Joseph helped Tessa feed the baby, and then he carried him downstairs and walked the grounds of the inn. Tessa remained inside, working with Perry to change from her traveling suit and repin her hair. Joseph had expected some challenge when he’d offered to take Christian, but both mother and maid had leapt at the offer.

To Joseph’s delight, the baby seemed to recognize him from his days of calling to Belgrave Square. Tessa had pulled a woolen hat low over his head to protect him from the cold, and the infant clearly objected to this precaution. He scrunched up his eyes and swatted ineffectually at the tight, low cap with chubby fists.

“Agreed, mate,” said Joseph when they were free from the women. “I avoid resemblance to a mushroom whenever I can,” and he peeled the hat from the baby’s head. Christian smiled at him, a genuine smile, with wet gums and eyes that were nearly pushed shut by the roundness of his cheeks. Joseph felt himself smile back.

The innkeep walked by in that moment and said, “That’s a fine-looking son you’ve got there, Mr. Chance. Very fine, indeed. I knew when your wife arrived that it was the family you were expecting. I seen that baby, and I says to myself, ‘That’s the spitting image of Mr. Chance.’”

“Thank you,” Joseph said, and he leaned down and kissed the top of the baby’s warm, un-hatted head. Christian made his signature squawk and bobbed up and down. Something new and unfamiliar began to grow in Joseph. It took a moment for him to identify it, but as he walked away and his chest swelled and his shoulders straightened, Joseph identified it as . . . pride.

Christian was an alert and curious baby, eyes big on the horses in the stable, the yellow and red autumn leaves on the garden’s lone tree, and most fascinatingly of all, a fat white cat with swishing tail who sat in a windowsill.

“You are smart, like your mother,” Joseph told the baby as he circled back to the horses. He’d offered to have an open carriage hitched so that he and Tessa could tour the town, but Tessa had balked at the idea of riding again so soon and asked if they could walk instead. Joseph agreed and reserved a carriage for later in the week. He’d scouted a property for sale in the surrounding countryside and was anxious for Tessa to see it. He’d contacted the owners and scheduled a visit.

“There you are,” called a voice from behind them.

The baby jerked around at the sound of his mother’s voice.

“Hello, Dollop,” Tessa sang. “What have you seen with Papa?” She lifted Christian into her arms.

Joseph blinked at the intimate name, and he suddenly had trouble meeting Tessa’s gaze. He had no idea how to be a father but he wanted, earnestly, to try. He cleared his throat, ready with a story about the cat, when he caught his first full view of the transformed appearance of his wife.

“Tessa,” he said. It was all he could manage.

She wore a day dress in chalky blue, two shades lighter than her eyes. Her hair had been styled in two thick braids, coiled at her crown with a small blue hat perched at a jaunty angle. She wore an ivory shawl and an ivory silk pin in the shape of a gardenia on her lapel. Pearlescent leather gloves hugged her hands and disappeared into the sleeves of her dress. Tiny pearls traced her collar, sleeves, and hem. She looked like a sketch in one of Perry’s fashion periodicals. In addition to the pretty dress, she seemed to step lighter, to speak with more lilt, to smile more easily. Joseph’s thoughts rolled back to their first meeting on the street in Pixham. No woman is lovelier.

“You look refreshed,” he said. Women grew weary of men who gushed. He allowed his eyes to do the gushing. He could not look away.

“Thank you,” she said. “Perry is coming to take the baby. I trust he was well behaved. But where is his hat?”

“We grew weary of the hat.” Joseph pulled it from his pocket in a wad. “He and I were discussing our impression of Hartlepool.”

“And what conclusion did you reach?”

“We concluded,” he said, “that we shall like it if you like it.”

“This sounds suspiciously compliant.”

“A father and son can comply without it being suspicious, can’t we?”

Tessa went very still. She stared at Joseph.

“Does it distress you, Tessa, for me to call Christian my son?”

She shook her head. She seemed unable to speak.

“I cannot say what it’s meant to feel like—when a man becomes a father. Trevor says it is a combination of worry and pride, hope and love. Exhaustion. Exhilaration. Protectiveness. And something more. Something beyond the realm of understanding.”

“Yes,” rasped Tessa. Tears choked her voice. “I would say this is accurate—about motherhood, at least.”

“The affection I feel now for Christian seems like only the beginning of something that will grow to fill my life in ways I cannot imagine. It seems like a very large, very significant love that I find myself wanting, very much. If you wouldn’t mind.”

Again, she shook her head. She kissed the top of her son’s hatless head. “It has been my greatest wish,” she whispered. “Greater even that you would love me.”

“Well, you shall have two wishes fulfilled, because I love you both. Oh, Tessa. I love you both.” He bent to nuzzle her neck.

Tessa tucked herself against him and squeezed the baby. Christian made a squawking noise and began to kick. She burrowed deeper.

“By the way,” Joseph said, speaking against her hair, “I’ve decided not to say those words again. Not until you say them. No more I-love-yous for you, my dear. I shall tell Christian, of course, because he cannot yet speak.”

Tessa reared back. The baby grabbed the fat loop of one of her braids and she cocked her head, following the baby’s firm grip. “But I do love you,” she said.

“No,” dismissed Joseph, working at the baby’s clenched fist in her hair. “Unacceptable. Said under duress. Parroted back to me because we are discussing it.”

“Stop, of course, I love you,” she said, half laughing. “Christian, ouch. Let go.”

“Perhaps you do and perhaps I do,” Joseph said, finally disentangling the braid from the baby’s fist. Christian wailed. “But you’ll not hear me say it again until I hear an authentic I-love-you from you.” He looked down at her and winked.

A gasp from behind them interrupted their conversation. “Why is the baby not wearing his hat?”

It was Perry, her youthful disapproval very clear. Joseph winked again and kissed both Tessa and Christian on the tops of their heads and handed the fussy baby to Perry. Tessa discussed meals and naps with the maid and then sent them on their way, but not before Perry reintroduced Christian to his hat. The baby’s cries could be heard in Durham.

“The discussion of I-love-you is not over,” Tessa said when she returned. “I am determined to be believed.”

“Oh, I hope not,” Joseph said, gesturing for her to proceed him on the sidewalk. “You must work to make up for lost time.”

Tessa narrowed her eyes, studying him, and then looked toward the water. “Tell me more of what you and Christian made of the town on your walk?” she finally asked.

“He and I mostly made a circuit of the inn yard,” Joseph said. “But we’re told the town is grey and foggy, although the ocean views are splendid in the sun. You can expect fish at every meal, of course. Storms in November and February. And . . . there is a dockyard in search of a manifest clerk in their dock house.”

“No!” Tessa spun to him.

Joseph clasped his hands behind his back and smiled. “Stoker, who is sulking around somewhere, by the way, learned this as soon as we’d made port and leased a slip. I checked around. There are several positions in the dock house, actually. It is not a busy port at the moment, but it holds potential, in my opinion. I will make no more presumptions or inquiries. I leave that up to you.”

Tessa clasped her hands together. “Oh, I cannot wait to see it. But we should find the High Street first and get the lay of the town. Even if the dockyard holds potential, we cannot remain here if the people are miserable or the shops are depressing. What of your prospects in government?”

Joseph nodded and indicated a turn in the direction of Church Street, which was Hartlepool’s main shopping street. “Could be worse, actually. The town counsel is particularly active—they are responsible for the new dock, as you reported—and several members are too old to run again. It is not out of the question. I would have to start very small since we are entirely unknown here. But that would be the case most anywhere.”

“But look at the church,” exclaimed Tessa when St. Hilda’s came into view.

“Oh, yes, the town is in possession of an old Norman church. St. Hilda’s. Built in the 1100s, or so I’m told. Hartlepool has a storied, almost ancient history with shipping, pirates, Vikings, all manner of sea farers. People here have been sending out and receiving ships for thousands of years. Well done, Tessa, if your aim was to find a spot to welcome the world to England and send England back out again. Well done.”

Tessa stopped walking, shook her head, and placed a hand over her mouth. She looked so very happy. Joseph stepped back, allowing her this moment of delight; he soaked in his own pleasure, watching her beam.

After a deep breath, she took up his hand and they walked together, looking in on shops, asking questions of suspicious townspeople, and wandering through the knobby, bricked streets of the little town. They took lunch at a small café and devoted the afternoon to the dockyard.

Tessa introduced herself to a procession of stunned dockworkers, each more confused and spellbound by the beautiful inquirer than the next.

It was quickly obvious that the men endeavored to answer her questions to Joseph when he lurked about her, despite the fact that she made the inquiries. After the third answer was addressed to him, he excused himself and boarded Stoker’s brig.

After an hour, Tessa had all of her questions answered and she and Joseph walked back to the inn. She chattered excitedly, relaying everything she had learned about ship traffic in the North Sea, the cargo and boats most commonly coming and going through Hartlepool, the usefulness of the nearby River Tees to the dockyard, and the weather in every season.

“But did you ask about employment?” he asked.

“No,” she said, giving a little cringe. “I couldn’t find the nerve. But I think they liked me. I believed they saw that I knew some small part of what I was asking about.”

“I’ve no doubt they liked you very much,” Joseph said.

And they’ve no idea that their lives are about to be forever changed, he added in his head.

And so, I hope, is mine.