Page 54 of Duke of Iron
May’s jaw clenched. “You are not the only one with a talent for dramatics,” she said, and picked up the tempo of the rocking. “If you wish to duel, I shall not yield.”
The baby wailed in answer.
The door opened with a force that rattled its hinges, and Logan strode in. He did not knock; he did not even pause at the threshold. He stood in the center of the room, a dark and stormy figure, the air about him practically crackling.
“What happened?” he demanded. His eyes moved over May and the child, assessing damage, searching for culprits.
May did not rise. She did not even stop rocking.
“The baby is having a day,” she said, keeping her tone even. “That is all.”
Logan’s jaw worked. “That is not all, unless you are the sort to measure thunder by a single bolt.”
She glared at him over the rim of her glasses. “And what, pray, would you suggest? He has been fed, changed, walked, rocked, and argued with. If you have a strategy beyond these, I am eager to hear it.”
He approached, looming over the chair with his hands on his hips. “Perhaps you are holding him wrong.”
She gritted her teeth. “Is there a right way to hold a screaming child? If so, please demonstrate.”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. “That is not what I meant.”
“Of course it is. You meant that, as usual, you know better.”
Logan opened his mouth, then closed it, and stared at the ceiling as if it might rescue him from the room. May felt a perverse satisfaction in having ruffled his composure.
“Would you like to try?” she asked, holding out the child.
He stepped back, as though she had offered him a snake. “No. Clearly, you have matters well in hand.”
She stood. “Fine.”
May pressed Rydal to her shoulder, turned on her heel, and strode past Logan, careful not to touch him, though she wanted dearly to knock him off balance.
She reached the hallway and kept going.
Down the stairs, past the shocked expressions of two maids who nearly dropped a tray, out the front door, and into the garden.
The moment the air touched her face, May’s heart slowed. She paced along the path, murmuring to the child and to herself.
“It’s not so bad,” she told him. “Not really. You have a roof, a warm bed, and a full belly. The world is not so cruel.” He hiccuped, and she realized she was not talking to him at all.
She reached the end of the garden, where the first tulips had begun to raise their heads. She kneeled, shifting the baby to her lap. “Look,” she whispered. “There are things that persist. Even when all you want to do is scream.”
He stared at the flowers, silent.
May’s arms ached, but she did not mind it. She let her back rest against the cold stone of the bench and closed her eyes.
You cannot go back, her thoughts told her.You cannot undo it. All you can do is move forward and hope you do not fail too spectacularly.
She opened her eyes and gazed at the baby, who had at last drifted off, a line of drool tracking his chin.
She laughed quietly. “We are a pair, you and I.”
For a long while, she just sat, watching the wind in the flowers, the clouds shifting above. It was peaceful, in the way a battlefield is peaceful after the smoke clears.
May knew she would have to go back inside soon. Back to the expectations, the tasks, the people who waited for her to prove herself worthy.
But for now, she let herself be nothing more than a woman with a baby and the sun on her face.
