Before your family, at least.”
Hal paused in her almost giddy attitude and position, her eyes widening, and she straightened up. “I hadn’t considered… My mother always called me Ange, given she couldn’t manage my name well. It’s not very French, after all.”
John gave her a half-smile. “Would you like me to call you Ange? Or the English version?”
Hal’s shy smile did something to his stomach, flipping it over in a strange way. “Ange would be fitting. If you don’t mind.”
“Not in the least,” he managed, his stomach still feeling like a beached fish flopping awkwardly. “And you may call me John, unless you really want the formality of Pratt.”
“You want your name out there?”
“If yours is out there, mine might as well be, too.” His half smile spread to a full one easily. “Believe me, no one in Paris knows who I am.”
Hal chuckled and nodded with warmth. “I can believe that. I think travelling outside of England too extensively would create a rash of some sort upon your skin.”
John frowned playfully, though there was certainly some truth to the jest. “I will have you know that I have been to the Continent several times, and only received a slight chill coming out of Spain.”
Hal’s jaw dropped before she erupted into peals of laughter, tossing her head back, her throat dancing with each laugh, her eyes squeezed shut.
Beautiful.
There was no other word for it. No separating the sight from the sound, nor either from the feeling it invoked. It was quite simply beautiful, and there was no denying it. The truth of it squeezed his chest as if in a fist with fingers digging in.
Painful sensation, but a pleasant experience.
Now that was a puzzle.
“I thought your brother was the amusing one,” Hal managed as her laughter began to subside. “Who’d have thought you knew humor at all?”
“Harsh,” he protested. “Who do you think taught my brother the humor he is known for?”
Hal gave him a dubious look, echoes of laughter still in her features. “Not you, Pratt, and that is the truth.”
There was no reason for her to think otherwise, and he knew it well. He smiled and waved dismissively. “You think that if you like.”
She rolled her eyes and sighed. “As for how we play this…” She shrugged, turning somber. “Disenchanted? The nature of it can vary based on what we need, but I don’t know how else to go.”
“I agree, actually.”
Hal’s eyes went round. “We agree? Good heavens, what happened?”
John met her eyes frankly, smiling slightly. “We got married.”
She snorted once. “As if that’s the solution to any problem. Surely, it only creates more of them.”
“As this is my first one,” he said without hesitation, “I’ll reserve judgment upon the state until I’ve experienced it a bit longer. Kindly refrain from ruining the thing for me.”
A sharp blow struck his shins and his legs jerked back, causing him to stumble slightly, though he laughed freely. “Et tu, Ange?”
“Don’t mix your languages,” his wife scolded as he straightened. “Now leave me be, Pratt. I’ve a drawing to finish, and I want to take in more of this glorious breeze while the other passengers take ill in their cabins.”
John bowed politely, inclining his head. “It just so happens that I am well and whole, too, so I will stroll about the deck enjoying the quiet. Until later, wife.”
“Until later, husband.”
Chapter Four
“Hal, wake up. Hal.”
The low, gentle voice dragged her from sleep, and the boot pressing on her knee and rustling her stirred her from the position she had taken for that sleep. She pushed to an upright position from the wall of the coach and rubbed at her eyes.
“How long have I been asleep?”
“Since we left Cormeilles,” Pratt replied in a low grumble. “You were fortunate enough to drift off again almost immediately. I don’t know how you managed that. I feel as though my head has been trampled under our horses’ hooves from the time we left Beauvais last night.”
Hal blinked hard, the tension in her head roaring back to life at his words. “You had to say something, didn’t you?” She pinched the bridge of her nose hard, then paused and opened her eyes again, her hand flying back to her lap. “Did you say I’ve been asleep since Cormeilles?”
“I did,” he grunted, managing to cross one leg over the other in the space of the coach without even brushing her skirts. “Why?”
She looked out of the window, blinking again at the passing scenery, and the light cascading