Chapter 24 #2
“See?” the duchess demanded, pointing at Andrew. “He said he could never think that. Also, Andrew, you must call me Irene. We stand on no ceremony here, you know, and we are family.”
“And in family, there are very few rules.” The duke—Henry, Andrew supposed he ought to call him—winked. “And plenty of insults to go around.”
Jessamine was watching him, a shade of anxiety in her eyes, and he realized that she was scared he might insult her family. Not in the way they had intended, but by insisting on a layer of formality.
The first time they’d met, he had been new to this mantle of authority and responsibility, reeling from Rebecca’s death, and determined to do right by her son, something he felt as though these people were obstructing.
But in reality, they were just trying to do right by Jessamine.
And having met her—having met them all—could he blame them for that?
This was a tight-knit family the likes of which he had never been a part of.
They shared a love and bond that he could never imagine belonging to, and yet which he now desperately wanted to be a part of.
“I have been unfortunate enough to have lost my own family,” Andrew said with a slight cough, nudging Jessamine’s leg with his foot under the table.
He needed her to stop gawking at him. “And it would be a privilege to be part of this one. Although I am less familiar with insulting those one loves.”
“Oh, it becomes as natural as breathing,” Irene assured him. “We are a little rambunctious at times, but it’s all in good fun.”
“And good faith,” Henry added. “We would never pick at something anyone is genuinely troubled by.”
Irene nodded. “For example, we would never poke fun at William or his place in your household. We both know he is very prized and loved.”
“He most certainly is,” Jessamine added, glancing into the corner where William was, praise be, still sleeping.
It transpired that babies often slept a great deal, and that except for his brief bout of colic, he was a particularly easy baby to manage.
Andrew didn’t want to imagine what life would be like with a baby that was challenging to manage.
“And on that note,” Irene said, leaning forward, “I suppose it’s time to bring you up to see with our latest development.”
Jessamine grinned so wide, Andrew wanted to laugh at her delight. A strange, new feeling.
“I am with child,” Irene said. “William will soon have a playmate.”
So, he had been right. “Congratulations,” Andrew said, and he realized he meant it. “I truly am happy for you.”
“We are happy for us, too,” Irene said. “The world doesn’t know in an official capacity, although of course everyone closest to us is now aware.”
“It’s her least well-kept secret,” Henry said with rolled eyes and a smile. “But she insists on telling people as though they are oblivious.”
“You were oblivious, were you not?” Jessamine prompted Andrew, and although he had not been precisely oblivious—if nothing else, his training made him observant, even if this was not what his commanding officers had in mind—he found he could not quite deliver the truth.
“It came as a delightful surprise,” he said.
Henry raised a skeptical brow, but Jessamine beamed, and he found himself glad that he had offered her a slight lie.
“We have some news of our own,” Jessamine said, and Andrew looked at her sharply, worried she might tell them something entirely too private. But then, as he ought to have known, she followed it with, “William smiled at us the other day.”
“Well,” Andrew corrected, “he smiled at you. I doubt he knows who I am yet.”
“Of course he does!” Jessamine turned to Irene as though determined to defend his honor. “William often stops crying if you put him in Andrew’s arms.”
Irene seemed highly amused by this piece of information. “Do you rock your second cousin to sleep, Your Grace?” she asked.
“Andrew. And yes, on occasion.”
She turned to her husband. “I expect nothing less with our child.”
“I am a man of many talents,” he said, “and I think I could probably manage some of that.”
As though on cue, William awoke and started half-heartedly crying. Jessamine went to the bassinet, picked him up, and deposited him in Andrew’s arms.
Andrew stared down at William’s face. The worst of the newborn tightness had left his features, and his eyes were wide and blue.
Lucy had informed him that all babies’ eyes started out as blue, but Rebecca had the same depth in her blue eyes, and Andrew couldn’t help hoping William would retain that piece of her.
“See?” he vaguely heard Jessamine say to the rest of her family. “William adores him. I suppose he can sense they’re related.”
Andrew rocked William slightly, the way Jessamine had taught him all those weeks ago. There was an odd tightness in his chest, an emotion he didn’t know how to process or express.
All he knew was that he would kill; he would do dreadful things over and over, all for the sake of the tiny child in his arms.
And, when he glanced up at Jessamine…
He realized that he would do the same for her sake, too.
And with that, Andrew hoped that Rebecca was looking down on them all now and was pleased with what she saw.