Page 73 of Engaging Sir Isaac

“I am still red-headed and freckled,” Millie countered. “And you are stunning.”

“Mama?” a voice asked from the doorway. A little boy stood there, no more than four or five years old, shyly looking around the doorframe. He had red hair, and freckles.

“Oh.” Millie’s eyes filled with tears. “I have a nephew.”

Emmie laughed and wiped at her cheeks. She went to the door and gently pulled the little boy around it. Then Millie saw the boy held the hand of a little girl, who was the exact image of her mother, only in miniature.

“And a niece,” Emmie said softly. “Millie, these are my children. This is Aeron and Wren. Sweetlings, this is my sister, your Aunt Millie.”

Bursting into tears again would likely terrify the children, so Millie gulped back her emotion and smiled warmly at them. “I am pleased to meet you both.”

It was then that Emmie remembered her place as hostess. She began scurrying about the room, offering Millie a chair, asking the children to sit on the couch. The maid who had answered the door reappeared and took Sarah with her to the kitchen to fetch food and drink. Millie sat quietly, watching her sister, with a sense of familiarity.

When the burst of energy ended with Emmie sitting between her son and daughter on the sofa, her arms around them, she gave Millie another brilliant smile.

“I cannot believe you are here. I did not know when I would see you again.” Her smile weakened. “Mother and Father do not know you came, do they?”

Millie slowly shook her head. “Though they will when my letter reaches them. I was in Suffolk. I found out where you were, and I had to come. Emmie. Why did you not write to me?”

Emmie’s blue eyes clouded over. “I did. I sent a letter last month.”

The truth finally hit Millie, hard enough that the breath left her lungs. Her parents—one or both, it did not matter—had kept her sister’s letters from her. Which meant they had always known where Emmie was, but they had never told.

“My dear Millie, you are so grown up.” Her sister’s words were bright, the message in her expression clear. They had been apart too long. “What were you doing in Suffolk?”

They talked. About everything. The children eventually left the sofa to play on the floor between the sisters, after dragging a box of wooden animals from beneath a chair. Millie told her sister of London, of her time in Suffolk, though only of the happy moments. Then Emmie spoke of the children, of her life as a solicitor’s wife. Her eyes glowed with life and warmth, especially when she mentioned her husband.

“Cadoc is a wonderful solicitor, of course, but he is an even better husband and father. He will be home soon, and so glad to see you.”

“I hope so.” Millie lowered her gaze to her lap. “He has made you very happy.”

The maid appeared with tea, and she offered to take the children to their dinner. The boy and girl kissed their mother, bowed to Millie, and scampered off to their meal.

“They are perfect,” Millie said as soon as the door shut behind them.

Her sister’s eyes glowed with motherly pride. “I certainly think they are. Even when they get into mischief.”

With the children gone, Millie had to ask the question burning in her mind and heart. Everything depended on her sister’s answer. “Emmie. Are you truly happy? Is your life what you would have it be?” She leaned forward in her chair, clutching her hands together.

Emmie’s gaze captured Millie’s. The elder sister’s expression softened, and when she spoke it was with great deliberateness. “My life is not perfect, but I am happy, and I find joy in the choice I made. I love my husband. He loves me. Our children bring greater light and love into our marriage. If I went back again, all those years ago, I would choose the same. Always.”

Millie’s eyes filled with tears, and she thought of Isaac. When he had stood before her, begging her to come away with him, all she could think upon was Emmeline’s choice.

Before Isaac’s confession, Millie’s thoughts had shaken loose. Shifted. At last, with the evidence of her sister’s happiness before her, surrounded by love, things fell into place.

“I fear I have made an awful mistake.” Millie hadn’t meant to speak her confession aloud, but she teetered on the edge of her thoughts and a decision.

“Tell me.” Emmie opened her arms in invitation, and Millie rose from her chair and went to her sister’s embrace. An embrace she had yearned to feel again for six long years. “Tell me everything.”

Chapter 28

Two glorious days in the Powell home nearly put Millie to rights. Her heart lightened, and her fears receded in the shelter of her sister’s love. The children did an excellent job of distracting her, too. Millie had started painting their little wooden animals, creating stripes on a horse to turn it into a zebra, and swirls of flowers on a wolf to make Wren love it all the more.

She sat at the breakfast table the third morning, listening to Cadoc as he teased her sister. Thankfully, even his reception of Millie had been kind. He had immediately called her “little sister” and thanked her for coming at last.

Millie’s thoughts repeated themselves as she watched him brush a kiss upon Emmie’s cheek when he rose to leave the table. I would have come sooner, had I known what a paradise this place is.

Amid the turmoil of her mind, of Lady Olivia’s schemes and threats, Millie had found sanctuary. But how long could it last?