Page 42 of Duke of Iron
He looked at her with sudden intensity. “Tell me the poem.”
She stared at him, then looked down at the baby. “It’s Wordsworth,” she said. “From Michael. It’s about a father and his only son, who leaves home and never returns.”
Logan was silent for a long moment.
“Rydal,” he said finally.
May blinked. “Pardon?”
“The mountain Wordsworth loved. Rydal. It is fitting, is it not?”
She considered. “Yes. I like it.”
“Then Rydal it shall be,” Logan said.
For a moment, it felt as though they had accomplished something monumental. The baby, oblivious, yawned.
May looked up and caught Logan’s eye, finding that it lingered on her face for a heartbeat longer than necessary.
“Would you…” she began, then faltered. “Would you like me to try singing him to sleep?”
He looked surprised, then nodded. “If you think it would help.”
She thought back to all the lullabies she had ever heard, and found none of them would come to her. Instead, she tried to humthe melody of the Wordsworth poem, setting the lines to a tune of her own invention.
The baby listened, at first with suspicion, then with something like interest. After a few bars, his eyes drifted shut.
May kept humming, softer and softer, until the only sound in the room was the chair’s gentle rocking and the slow, even breaths of a sleeping infant.
When she looked up, she found Logan still there, still watching her. His face had softened, all the sharpness melted away.
She waited for him to speak, but he only looked at her, silent and unreadable.
“Why are you staring at me like that?” she asked, her voice a bare whisper.
He blinked, and the mask dropped into place again—the Iron Duke, cold and distant. “You sing well,” he said.
May felt a flush of disappointment, though she could not say why.
“Thank you,” she murmured, then looked down at Rydal and gently adjusted the blanket around him.
They stood there, side by side, not speaking, as the silence reasserted itself.
After a time, Logan said, “You should get some rest.”
“So should you,” she replied.
He nodded. “I will have the nurse resume her duties by morning. You need not worry about him.”
May looked at the sleeping baby, then at Logan. She wondered if he meant her to take comfort in that, or if it was only another order to be followed.
Either way, she was too tired to argue.
“Good night,” she said, rising from the chair and smoothing her wrapper.
“Good night, May,” he said.
As she slipped out into the dark hallway, she felt his gaze on her back. It lingered long after the door had closed, warm and unyielding.
