Page 27 of The Masterful Mr. Montague

So how, or why, had the link broken?

Or had it never been strong in the first place?

He toyed with the questions, accepted that they hinted at avenues he should explore.

Closing his eyes again, he let his lips quirk. Griselda had been more help than she knew.

As sleep finally claimed him, his last conscious thought was a prayer that nothing ever damaged that precious link between Griselda and their children.

Your father described Wallace Camberly as a careful politician.” Clad in shimmering blue silk, Penelope led the way into the master bedroom of the Albemarle Street house. Jewels winked about her throat and dangled from her ears as she swept across the room to set her silver evening reticule on her dressing table.

Barnaby followed her into the room. They’d just returned from a formal dinner at his parents’ London house. After crossing the threshold and being greeted by Mostyn, their first stop had been the nursery, but Oliver was sleeping peacefully and they’d left him to his dreams. “What did the pater mean by ‘careful’—did he say?”

“I asked.” Penelope set to work easing the earrings from her lobes. “He—your father—said that Camberly holds his seat by a good margin and is careful to do nothing to risk that safety. Contrarily, your father also said Camberly was ruthlessly ambitious, but that said ambition was tempered by the aforementioned caution.”

Shrugging off his evening coat, Barnaby grinned. “You’re starting to sound like a politician yourself.”

“Indeed—I blame it on the company.” Setting down her earrings, she glanced at him. “Did you learn anything more about Camberly?”

“Only that he’s expected to advance through the ranks, but not in spectacular fashion.” Barnaby started unwinding his cravat. “I got the impression he and his wife are being watched and assessed with a view to future advancement, possibly into the Ministry.” Glancing across the room, he saw Penelope lay aside her necklace, then reach up to start unpinning her hair. “I didn’t encounter anyone with links to the Home Office. Did you?”

“No, so in the end I fell back on your father again. It took him some time to place Mortimer Halstead. It seems Mortimer holds his position more by seniority than talent. Your father’s term was a plodder, one not expected to rise beyond his present position of assistant to some undersecretary.” Her hair loose, Penelope crossed to stand before Barnaby, presenting him with her back. “If you please . . . ?”

Setting the long ribbon of his cravat on the top of the tallboy, Barnaby grinned and obligingly set his fingers to the row of tiny blue bead buttons marching down the back of her evening gown. One of the duties of a husband he rather enjoyed; given the nature of Penelope’s gowns, it often felt like unwrapping a present.

But as he worked down the long line, his smile faded.

After a moment, he glanced at the section of her profile he could see. “You enjoyed it, didn’t you? Ferreting out what you could about our suspects.”

She nodded. “Yes, I did. It made an evening embarked on out of duty—out of helping your mother with her numbers—into something much more engaging. Into an evening with purpose.”

Reaching the end of the line of buttons, he set his hands to her sides, slid his palms over and around, easing her back against him.

Obligingly, she sank back, her shoulders across his chest, her head coming to rest in the hollow below his shoulder, her curvaceous derriere against his thighs.

For a moment, he simply held her, savoring the sense of how well she fitted, how well they suited.

Then he found the words and the courage to say, “I’m not all that sure how I feel about this. About you involving yourself in investigations again.”

He’d hoped that Oliver’s birth would put an end to her engaging in potentially dangerous endeavors, yet even as he’d hoped, some part of him had known it was unlikely, had known that her questing mind would need the stimulation he himself found in solving crimes. It was what had brought them together, and their natures hadn’t changed with their baby’s birth.

She didn’t immediately respond, but neither did she stiffen in his arms. After a moment, she raised one hand and drew her gold-rimmed spectacles from her face. Then she tipped her head back and to the side so she could look into his face; at such close quarters she didn’t need her glasses to study his features, to read his eyes. Several heartbeats passed while she did, then she said, “I wasn’t sure about it, either.”

Not knowing how to interpret that, he waited, and after a second’s pause, she went on, “When Oliver was born, I wondered if he would fill my life to the exclusion of all else, certainly of things like investigating. But now . . . I think that that isn’t how it goes. How life evolves.”

She held his gaze. “I feel as if my life has expanded—as if there’s more space to be filled, as if Oliver being born to us created a new field in our lives. I’ve realized that, at least for me, and I hope for you, too, life isn’t fixed, static, of finite girth. But while over the months since his birth I’ve been absorbed with acclimating myself to the new arena that Oliver inhabits, I’ve neglected the other areas of my life. But they’re still there, and I still need them to be. They’re still a part of me, of who I am—a part of what makes me me, and they’re aspects, facets, I still need in order to be me.” She looked questioningly at him. “If that makes sense?”

He looked into her dark eyes. “I’ve followed so far—it’s an interesting hypothesis.”

“Yes, well.” She waved her glasses. “Clearly, having Oliver has changed things for me, and for you, too, although to different degrees and possibly in different ways, and those changes flow through to how we manage in all other areas of our lives.” She paused, then faced forward and settled against him once more. “I feel as if, overall, my life is a trifle out of balance, especially in the area of my other interests, which includes investigating. I need to find a new balance, so to speak, but exactly what that will be . . .” She glanced up and met his eyes again. “I think it’s one of those things one can only determine by trial and error.”

He held her gaze, then murmured, “So we try with this latest case?”

She turned within his hold, raising her arms and draping them about his shoulders, her small hands drifting to his nape. “We try. And if at first we don’t exactly succeed perfectly, we adjust.” Her eyes on his, she tilted her head. “Will you work with me to find our new balance?”

Looking into her face, he realized that, since embarking on this case, she’d been more engaged, somehow more alive in a way he hadn’t known he’d missed until it had returned. His impulse, as always, was to give her anything, agree to anything that contributed to her happiness, her well-being, a compulsion tempered only by his protective instincts.

His protective instincts didn’t like her being anywhere near anything dangerous—like investigations.