"James," she said.
"Laura." He squeezed her hands. "You look well." And she did, and he was always happy that she did.
"I am well," she said. "The journey was easy. Thomas slept through Northallerton."
"I did not sleep," Fairleigh said, from behind her as he leaned forward to shake James’ hand. "I was resting my eyes."
"For forty minutes," Laura said with a slight smile tipping her lips.
"A productive forty minutes," her husband returned merrily, which was apparently a conversation they had conducted before and found no less satisfying for the repetition.
James smiled. He’d liked Thomas Fairleigh the first time he met him, but he saw the reverend too infrequently. In fact, he had decided some time ago that this was something he intended to rectify. He just hadn’t done so yet.
Laura was still looking at James.
Not searching for something wrong, just looking at him the way she always had. Quiet and thorough. James had never once managed to conceal anything from her.
He saw the moment she saw it.
Nothing crossed her face. Her expression did not change at all, which with Laura meant everything. She held his gaze a moment longer than necessary and then turned toward the castle.
"All is well since your arrival?" she asked.
"Hannah took ten years off my life this morning, but all is well now.” James offered her his arm and then directed her toward the entrance.
His sister blinked up at him. “What did she do?”
He heaved a sigh. "She’d arranged herself in the hay in the stables behind one of the mares sometime in the night. A grand search was made of the entire castle and the grounds, but she was perfectly safe and completely unaware of the chaos she caused."
"In the stables?" Laura shook her head in mild amusement as they reached the threshold. “The little imp. She’s more like Daniel than you, isn’t she?”
Truer words, James supposed. And it did not miss his notice that Daniel had muttered almost those exact same words about Hannah. “And I have both of them to contend with on a daily basis.”
“Which you love,” Laura said as they crossed the threshold into the entrance hall. "What will you do when Daniel is married and out of your hair?”
Miss him terribly, not that James would say those words aloud, even if Laura could read them on his countenance. “Be happy for him.”
“Indeed!” His sister beamed. “I cannot wait to meet Caitrin properly. Daniel's letters have been rather effusive."
"Discount half of whatever he’s said on general principle," James told her.
Laura tilted her head in slight surprise, her brow lifted just so.
"What I mean to say,” James continued, “is that Miss Beckett is genuinely remarkable. Nothing like what I expected."
"What did you expect?"
"Someone more like Daniel, I suppose," he said. "God help us all if that had been the case."
Laura laughed, a real laugh, and James felt the lightness of the morning return in a rush.
"She has a sister," Laura said. “Aunt Harriet mentioned her in a letter.”
Of course she had. Aunt Harriet had, after all, positioned Miss Corinna next to James at that dinner some weeks ago. James shook the thought of his meddlesome aunt away. “She has two sisters. The eldest recently married the Earl of Darling.”
“And the youngest?”
“Miss Corinna,” he said.
