Page 40 of Duke of Iron
But the laughter stuck in her throat, and for a long time, she just sat there, letting the weight of the house and her new title press in from all sides.
A scream tore through the silence, and May shot up in bed so fast she nearly concussed herself on the headboard.
At first, she thought she must have imagined it. But then it came again—sharp, shrill, and most definitely real.
She stumbled from her blankets, yanked on her wrapper, and fumbled her way into the hallway. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust. The hallway was darker than it had been during the day, and the house itself seemed to be holding its breath.
From the opposite direction, a sliver of light appeared as another door opened. The Duke stepped into the hallway, barefoot and bare-chested, hair sleep-tousled and eyes as sharp as a hound’s at the hunt.
May froze. So did he.
They stood there for a full beat, both blinking in the low light, the infant’s cries bouncing down the hallway with alarming volume.
“May,” he said at last, as if greeting her at a dinner party rather than at this unholy hour, in a state of half undress.
“Logan,” she echoed, her brain refusing to process the rest of the scene. “Is that?—”
“The baby,” Logan said. He winced as the crying reached a new octave. “He was meant to stay in the nursery at the end of the hall. Why is he not in the nursery?”
May had no answer. She only knew that the noise was loud enough to wake the dead. A light came on at the far end of the hallway, and the sound of someone swearing under their breath confirmed that the entire household was being roused.
“I suppose we should—” she began, but Logan was already striding toward the noise, barely pausing to ensure she followed.
She scurried after him, trying and failing not to stare at the line of muscle down his back. A little voice in her head insisted this was not the time for ogling, but the rest of her mind seemed to have been left in bed, sound asleep.
The baby had been installed in a small room just off their own suite of chambers—a fact which May found alarming and, frankly, a little menacing. The door was ajar. Within, the baby howled from a new crib, the wet nurse nowhere in sight.
Logan hovered at the threshold, looking profoundly out of his depth.
“Is he injured?” May asked, her own anxiety rising with every fresh scream.
“Not unless he has managed to fall out of the cot and re-swaddle himself,” Logan muttered. He looked at her. “What does one do in these circumstances?”
“Why are you asking me?” she whispered back, her panic close to the surface. “I have no idea what to do with a baby.”
“You have sisters,” he said, as if that explained anything.
She shook her head. “None of us has children. Not unless you count August, who is occasionally in need of supervision, but otherwise?—”
Another wail. Louder. May winced. “Someone must do something!”
Logan squared his shoulders, advanced into the room, and bent over the crib. The baby’s face was red as a beet, mouth open wide, limbs thrashing in every direction.
“He is very… expressive,” Logan observed.
“Can you pick him up?” May asked, her voice nearly drowned out by the volume.
“I—” Logan hesitated, then reached into the cot and, as if handling a snake, lifted the baby into his arms. The wailing did not abate.
“Perhaps he needs to be rocked?” May offered.
Logan, looking skeptical, attempted an awkward swaying motion. The baby’s head wobbled dangerously. “Perhaps you should?—”
“Yes,” May said at once. She reached for the child and tried to remember what she had seen in the nursery. “Support the head,” she muttered, arranging her hand under the tiny skull.
As soon as she held him, the noise reduced from a hurricane to a strong wind. May had the fleeting impression that the baby knew she was a novice and was judging her for it.
“Try the chair,” Logan said, gesturing to the wooden rocker by the hearth. She moved to it, awkward in her bare feet, and sank into the seat. The chair creaked and groaned, but the motion seemed to soothe the child a little.
