Page 72 of The Scottish Duke
He didn’t answer her. To his credit, he stepped closer to the bed. He might look like a condemned prisoner, but he manfully held out his arms.
“Sit there,” she said, gesturing toward the side of the mattress with her chin.
He did so, angling his body so that he was half turned toward her.
“Now, cup your arms,” she said. When he did as she asked, she realized she wasn’t too tired to smile after all.
She made the transfer easily. As he balanced their child in his arms, she buttoned up her nightgown.
Words weren’t necessary at that moment. They would have been an interference as son met father. Robbie squinted up at Alex, waved his fists a few times, then made a soft snuffling sound.
“He’s asleep,” Alex said a few minutes later.
She nodded, almost asleep herself.
“What if he wakes up when I put him in the cradle?”
“Then you’ll have to rock him,” she said.
She lay her head back on the pillow, the last image before sleep claimed her the sweet picture of Alex smiling down at his son.
Those moments of sitting there, Robbie’s head cradled in his elbow, the baby’s bottom in his palm, were silent and almost prayerful.
Nothing mattered but Robbie. The child’s parentage was unmistakable. It was like looking in a mirror, albeit a younger one.
The sight of that tiny chest rising and falling, his feet kicking the blanket, the mouth pursing and relaxing, was enough to render Alex silent and awed.
For the first time in three years he allowed himself to think of that poor infant who hadn’t survived his birth. He would have been like Robbie, each small breath he took the promise of another. Whether the child had been his or not didn’t matter. He should have felt the loss regardless.
In the silence, he faced Ruth’s ghost, bowing his head in the face of that death as well. He’d been numb and angry, feeling lost and stunned. Had he ever felt the grief? He’d been a young man when he fell in love with her. He’d never believed that she would betray him, but she had. Yet the young man who’d loved Ruth had never had a chance to feel pain at her death. He hadn’t just created a moat around himself. He’d built a wall.
In the last three years he’d thought himself complete. Oh, there were niches and hollows in his life. Until now, until this moment, with Lorna asleep and his child in his arms, he hadn’t known how empty the hollows or how cavernous the niches.
He had a wife. He had a son.
He carefully placed Robbie in his cradle and sat watching as the two of them, mother and son, slept.
Alex had been reared to understand that he was steward of Blackhall and his other estates. He comprehended that it was up to him to make wise decisions to increase the family coffers.
Until now, he’d never felt the weight of responsibility so keenly.
He had a wife. He had a son.
He reached out a hand and covered Lorna’s where it lay on the bed. Somehow, it was necessary to make a connection with her, to let her know he was still there.
His wife.
Her long eyelashes lay atop the shadows beneath her eyes. Her cheeks were pink, her mouth the same color. Someone had brushed her hair and it lay against the pillow, almost summoning his touch. One finger did just that before he returned his hand to cover hers.
He had a wife.
He’d never thought to marry again. Never believed that it would be important to do so. He’d already had his heir in his uncle, if anything happened to him. Now he had a son.
Thomas probably wouldn’t be happy. Or it could be that he’d be relieved.
He had a wife.
Lorna sighed in her sleep, and he wanted to hold her, comfort her, tell her that he was there, watching over her.
