For a moment, she sat mumchance, her mind too befuddled to allow a word to slip from her. He hadwrittento her, asking her to return. Could it be he didn’t remember their agreement and she’d misunderstood his letter? Or that he didn’t remember the last day they’d spent together? How could he not? It was burnedinto her memory. But, then, she’d discovered three years earlier that many things in their shared life had meant more to her than to him. She’d felt more. And, in the end, had suffered more.
“Iamneeding a roof over my head.” She managed the few words even with panic and despair swirling inside her. “Thank you.”
He nodded. “It’s good to see you again.”
Is it, though?
He left the room without looking back. He seemed as content as could be, not put out or annoyed with her. He was pleasant but ... indifferent. And that was terribly familiar. She’d seen it again and again during those early weeks of their marriage. She’d adored him, and he’d not shown any inclination beyond a general friendship.
For six months, she’d broken her own heart to pieces waiting for that to change. And for the next three years, she’d pasted the bits back together, all the while hoping his heart would soften and he’d find something in her to miss and long for. If her heart broke anew, she weren’t certain she’d ever find a way to be whole again.
Chapter 3
Day dawned bright and promising the next morning. Barnabus quickly consumed his breakfast and retired to the library, as he always did.
He had a number of people to help today, though none of them would be his traditional kind of patients. Thinking of his responsibilities to the DPS inevitably made him think of his mother.
She had lived a tragic and short life, dying when Barnabus was only twelve. He loved and missed her. She’d taught him so much in the limited time they’d had together. She was the reason he worked as hard as he did to save women and girls from the fate that had awaited her when she’d come to London and the life she’d been forced to live from then on. She was the reason he never allowed himself to lose his focus.
“Our path can turn to misery without warning,” she’d said to him as she lay dying of a fever. “Don’t waste a moment of your life.”
He hadn’t. And he wouldn’t. Her life had been full of struggles, but she’d done all she could to keep him safe and fed and to show him he was loved. Squandering away the life she’d fought so hard to give him was not and never would be acceptable.
And thus he had no intention of resting on this day. He needed to arrange for supplies to be delivered to two of his safe houses for the women taking refuge there. His publisher was awaiting the next installment of his newest penny dreadful. Mrs. Simms had the day off, and he meant to see to it she did not return the next day to find anything but pristine working conditions.And CALL was undertaking some charitable work later that day. There was no time for dawdling.
He’d only begun scratching out the opening paragraph of the second chapter of his newest tale when he heard the enthusiastic strains of “John Riley” floating into the library from the corridor. Gemma had always liked to sing. He’d all but forgotten how different the house was when she was in it. The brief months she’d lived here early in their unconventional marriage, the entire place had been filled with the sound of her singing, humming, and laughter. And near-constant moving about. She didn’t merely notlivein one place for long; she didn’tstandin one place. She was constantly on the go. And yet, she wasn’t exhausting the way people could sometimes be.
She breathed life into people and spaces. It was one of the many pleasant things he’d discovered about this resurrection man’s daughter after they had wed.
Gemma bounced into the library. Her hair, though pulled up in a knot, looked as disarrayed as ever. He had never been able to decide if the chaos stemmed from her ceaseless moving about or if it had something to do with the temperament of her hair itself. What grabbed his attention most, however, was the threadbare state of her clothing and how worryingly thin she’d become. He’d noticed it the day before and hadn’t been able to set his mind at ease on the matter.
When they’d first met years before, she’d not looked so down-at-the-heel. Her situation now couldn’t possibly be as desperate as it had been then, could it? Yet she appeared to be living only a breath from absolute destitution.
Her gaze landed on him, and she smiled. The sight pulled his thoughts away from his worry and filled his mind with the memory of how very much he’d always liked her charming dimples. And how the sight of her so often left him tongue-tied.He never sounded less intelligent than when her smile or her dancing eyes or her dimples commanded his thoughts.
“I see you finally dragged yourself out of bed,” Gemma said with her trademark amusement.
“Finally? It—It’s only seven o’clock, and it is not yet light out.”
She shook her head as if it were a great shame. “You missed absolutely everything.”
He had always enjoyed her whimsy, though he’d not always understood it. “Did I?”
“You did, indeed.” With a theatrical drop, she laid herself on the sofa. She pressed the back of her hand to her forehead, striking a pose even the most dramatic characters in Mr. King’s penny dreadfuls would be hard-pressed to match. “A cat snatched itself a dead bird and went on parade outside the kitchen door. Meowed proudly for a full quarter hour, it did. You’d’ve thought it were the very king of tomcats rather than a coldhearted bird murderer.”
He couldn’t hold back the smile, just as he couldn’t remember the last time such a smile had come so easily to him. “You haven’t changed, Gemma.”
In a quiet voice, she answered, “If only that were true.”
He wasn’t certain if she was speaking to herself or to him, but the sudden heaviness in her tone worried him. “Is something the—the matter?”
She hopped up with her usual vigor and energy. “Of course not.”
Gemma crossed to sit in the chair across from his. She propped her elbow, almost visible through the worn fabric of her sleeve, on the tabletop, then rested her chin on her upturned fist. Her gray eyes danced with life and amusement.
“What jig are you dancing today?” she asked. “Doctoring or rescuing?”
“You seem quite convinced that I still undertake rescues.”