Page 104 of The MacGregor's Lady
Spathfoy took a seat at the table uninvited. “Are we going to pick out baby names or take advantage of Balfour’s bout of insanity to rob him blind?”
“The bad fairy speaks,” Ian muttered. “I’ll man the decanters. Spathfoy, why don’t you hold the baby?”
“Because you’re his papa, and I may be English, but I’m not entirely stupid. What’s the game?”
A desultory debate ensued, with the decision being that hearts would make an adequate pastime, though when Asher looked at the clock, the thing seemed to have forgotten how to advance the hour.
He made no effort to toss his brothers out, though he suspected Spathfoy, in a kind of begrudging sympathy, would probably have withdrawn without a fuss. His brothers were holding a wake though, a wake for the dreams Asher had never thought he’d dream again, for the hopes and aspirations of a heart that had sworn off aspiration for all time.
Rest in bloody goddamned peace.
“Your turn to hold the brat.” Spathfoy lifted wee John high, high up, brought him down nose to nose, and lifted him up again.
A wet little baby fart resulted, and five grown men went silent. Spathfoy passed the child over to Asher with no further displays of avuncular affection.
“Typical English, handing back the goods when trouble’s bound to ensue,” Con remarked. He tossed out the two of clubs, and everybody but Spathfoy followed suit.
For Asher to arrange cards with a baby in his arms was not difficult, provided said baby was not in the mood to snatch at the cards with tiny, damp fingers. Asher gave the child a blue poker chip to gnaw on.
“How did you know to do that?” Gil tossed out the ten of diamonds, and everybody followed suit except Spathfoy, who pitched the king of spades onto the table.
Ian was sitting the game out, and true to his word, topping up drinks between tricks. Asher contributed the king of diamonds, Con the ace. “Do what?”
“Give His Fiendship the chip so he’d stuff it in his maw and leave your cards alone?”
Across the table, Ian pretended to study the whiskey remaining in a simple glass vessel. Loyal of him, more loyal than Asher deserved.
“Must be from being a physician,” Con muttered. “Physicians have to deal with bairns and hysterical women and crabbit auld men like Spathfoy.”
Spathfoy swirled his drink. “They can also treat conditions of male inability to perform, Connor. You might keep that in mind in case you live long enough to become an auld man.”
Con grinned. “Me wife will wear me out long before I’m auld, but I’ll die happy and leave a handsome corpse. Unlike some.” He led the ten of clubs, tossing the card directly at Spathfoy.
Thesemenaremybrothers, and I love them.
The thought bloomed in Asher’s heart and in his mind just as the baby pitched a thoroughly gummed chip onto the table. Gil played the eight of clubs, caught the chip as it rolled off the edge of the table, and held it out to Asher.
“Don’t give it back to him,” Asher said, “or it will soon be raining poker chips in here. The wee ones train us like monkeys, all for their entertainment.”
This time, Asher fished in his pocket and passed the boy an empty brass money clip. When he looked up, Gil, Con, and Spathfoy were frowning at him, while Ian’s gaze was steady. Just steady.
As wee John brought the money clip to his mouth, Asher felt a question form over the table. A curiosity coalesced that had probably been building through all the days Asher had ignored John in London, through the morning they’d been found asleep on the train, John clutched to Asher’s chest.
“He’ll find the taste interesting,” Asher said, cradling the boy closer. “It won’t hurt him any more than sticking his fingers in his mouth would. Not particularly sanitary…”
Spathfoy set his cards on the table and folded his arms. Con tossed back his drink and set the glass on the table like a judge lowering a gavel. Gil watched the child drooling all over the money clip, and still Ian said nothing—nor did he pour anybody any more whiskey.
Asher brushed a kiss to the baby’s downy head as an old pain, one not directly related to Hannah’s departure, but one entwined with it, welled from his past.
“Shall I take the bairn?” Ian’s voice was soft, carefully neutral, but in that moment, the last thing Asher wanted was to give up the child he held in his arms.
“He’s fine.”
While five grown men struggled with a taut, aching silence, the baby spluttered happily with his new toy. Asher stroked a hand over the child’s head.
He couldn’t hurt any worse if he were put to the rack and stretched to the utmost. The thought held a wry kind of grace. Maybe it had helped to rehearse his confession with Hannah, who’d listened and cried and listened some more.
“I had a son.”
