Page 20 of Duke of Iron (Unyielding Dukes #2)
“Is this what you wanted?” Logan continued, and she could picture the arch of his brow. “To see if you could get Irondale himself to capitulate? Well, congratulations. You’ve bested me. Are you satisfied?”
A soft shuffling, then the scrape of chair legs. May angled her head and peered into the room. Logan sat with the child on his lap, one large hand supporting the tiny back, the other ruffling a thatch of downy hair.
He looked, for all the world, like a man born to the task.
A warmth spread through her chest, odd and unwelcome.
She had always assumed Logan would reject this sort of thing—infants, softness, any suggestion of domesticity.
He had always projected a chill, an iron wall between himself and the rest of humanity.
And yet, here he was, rocking and murmuring, a picture so intimate it made her ribs ache.
He looked down at the baby, brow furrowed. “You’re here to take over my life, eh?”
May blinked. Take over? She leaned closer, careful not to let her wrapper snag on the door’s edge.
Logan kept talking, though his voice was quieter, as if he were confessing to the sleeping child alone. “I suppose that’s fair. I have made a mess of things, one way or another. But you—I think you’ll make a fine scandal. Give the gossips years of material. Maybe even outlast me.”
He let out a breath. “You know, your nurse quit. Said you were beyond hope. But you’re just a baby. The world is cruel, and we are only what it makes us. I’m not angry. Not really.”
He reached for the battered toy rabbit and set it next to the child.
“She picked this out for you, you know. The Duchess. She has a ridiculous belief that everything can be mended with the right amount of embroidery and song. She is…” He trailed off, rocking a bit faster.
“Well, you’ll see for yourself, soon enough.
She never listens, never backs down. I tell her to leave it, and she makes it her personal crusade. ”
May’s heart fluttered, traitorous and bright. She had not known he even noticed. Or perhaps he was only venting to the baby, sure no one else would care.
“You’ll be like her, I think,” Logan said. “Too clever for your own good. Too stubborn to let things rest. God help us all if you ever learn to speak.”
He fell quiet, then—so much so that May almost backed away, embarrassed to have overheard something that was not hers. But just as she began to step back, Logan spoke again, his words a whisper,
“Maybe that’s what this house needs. Someone to shake the dust loose. Someone who doesn’t quit at the first cry.”
He chuckled softly. “She would say that’s the point. That we are all just waiting for someone to change things.”
A lump rose in May’s throat. She swallowed, hard.
Logan adjusted the baby, tucking the blanket more securely. “You’ll grow, and you’ll make your own trouble. Maybe by then, someone will have figured out who you really are.”
He sounded tired. More than tired—worn, as if he had been fighting the world and found it was an opponent that never slept.
“I’m not your father,” he told the baby. “But I’ll make sure you are safe, at least. That’s all I can promise.”
May knew she should go, but her legs would not obey. She stared, heart pounding, as Logan rocked the baby and let his head drop forward, just for a moment. The line of his back was tense, but there was a gentleness in the way he touched the child, a care that belied all his protestations.
She wondered what it must be like to hold a secret in your arms and know you had to live with it, day after day.
A sound escaped her, unintentional—a tiny scuff of slipper on the waxed floor. Logan looked up, eyes sharp and clear, and for a moment, she thought he would call her out for spying.
Instead, he only said, “Duchess.”
She blinked. “Duke.”
He stood, careful not to wake the baby, and laid him in the cradle. The room seemed smaller than before.
“I thought I heard him crying,” May said, searching for a plausible excuse.
“He was. But he’s stopped now.” Logan brushed a hand over the baby’s head, then straightened and regarded her. “He’s to be called William. Or so I am told.”
May moved closer, peering down at the sleeping face. “William is a very proper name for such a small person.”
Logan looked at her. “It is a very proper name for a child, who I am told, is to inherit everything I have.”
She frowned. “He’s still only a baby. He cannot help what he is called.”
“No. He cannot.”
There was a silence, not quite comfortable, not quite tense.
She nudged the rabbit closer to the infant. “I still like Rydal better. It suits him.”
Logan shrugged. “Call him what you like. He seems to answer only to chaos.”
May smiled, looking from the child to the Duke and back again. “He has your eyes, you know.”
Logan stiffened. “Does he?”
She shrugged, feeling suddenly foolish. “I suppose all babies do. They are born with gray eyes, I’ve heard. They change with time.”
He said nothing, just watched her, his face unreadable.
May felt her cheeks heat. She stepped back, clearing her throat. “I’ll leave you to your… nap,” she said to the baby. “And to your peace and quiet, Duke.”
He inclined his head. “Thank you, Duchess.”
She turned and left the nursery, closing the door gently behind her. It was only as she reached the bottom of the stairs that she realized her hands were shaking.
They looked so alike. But that meant nothing. Babes looked like everyone and no one at all.