Grinning, he started through the well-trimmed labyrinth, the temperature cooling in the shadows of the bushes. He took the same path he always did. Around the first bend, he halted but pretended not to see the tiny creature crouched in the corner of the bush. “Where could she be?” He spun around, as if frantic. “Oh dear. I shall never find my Emmaline.”
“Me here!” His three-year-old daughter leaped to her feet, hands springing up in delight. She raced for his legs and embraced him with all four limbs, her blond curls bouncing. “Play again, Papa. Again!”
He laughed and scooped her up. “Papa must return indoors. Besides, I know one little girl who must take her nap.”
“Me no like naps.” Her round cheeks flushed with displeasure, and her bottom lip protruded. “Please play again?”
“Miss Ettie would not be very happy with us.”
“Yes, she will.” Emmaline tilted her head, eyes wide as she tried to convince him. “She will just be happy because …” Nothing grand must have come to her, because she began playing with his neckcloth and said instead, “Please?”
A laugh rumbled out of him. He threw her up in the air, caught her, then settled her onto his shoulders as he walked back to the house.
Fondness warmed him as her tiny fingers grasped his ears. Was there ever a more impish little child? Or ever one so perfect?
Inside, Miss Ettie was already waiting on them in the foyer, hands crossed over her chest. “My, my. Just look at your dress, Emmaline. We shall have to bathe and change you before we can even think of settling you down for sleep.” For all her attempts at being cross, a sweet glow brightened the woman’s eyes. She glanced up at William, shook her head in mock disbelief at the child’s untidy state, then took Emmaline’s hand with motherly care. “We must come along to the nursery now, my dear. If you are especially good, perhaps I shall read you another story before I tuck you in. Would you like that?”
“Me wants to play outside.”
William grinned as Miss Ettie gave another soft answer. The sadness that so long had haunted the woman’s expression was gone. She was needed now. She was happy again.
The nursery was no longer old, dusty, and forgotten.
Turning to the maid Ruth, who was adjusting purple sweet peas in a vase, William asked about his wife.
“She be in the bedchamber again. Not feeling well at all, poor thing.”
“Thank you. I shall look after her.” William strode through the house, up the stairs, and to the closed door of his bedchamber. He entered without sound, lest she be asleep.
“William.” Lying overtop the counterpane with pillows behind her head, Isabella laid aside her book.
He grinned. She must be gravely bored indeed to be entertaining herself with a novel.
“Do come and sit beside me, won’t you?” She patted the bed and sat up. “You look as if you could use the rest.”
He wiped a sheen of sweat from his forehead, settled on the bed next to her, and slipped his arm behind her back. “Our daughter wants for no vitality.”
“How many hours of playing this time?”
“Nearly three.”
Isabella laughed and nestled into him. “You are terrible to indulge her so.”
“Perhaps.” He glanced at her swollen abdomen, and all over again, a sense of pride struck him. “How do you feel?”
“A little tired.”
“Ruth deemed it more serious than that.”
“Only because she quite spoils me. Indeed, all of you do. One would think I was a complete invalid with the way you all set about fussing over me.” She sighed and, with her head still in the crook of his shoulder, worked to undo the neckcloth about his neck. “How silly that you wear this thing on a day so warm.”
“I received a letter from your father.”
“Truly?”
“He wishes to visit by the end of the month.”
She tossed his neckcloth off the bed. “How wonderful. He shall arrive just when our little son does.”
