“Amazing,” Scully commented, when the child finally tired of declaiming and went to play outside, near the front door, with Hortense. “Did you teach her to read like that?”

Evangeline was busy with pots and kettles and the sheets she meant to boil clean, if possible. Scully had bled so copiously on the linens that she wasn’t sure even drastic measures would save them, but it was necessary to try. “No,” she answered, aware that tendrils of her hair were sticking to her cheeks and forehead, because of the steam beginning to rise from water she’d put on the stove earlier. “Mr. Keating did. He always said he taught her the alphabet, and from there she figured out how to string letters into words all by herself.”

Scully, propped up on every pillow in the house, which was exactly three, cupped his hands behind his head. “You called your husband ‘Mr. Keating’?”

Evangeline flushed, told herself it was the stove-heat and the steam. She did not meet Scully’s gaze, but she could feel it, like a loose swaddling of silk, right through her dress and her underthings to her bare flesh. “Privately, I thought of him as ‘Charles,’ ” she said. “When I addressed him, it was as ‘Mr. Keating,’ yes.”

Scully was quiet for a long time; so long that Evangeline began to hope he wasn’t going to pursue the subject of her marriage any further. She was, as it happened, mistaken.

“He must have been a lot older than you are, if he was Big John’s first cousin.”

Evangeline swallowed, darted a glance at Scully, regretted it instantly, and looked away again. “Thirty years,” she admitted. It seemed a great disparity now, though in truth such marriages were common enough, between the dearth of eligible young men following the war and the simple fact that many women died in childbirth, or shortly afterward. Indeed, a man might take several wives, usually progressively younger than their predecessors, over the course of his life.

“That didn’t bother you?”

It was a blunt question, and Evangeline was flustered by it. She wished Abigail would come in from the yard, to serve as a buffer, but she didn’t have the heart to deprive the child of a few minutes’ fresh air and active play, knowing the bitterly cold weather would return soon. She did glance toward the half-open door, making certain Abigail was still in plain sight.

“Bother me?” she repeated, stalling.

Scully cleared his throat. It seemed to Evangeline that he wanted to back out of the conversation, but in the end, he didn’t. “Yes. Eve, the man was more than twice your age. So is Big John, for that matter. Don’t you ever wish you could be with someone—well—younger?”

“I wish lots of things,” Evangeline said, somewhat shortly. “There aren’t a great many wishes being granted these days, in case you haven’t taken notice, Mr. Wainwright.”

“It’s the war, then.”

Evangeline met his gaze. “The North might have prevailed in the conflict, but they—we—paid a heavy price for it. The coin demanded was the best, the strongest, the bravest of our men.”