t waste any time.”
He carried himself with confidence, but she remembered well how he tripped over his tongue sometimes when he grew flustered. It was an endearing contradiction.
“You said you’d rather I didn’t dillydally.” She watched him, hoping he’d cross to her, pull her into a hug. She’d missed his embraces.
He smiled a little and motioned her to sit. She returned to the wingback chair, and he sat in the one nearest it.
“I’ve seen your penny dreadfuls all around,” she said. “You feared no one’d take to them, but seems to me they’ve caught fire.”
“A lot of things have been catching fire lately.” The observation was made with too heavy an undertone to be a jest. He’d heard of those troubles, then, same as her.
“London’s a regular firebox lately, i’n’it?” People were losing homes and businesses all over Town. “Have you doctored a great many burns?”
“A few. One patient was so bad off I wasn’t certain she’d survive.”
“It did always burden your mind when a poor soul couldn’t be saved.” Her heart had broken seeing how distraught he became, how much he grieved. Though he’d not confessed to it, she’d twigged that his grief over his mother was the foundation for all the rest. “I can’t imagine you’ve stopped your rescue efforts. What flavor ’ave they assumed lately?”
“I—I am—” He shifted his gaze to the fireplace. “I still do what I can to thwart the underhanded madams and macks of London. And some of my fellow penny dreadful writers and I have started a charitable organization aimed at easing some of the suffering in the poorer areas of Town.”
“You ought to put Wandsworth on your list. There’s suffering and plenty in that corner.”
He looked to her once more, growing entirely still. “Wandsworth is where you’ve been living.” His eyes always had spoken louder than he did. In that moment, they were screaming with worry.
She tossed him the small smile she often had when he’d fretted over her. “I’ve made my home in shabby corners nearly all my life. I’d’ve been lost as a cow in a bog if I’d dropped m’self in a rum area of town.”
Finsbury, where Baz lived, was finer than where she’d laid her head in the years before marrying him and in the years since they’d parted ways. She was finally leaving behind those seedier streets.
“Do you think you’ll—think you’ll ever stop wandering the world?” he asked.
Her partial smile grew to an amused grin. “I’ve never left London and the surrounding area, let alone seen all the world.”
“But I suspect you’d like to.” He had the loveliest smile, but he so seldom let it out to play. Seeing it in that moment wrapped around her like a blanket.
“At the moment,” she said, “I’m happy as peaches to behere.”
“And I’m glad you came so quickly.”