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“Mama, look!” Laney tugged on her sleeve, and Helen looked down at her child.

“Wonderful, my dear!” she praised immediately, and Laney tipped her head with a smug smile on her face. What an amusing little child.

Laney pointed at Ian and mumbled something indecipherable.

Helen laughed, as if she understood her child, then said, “Laney, can you say Ian?”

“Yee!” Laney shrieked happily.

Ian let out a bark of laughter. “Close enough.”

Laney stood then and ran away from their little picnic spot.

Both Helen and Ian moved to get up, but the nursemaid stood first. “I shall look after her,” she said and followed Laney down the slope toward the ducks.

“She never gets tired, does she?” Ian noted with a smile.

“That she doesn’t,” Helen chuckled. “I wish I could be there to play with her every day, but the weather doesn’t always allow for that. And my health doesn’t allow for that either.”

“Your fatigue,” he supplied, hoping she’d elaborate more, but she just nodded.

“Yes.”

“But you have a wonderful nursemaid. And I am certain your cousins help, too.”

Helen smiled, still watching Laney as she ran around a few feet away from them. “Olivia tries, but she is not the most comfortable around children. She will learn though. And hopefully, soon, Laney will have cousins of her own to play with. Hopefully, she won’t need me.”

Ian cocked his head to the side. Ian didn’t know the severity of her health issues. Her fatigue was the only thing he’d witnessed that was different about her from other people. But it didn’t last long. She needed a few extra hours of sleep and other than that, she was a completely average human being by any standards.

Something was bothering Helen, however, and Ian couldn’t help but feel the need to find out more. Even if it didn’t affect him in any way. Just so that he would know that she was, indeed, fine.

She was pulling at his heartstrings again. He couldn’t afford it. He had a job to do. Especially if he wanted to be reinstated into the spy ranks again.

He cleared his throat. “Actually, the main reason that I came to see you was to tell you something.”

She turned her face toward him, and all he wanted at that moment was to kiss her. “What did you want to tell me?”

His heart squeezed. “I have some business to attend to in the next few days, so I won’t be able to see you for a while.” This wasn’t what he’d meant to say, but this was the closest to the truth that managed to leave his lips.

She frowned. “For how long?”

Ian let out a breath. “A week. Maybe two. I am not certain yet.” And when you see me next, I shall be there to catch your cousin-in-law and throw him into gaol as a traitor.

“When you see us next, perhaps Laney will be properly running,” she said with a smile. “She grows so fast.”

He cleared his throat. “Yes.”

“Well, a week or two isn’t that bad.” She let out a deep sigh. “I have to admit that I’ve started to depend on your visits.”

Ian swallowed. That’s why we have to stop. “Yes. Me too.”

* * *

Helen got dressed in her most beautiful gown, of deep blue, with golden adornments on the sleeves and the bottom of the skirt. She hadn’t worn the gown in ages, but then again, she’d always thought of it as a gown for special occasions.

Well, she didn’t have many special occasions left, especially since she’d barely left the house in the past few years. And perhaps, visiting the house of her lover was a special occasion.

It was also a very desperate occasion.