Louise walked beside Aaron, their arms not quite touching but close enough that she felt his warmth. Every few steps, their hands would brush, accidental contact that sent sparks through her gloves.
“Thank you,” she said quietly as they approached the house.
Aaron glanced down at her. “For what?”
“For today. For giving Emily this memory. For …” She gestured vaguely at the scene before them—Emily and Lady Merrow arguing about whether Buttercup could learn to do figures on ice. “All of it.”
“I should thank you.” He paused at the door, letting the others go ahead. “I’d forgotten what it felt like.”
“What?”
“To be happy without feeling guilty about it.” His fingers found hers, a brief squeeze that was over before anyone could notice. “You remind me that joy doesn’t always come with a price.”
He disappeared inside before Louise could respond, leaving her standing in the doorway with her heart racing and her hand tingling where he had touched it.
“Louise!” Emily’s voice carried from inside. “Buttercup tracked snow all through the entrance hall, and Mr. Thornton looks like he might faint!”
Louise hurried inside to find the butler indeed looking rather pale as he surveyed the trail of muddy paw prints across his previously pristine floor. Buttercup sat in the middle of the chaos, tail wagging, clearly proud of his contribution to the household’s decoration.
“I’ll help clean up,” Louise offered.
“Nonsense.” Lady Merrow waved her away. “We need to warm up with hot chocolate and plan tomorrow’s expedition. I’m thinking sledding.”
“Absolutely not,” Aaron said from the stairs.
“Oh, come now. You can’t tell me you didn’t enjoy yourself today.”
“I enjoyed not dying. Sledding seems designed to challenge that achievement.”
But he was smiling as he said it, and when his eyes met Louise’s across the entrance hall, she saw promise there. More days like this. More laughter. More moments when the weight of their circumstances lifted and they could simply be.
Tomorrow they would return to worrying about George, about debts and dangers and the impossibility of their situation. But today had been perfect in its simplicity. A gift Louise hadn’t known she needed until she held it.
She watched Aaron climb the stairs, Emily bouncing beside him, still chattering about Buttercup’s skating potential. Lady Merrow stood in the middle of the chaos she had created, supremely satisfied with the day’s accomplishments.
And Louise felt something she hadn’t experienced in so long she had almost forgotten its name.
Contentment.
Pure, uncomplicated contentment, warm as summer despite the winter cold.
CHAPTER 27
“Look! A squirrel!” Emily squealed, pointing to a flash of red fur darting through the bare branches of the elm tree.
The afternoon sun had coaxed them all into the garden, where patches of grass showed through melting snow like promises of spring.
Aaron watched Louise bend to examine something Emily had found, probably another “treasure” to add to the child’s growing collection of interesting stones and dried leaves. Miss Whitfield had remained at the house, preparing tomorrow’s lesson on French verbs, leaving Emily free to enjoy the morning air. The weak winter sunlight caught the copper in Louise’s hair, turning it to flame against her blue walking dress.
“Squirrels never left,” Cecilia corrected, adjusting Buttercup’s lead as the dog fixated on the tree with predatory intensity. “They simply had the good sense to stay warm while we foolishly ventured out in snowstorms.”
“Can we feed them?” Emily looked up at Aaron with hopeful eyes that he found increasingly difficult to refuse.
“They’re wild creatures. They find their own food.”
“But it’s winter. What if they’re hungry?”
Louise straightened, brushing dirt from her gloves. “The squirrels have been surviving winter long before we arrived to worry about them, darling.”
