Page 109 of A Dare too Far

“Cold, Lady Jane?” George elbowed her in the arm and tossed her a playful smile.

“Freezing, Sir George. Why are we planning a walk to the woods on what must be the coldest day of the year?”

“Because we’ve been wed five years now, and I think that is a momentous number of years to be married.”

“Freezing to death is an odd way to celebrate half a decade of marital bliss.”

“Not at all.” He wrapped an arm around her, and his always-warm body spilled heat into her. She cuddled deeper into his embrace.

“Mama!” A blur threw itself at Jane’s legs, making her stumble and fall deeper into her husband’s embrace.

“Oof!” Jane knelt and steadied the blur, who sharpened into a little girl with long, dark hair and green eyes. “What brings you hurtling this way, Sarah?”

“Don’t leave yet. You can’t leave yet. I can’t get to the center of the maze.” Sarah turned and pouted at the hedge maze. “Aunt Martha’s in the middle with sweets. And I can’t find my way. Help.Please, help.”

George caught his daughter under her arms and threw her up into the air.

She squealed with glee.

He held her on his hip, and her arms wrapped round his neck.

“You’ll tell me, won’t you, Papa?” she said.

“You must figure it out yourself. Life is full of twists and turns and dead ends, and you must find the way that’s best for you.”

Sarah narrowed her eyes. “I don’t know what life has to do with it. It’s biscuits. And Aunt Martha. And”—her glare intensified—“hedges.”

George tapped her nose and set her on the ground. “You can do it, little one. If you’re not quick about it, though, little brother will learn to walk and master the maze before you do.”

Sarah wrinkled her nose. “No! Johnny can’t beatme. He’s ababy.” She crossed her arms over her chest, eyes growing thoughtful. “Mama says you pushed beneath the bushes once. I’m smaller than you. I bet I could—”

“No,” George and Jane said together.

“Fine,” Sarah grumbled, stomping toward the maze.

“Sarah!” Martha’s voice floated above the hedges. “I know you can find me.” She laughed. “I’ll sing a song so you can follow.” She launched into a lovely Christmas hymn. The pout fell away from the little girl’s face, and the stomp disappeared from her gait. She ran, giggling, into the maze.

And George pulled Jane to her feet and steered her toward the wood.

“Four is not a metaphysical or philosophical age, it seems,” Jane said with a chuckle.

“But it is a very stubborn age.”

“Martha sounded quite cheerful.”

George nodded. “She’s happier these last months, don’t you think? But a year of mourning has not lessened how much she misses him.”

“She loved Wix very much. And he her.” They were lucky to have had one another, and Jane knew Martha would never trade her grief for a life that had not included her husband.

Once, Jane would not have understood. Now she did. She peeked at George as the snow crunched beneath their feet. She would not trade their years together for a life with less difficulty.

They walked in silence, the comfortable kind in which hearts conversed even though lips did not.

When they reached the edge of the forest and strode into its chill shade, George threw one arm out wide. “You see, Jane, this”—he threw his other arm out wide, gesturing to the trees of the wood and the sky above them—“is where I fell in love with you.”

She snorted. “It’s where I fell on top of you, you mean. Poor George. Your head has never been the same since that root knocked into it. It’s the only explanation for your sudden attraction to me.”

“Not sudden. The root knocked sense into me.”