Page 12 of Duke of Iron (Unyielding Dukes #2)

Twelve

M ay was contemplating whether to go down for dinner when a knock sounded at her door.

“Enter,” she called.

Mrs. Paxton stepped in. “Your Grace. Good afternoon.” She paused just inside the threshold, hands folded precisely at her waist. The look she gave May was clinical and not altogether unfriendly, though it was difficult to read with the severity of her features.

“His Grace has instructed me to introduce you to the infant.”

“Is the Duke home?” May asked.

Mrs. Paxton shook her head. “He is not. He was called away to a matter of business. But he said you would wish to be introduced to the child at once, and to see that all was in good order.”

“I see,” May said. She had not expected him to stay, and that made her decide that she would dine in her chambers if Logan did not return by dinnertime.

Smoothing her hands down her dress, she followed the housekeeper out.

The nursery was on the topmost floor, and it was a plain room with a large, deep-cushioned rocking chair that stood near the hearth, and in its seat was a very young woman in a nurse’s cap and apron, dozing with her chin to her chest.

The object of their visit lay in a cot near the window, swaddled to within an inch of its life. May peered in, blinking several times to bring the baby into focus through her new gold-rimmed spectacles.

He was pink, mostly bald, and so impossibly tiny that May wondered how he had made it into the world at all. His fists flailed with infant indignation, mouth working in slow, wet shapes as he dreamed. She had never seen anything so completely defenseless.

She heard herself say, “Oh,” and realized only after a second that she had spoken aloud.

The wet nurse woke with a start, her cap tilting sideways. She jumped to her feet and dropped a curtsy. “Your Grace!”

May smiled nervously. “Good morning. Is he?—”

“He is perfect,” said the nurse, beaming at the cot as if she had produced the child herself. “He has slept through the night and taken all his feedings. Would you care to hold him, Your Grace?”

“That will not be necessary,” May said, a touch too quickly. “I only wished to see that he was well.”

She hovered by the crib, peering down. The baby yawned, scrunched his face, and then continued sleeping.

“What is his name?” May asked.

The nurse’s face fell. “I do not know his name, ma’am.”

May looked at Mrs. Paxton, who shook her head. “I do not know either,” the housekeeper explained. “He is the Duke’s charge until the matter is sorted.”

“I see,” May repeated.

She did not see at all. The very idea of a human being so small, with no parents or name, was intolerable. She thought of her own mother, who would have fainted dead away at the notion of a foundling left on the doorstep.

The nurse hovered nearby, fussing with the baby’s blankets. “He is a sweet boy. Very easy. You may hold him, if you like.”

May shook her head. The idea of lifting something so fragile—so breakable—made her stomach clench.

She wondered, not for the first time, whether she had been born with some crucial bit of maternal instinct missing.

Or whether she had simply read too many novels in which every mother was either a saint or a ghost.

“Thank you,” May said, softening her voice. “He looks very well cared for.”

The nurse beamed. “He is a darling. Not fussy at all.”

May nodded, willing herself to look longer at the child. His mouth quivered, and he made a faint noise, something between a sigh and a complaint. May felt it in her bones. The sound of need.

“Do you—” She stopped, her tongue thick. “Do you know where he came from?”

The nurse’s smile fell away. “No, Your Grace. The master only said he was left on the doorstep and that we must treat him as family until his own is found.”

May watched the child. The baby yawned again and kicked one small foot free of his wrap, revealing a perfect, wrinkled toe.

“Have you… have you cared for many babies before?” May asked, hoping to sound more curious than ignorant.

“Oh, yes, ma’am,” said the nurse. “From Mayfair to Lincolnshire, and every sort in between.”

May smiled, grateful for her confidence.

“You may ring if you wish to see him again,” Mrs. Paxton said. There was a subtle warning in her words, as if she doubted May’s interest.

“I might,” May said, meaning it and not meaning it. She did not know what to do with a baby. She could barely manage her own breathing, let alone someone else’s. The idea that her husband had once been as small and helpless as the child before her was almost absurd.

As she turned to go, she glanced at Mrs. Paxton, who was regarding her with an unreadable look.

“Thank you,” May said again.

Mrs. Paxton dipped her head. “You are very welcome, Your Grace.”

May walked quickly from the nursery, her wrapper brushing the walls. As soon as she reached her own rooms, she closed the door and leaned against it, one hand pressed to her forehead.

She did not cry, but she wanted to. Instead, she sat on the edge of the bed and let her head fall to her knees.

What if the baby never leaves? What if this is what the rest of my life looks like? And what will he expect of me, when all I am is a duchess in name, nothing more?

She tried to picture herself holding the child, rocking him to sleep, singing lullabies as her own mother had. The vision was so absurd it almost made her laugh.

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.

May glanced at Logan, who stood watching her with an expression she could not name.

“He is… smaller than I expected,” she whispered.

“I thought the same,” he replied. He leaned against the doorjamb, arms crossed, wholly unconcerned about his lack of shirt. May wished she could muster even a fraction of his composure.

The baby whimpered but did not resume screaming.

May risked a closer look at the face. “He looks like you,” she said, half-joking, but instantly regretted it. The last thing she wanted was to suggest anything improper.

Logan gave her an unamused look. “He does not.”

“Well. He has the same brow,” she said. “Not the eyes, though. Or the nose. Or the hair.”

“Which is to say, nothing in common at all.”

“Exactly,” she said, feeling foolish.

They lapsed into silence, interrupted only by the baby’s tiny, hiccuping noises and the slow creak of the rocker.

“Have you ever held a baby before?” Logan asked, voice softer now.

“Never,” May confessed. “All three of us were born at the same time, and I neither have young cousins nor nieces and nephews.”

He nodded, then moved to crouch beside the chair. Up close, he looked different than in daylight. Less severe. More tired. “You are doing fine,” he said.

“How do you know?” she countered. “For all I know, this is the worst possible baby handling in history.”

He almost smiled. “It cannot be. He has stopped crying.”

“Only because he is busy plotting my demise,” she whispered, peering down at the baby, who had gone from agitated to wide-eyed and suspicious.

Logan stared at her for a moment, then shook his head. “Do you think he will let us sleep tonight?”

“I doubt it. Not unless one of us keeps him in the chair all night.”

“Unacceptable,” Logan said, though he sounded more amused than annoyed.

May tried to laugh but was too tired to manage more than a thin smile. “Would you like to try again?” she offered.

He shook his head, rising to his full height. “He prefers you. Clearly.”

Then he’d be the first. “We should name him,” she blurted, mostly to distract herself from the warmth creeping into her face.

Logan seemed to consider. “Why?”

“He cannot go through life as ‘the baby.’ Even for a little while. It is undignified.”

He raised a brow. “You think he has a sense of dignity?”

“Everyone does,” she replied. “Even the very small.”

She waited for him to scoff, but instead, he leaned his hip against the hearth and looked at her with genuine curiosity. “What would you name him?”

May hesitated. “Perhaps… Brook. Or Rowan. Or—” She broke off, embarrassed. “That is silly.”

“Why silly?”

“Because they are names from poetry. I am not sure real children are allowed to have names from poetry.”

He looked at her with sudden intensity. “Tell me the poem.”

She stared at him, then looked down at the baby. “It’s Wordsworth,” she said. “From Michael. It’s about a father and his only son, who leaves home and never returns.”

Logan was silent for a long moment.

“Rydal,” he said finally.

May blinked. “Pardon?”

“The mountain Wordsworth loved. Rydal. It is fitting, is it not?”

She considered. “Yes. I like it.”

“Then Rydal it shall be,” Logan said.

For a moment, it felt as though they had accomplished something monumental. The baby, oblivious, yawned.

May looked up and caught Logan’s eye, finding that it lingered on her face for a heartbeat longer than necessary.

“Would you…” she began, then faltered. “Would you like me to try singing him to sleep?”

He looked surprised, then nodded. “If you think it would help.”

She thought back to all the lullabies she had ever heard, and found none of them would come to her. Instead, she tried to hum the melody of the Wordsworth poem, setting the lines to a tune of her own invention.

The baby listened, at first with suspicion, then with something like interest. After a few bars, his eyes drifted shut.

May kept humming, softer and softer, until the only sound in the room was the chair’s gentle rocking and the slow, even breaths of a sleeping infant.

When she looked up, she found Logan still there, still watching her. His face had softened, all the sharpness melted away.

She waited for him to speak, but he only looked at her, silent and unreadable.

“Why are you staring at me like that?” she asked, her voice a bare whisper.

He blinked, and the mask dropped into place again—the Iron Duke, cold and distant. “You sing well,” he said.

May felt a flush of disappointment, though she could not say why.

“Thank you,” she murmured, then looked down at Rydal and gently adjusted the blanket around him.

They stood there, side by side, not speaking, as the silence reasserted itself.

After a time, Logan said, “You should get some rest.”

“So should you,” she replied.

He nodded. “I will have the nurse resume her duties by morning. You need not worry about him.”

May looked at the sleeping baby, then at Logan. She wondered if he meant her to take comfort in that, or if it was only another order to be followed.

Either way, she was too tired to argue.

“Good night,” she said, rising from the chair and smoothing her wrapper.

“Good night, May,” he said.

As she slipped out into the dark hallway, she felt his gaze on her back. It lingered long after the door had closed, warm and unyielding.

May returned to her bed, collapsed atop the covers, and tried to fall asleep.

But all she could hear was the echo of his voice, and the sound of her own name spoken like a secret he did not wish to share.