Page 151 of Pride: The Rogue
“Well, I didn’t write the poems myself.” Livian patted the cushion. “When I was a little girl, your mama and I had no money,” she explained when he’d scrambled to join her.
“Then Mama found Papa in sewers!” he said excitedly.
“Exactly!” Livian dropped her voice for dramatic effect. “But before your papa, bad men came and took all our most treasured things.”
Even though Livian recounted the same story Verity shared countless times with the boy, James’s eyes remained as wide as ever. “Mama’s crystal pens.”
“Yes, her crystal inkpot and pens, gone,” Livian said, infusing all the old heartache into her telling. “And Aunty Livvie’s books. I was so sad. Do you know what your mama did?”
He shook his head wildly, sending his curls bouncing.
“Your mama gave me this one.” Livian fanned the pages so he could see the words written there. “And a membership to the Circulating Room so I could take out as many books as I wanted. She’d let me use her pens to copy the poems, sonnets, and stories I loved and have them forever in this very book.”
James flashed a smile. “Mama is hero.”
“Yes,” Livian murmured. “Yes, she is.”
Together they looked across the room to where Verity and Malcom sat.
Oh, hell.
“Mama and Papa look worried,” he whispered.
The devoted spouses were engrossed in a conversation, Livian would have wagered her soul, had everything to do with her.
As if she and James drew their attention, Verity and Malcom looked over. Livian’s sister and brother-in-law wore the same serious expressions they’d had on since her arrival.
Without taking her eyes off Livian, Verity said something to Malcom. Livian’s brother-in-law, slid a discreet glance Livian’s way.
Bloody, bloody, hell.
“Why?” her nephew asked, bringing her attention right back to her tiny partner.
Me.
Livian leaned close to her nephew. “Do you know what I think?”
He gave his head another big shake.
“I believe they are thinking up all the fun things they wish to do with you,” she said, rustling his wild mane of hair.
James giggled.
At that childlike exuberance and playfulness, Livian found herself laughing real, genuine laughter. “Don’tyou?”
Such was the power of children.
Clamoring up onto his knees, he took his tiny hands and messed her hair in like return. “No, silly.”
A thought slipped in of an imagined child. A wide-eyed, innocent, smiling little boy of her own, but with Latimer’s dark hair.
Her joy vanished like the mist rolling off the streets and absorbed into the sky.
“This is what they’re talking ’bout,” James said.
Before Livian could look around, her nephew pressed each of his index fingers against the corners of her lips and pulled them outwards.
“Mymouff?”
