breakfast and talked to the girls.
“What do you mean, you’ve never heard of baseball?” she asked, seemingly shocked.
“I know Americans play it,” Gladys said, sawing into her third sausage, “but what is it?”
“It’s like cricket,” Hazel said, using a specially-fashioned funnel to feed their father tea.
“It’s not a thing like cricket,” Lenore said with mock solemnity. “It’s far more exciting.”
“Have you actually been to a cricket match?” Phin asked.
“If she’s under the impression that cricket is boring, she has been,” Hazel answered.
Lenore laughed, exchanging a look with Phin that sent his heart soaring and made his trousers uncomfortably tight for the circumstances and company he found himself in. He hadn’t been lying when he told Hazel she was perfection. Watching her navigate London society was one thing, but seeing how well she blended with his family, despite their reduced circumstances, decided things. He needed her—as his lover, as his companion, and as his wife. He wouldn’t be able to rest easy until she was his, which meant he needed to solve her problems as well as his own.
“Baseball is all the rage in Haskell, my hometown,” she went on to his sisters. “We have an entire league, in spite of the town being relatively small compared to Laramie or Denver. My Papa and my brothers play for the Haskell Hawks. They haven’t won the championship for years, but they placed third last year—no, that was two years ago now.” A sudden twist of sadness filled her eyes.
Phin leaned toward her as though she’d experienced a physical injury. He remembered her melancholy the night before and her admission that she missed her home. Well, if he had anything to say about it, this would be her new home.
“Perhaps you could teach us all to play,” he said, smiling at her. That smile grew tenfold when she glanced back at him with a look of delight.
“I could do that,” she said.
“Yes, teach us baseball,” Amaryllis gasped, as though she’d offered to fly them to the moon and back.
“I want to learn too,” Hazel said. “Perhaps, if I take to it, I could have Mr. Brummel fashion a baseball bat attachment for my arm.”
Lenore blinked in surprise, sending a nervous glance to Hazel’s mechanical arm before deliberately looking away. Her gaze fell on their father. “What do you say, Mr. Mercer? Would you like to learn to play baseball too?”
He loved her. Her simple question, directed without art or malice, toward his father, was like fireworks of desire blasting through him, knocking him off his feet. He actually loved her.
“I’m sure Father would love to umpire the game,” he said, reasonably certain he looked every bit the lovesick schoolboy that he felt.
“Very well, then.” Lenore stood, patting her mouth with the edge of her serviette, then setting it on the table. “Show me to a field suitably large and find me a ball and some sort of stick we can use as a bat.”
Chaos erupted, exactly as Phineas expected it to. The girls dashed outside to find the requested items, and Lenore followed them. But not before she flashed Phin the most beautiful smile of mischief and good humor that he’d ever seen. Which was miraculous, considering how terrified she’d been the day before. It warmed him to his bones to see how comfortable and safe she felt in the protection of his family, which only increased his ardor.
“You need to propose to that woman as fast as possible,” Hazel murmured to him as they worked together to move their father outside and settle him where he would be able to watch the activity unfolding in the yard.
“I half tried already,” he admitted. “On the train. I was disappointed in the results.”
Hazel straightened once their father was settled. “So you asked and she said no?”
Phin winced and rolled his shoulders. “I implied, and she demurred.”
Hazel made a frustrated sound, glancing to their father. “Is this how you raised your heir?”
Their father’s eyes shifted slightly from Hazel to Phin. It was a rare good sign that he was following the conversation.
“You need to ask her properly,” Hazel went on. She glanced across the yard to where Lenore and the girls were choosing from a selection of broomsticks, farm implements, and even an old cricket bat for their game. “The weather is unseasonably warm today. I suggest a romantic picnic for supper this evening. You can go out to Granger’s Hill, spread a blanket, watch the stars come out, and do whatever comes naturally after