Few things made Gemma blush, but hearing him speak so highly of her managed to put her to the glow. For most of her life, she weren’t ever on the receiving end of kind words. It was little wonder she’d fallen so entirely in love with him, and further, why she held out hope that he’d learn to love her despite there being so little evidence of it.

“I, for one, am glad you chose to listen to her,” Elizabeth said. “I’ve enjoyed your stories and feel I’ve learned from them. And your writing is the reason you know Fletcher, which is the reason I know you.”

“You read his stories?” Gemma asked Elizabeth. She didn’t think the Quality spent much time perusing the penny dreadfuls.

“I read a variety of things,” Elizabeth said. “There is so much to be learned and observed in life. It doesn’t do to ignore chances to expand one’s horizons.”

Gemma moved a bit closer to Baz on the settee. “Do you remember when, not long after we were married, I heard some of your patients having a bit of a chinwag about dancing the waltz, and I didn’t know what they were on about?”

He stroked his mustache, something he always used to do when befuddled. Did he not remember? That night had been magical. She thought back on it often, even now. How could it not’ve mattered as much to him?

She pushed ahead. Hoping. “You described the steps to me. I couldn’t wrap my mind around it leftways or rightways. But you said it were likely one of them things a person learned by doing. You spent a whole heap o’ time that night teaching me how to waltz.”

“I do remember that.” He nodded, seeming pleased at the memory.

Gemma leaned against him, slipping her arm through his the way she used to. “Dancing was the perfect escape from all our worries.”

“Worries do—do seem to find us, don’t they?” He hadn’t tripped over his words nearly all evening. Why was he suddenly doing so again?

“Elizabeth made a try at teaching me to waltz,” Fletcher said. “I proved about as good a dancer as an old mule.”

That brought another round of laughter, followed by a few well-woven tales from Fletcher about bumbling his way through society gatherings. Through it all, Gemma kept her arm wrapped around Baz’s. He didn’t pull away, didn’t look sour about it. He certainly didn’t seem to dislike that she was snuggling up with him. They’d had a lot of nights like this during their first few months of marriage, when she’d felt at home with him and been so certain he was starting to feel for her what she was starting to feel for him.