To Sketch a Sphinx - Rebecca Connolly Page 0,69

you might wish for more practice with your deciphering skills. Given all the experience you now have, it seemed prudent to at least continue to see you trained. I worked that up for you while you slept.”

“Did you?” she mused, smiling at the note, then up at him, her fair eyes dancing. “It’s complete gibberish.”

“It is not,” he insisted with a smile of his own. “It is coded. Very much not gibberish, if you will work it out.”

Hal rocked from her toes to her heels and back again, a child-like enthusiasm emanating from her. “All right, I will. And we shall see how brilliant your wife is, Mr. Sphinx.” She turned on her heel and scampered to the table, pulling out one of the blank sheets nearby and setting to work.

“Right,” he heard her say, both eyes fully open now as he watched her hunch over her work. “What have we here?”

He fought a smile, wishing he could see her face better, but content enough if she would keep speaking her thoughts aloud.

“A replacement cipher?” she mused to no one in particular. “Or whatever one calls it. That seems most logical… Which means… Hmm…”

John quietly sat up, watching her with interest, unable to keep from smiling.

“No…” Hal suddenly shook her head and crossed something out. “Not simple replacement. Close, though. I need a word, and then it should be clear…”

There she was, and he was proud to see her process working through it.

He foresaw a great deal of amusement in various puzzles in their future if all went well.

“Oh,” he heard her half-gasp. “Oh, that’s… Yes, that’s…”

His heart stopped for a beat. The key.

He’d hoped she’d have got that first rather than guess a word in the body of the note itself. The key would unlock everything, after all.

Ange.

There was nothing else it could have been.

Nothing else she could have been.

Slowly, silently, he swung his legs from the bed and pushed up, rising and walking very carefully to the doorway, leaning against it while she worked.

“Ange,” she recited, her pen scratching out the letters. “I…” Her lips moved, but no sound came from them.

John held his breath, watching, waiting…

Hal blinked, the pen clattering from her fingers onto the table, then looked up at him, her lips parted.

He managed a small smile but said nothing.

She blinked again, then shoved her chair back and bolted to him in a matter of three strides, her hands flying to his face. She kissed him hard, deeply and emphatically, and it was all he could do to fix his arms around her to keep them both upright and steady.

“I love you, too,” she whispered when she took a breath, tears tracing down her cheeks to her lips. “Oh, I love you.”

John kissed her again, more tenderly but no less thoroughly, holding her close. “Ange, I love you, I adore you, I need you…” He shook his head, kissing her once more.

Hal whimpered against his mouth, pressing herself closer to him. “I wanted this. I wanted you. John…” She exhaled and dropped her head, resting it against his chin. “I love you.”

Chuckling with relief, John tilted his face to kiss her brow. “And the rest?”

“The rest?” she repeated, pulling back to look at him in confusion.

“Did you leave the message incomplete?” He laughed again, this time in disbelief. “Ange!”

“I thought I’d gotten far enough,” she protested as she looped her arms about his neck.

He raised a brow at that. “What if I followed that with the word but?”

Hal was completely nonplussed by the threat. “Did you?”

“No.”

She shrugged. “Then I don’t see a problem.”

Blast, but he loved this woman, and there was no doubt she would test him for the rest of their days.

“There was more,” he told her, dipping his voice low, leaning close.

Hal arched up and pressed her brow to his, stroking the nape of his neck with one hand. “Tell me what it says.”

John hesitated, not out of apprehension, but out of painful hope. He closed his eyes, his hold on her tightening.

“Stay my wife?”

He heard her rough exhale, could feel the breath of it against his lips. Then, she tilted her face and brought her lips to his in the softest, most breathless caress he could have imagined, robbing him of strength, sense, and stamina.

“Yes,” she breathed, nuzzling her lips against his. “Yes.”

He took her lips more firmly, more securely, sealing their promise as though this day, this moment, were their wedding, not the formality of weeks before.

This was their birth and beginning.

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