He hadn’t. And he wouldn’t. Her life had been full of struggles, but she’d done all she could to keep him safe and fed and to show him he was loved. Squandering away the life she’d fought so hard to give him was not and never would be acceptable.

And thus he had no intention of resting on this day. He needed to arrange for supplies to be delivered to two of his safe houses for the women taking refuge there. His publisher was awaiting the next installment of his newest penny dreadful. Mrs. Simms had the day off, and he meant to see to it she did not return the next day to find anything but pristine working conditions. And CALL was undertaking some charitable work later that day. There was no time for dawdling.

He’d only begun scratching out the opening paragraph of the second chapter of his newest tale when he heard the enthusiastic strains of “John Riley” floating into the library from the corridor. Gemma had always liked to sing. He’d all but forgotten how different the house was when she was in it. The brief months she’d lived here early in their unconventional marriage, the entire place had been filled with the sound of her singing, humming, and laughter. And near-constant moving about. She didn’t merely not live in one place for long; she didn’t stand in one place. She was constantly on the go. And yet, she wasn’t exhausting the way people could sometimes be.

She breathed life into people and spaces. It was one of the many pleasant things he’d discovered about this resurrection man’s daughter after they had wed.

Gemma bounced into the library. Her hair, though pulled up in a knot, looked as disarrayed as ever. He had never been able to decide if the chaos stemmed from her ceaseless moving about or if it had something to do with the temperament of her hair itself. What grabbed his attention most, however, was the threadbare state of her clothing and how worryingly thin she’d become. He’d noticed it the day before and hadn’t been able to set his mind at ease on the matter.

When they’d first met years before, she’d not looked so down-at-the-heel. Her situation now couldn’t possibly be as desperate as it had been then, could it? Yet she appeared to be living only a breath from absolute destitution.

Her gaze landed on him, and she smiled. The sight pulled his thoughts away from his worry and filled his mind with the memory of how very much he’d always liked her charming dimples. And how the sight of her so often left him tongue-tied. He never sounded less intelligent than when her smile or her dancing eyes or her dimples commanded his thoughts.

“I see you finally dragged yourself out of bed,” Gemma said with her trademark amusement.