“Considering where I’ve been sleeping lately,” he replied dryly, “I’ll refrain from answering that, if it’s all the same to you.”

She kissed his neck in apology. “I’m really sorry about that.”

“As you should be.”

It was his condescending tone that prompted her to reply, “Did I ever mention that four generations back, there was a rare instance of triplets in my family?”

“I know you’re expecting to hear yet another ‘Good God, George, we’re not having any of those either,’ but I’m going to have to disappoint you. Now, if I didn’t think you were pulling my leg . . .”

She giggled, which more or less admitted she was doing just that. But then she asked curiously, since she had come upstairs early, “Did Amy finish the journal tonight?”

“Yes. Amazing gift my grandmother had. I prefer to think it was just incredible good guessing on her part, but who’s to say for sure?”

“My, I did miss a lot, didn’t I?”

James nodded. “You’ll want to read it for yourself, if you can manage to get it away from Jason. I’ve a feeling he has someone else he’d like to have read it first, though.”

“Molly?”

James chuckled. “So you noticed, too?”

“The softening of his edges whenever she’s around? Who could miss that?”

“Just most of us,” he replied dryly.

Chapter 29

Chapter 29

“DID IT GET FINISHED TONIGHT?” MOLLY ASKED when Jason joined her in her bed that night.

“Sorry, did I wake you?”

She yawned and snuggled up close to him. “No. I’ve just missed you these last nights, so I tried to stay awake tonight. Didn’t think I was going to manage it, though. I was just nodding off.”

He smiled and pulled her close. He’d had no chance to talk to her since that journal had been unwrapped. She’d been asleep these last few nights by the time he came to her, and gone in the mornings, she rose so early. Nor, with the house so full, was there much chance to find her alone during the day to have a few private words.

And the subject of the journal wouldn’t be discussed by the rest of the family, at least not in front of the servants, which they all considered Molly to be—with the exception of Derek and his wife, and now James, who knew the truth about her, that she was Derek’s mother, that she’d been Jason’s only love for more’n thirty years.

So Molly wouldn’t know yet what was in the journal. However, she couldn’t help but know that the family had all been camped in the parlor for three days, hearing it read. She had appeared in the doorway several times to shake her head over the fact that they were all still there.