Page 87 of Love a Lady at Midnight

Max nodded but looked up into the sky, and Cass pulled at his cravat.

Uncle Henry clapped his hands and strode off toward his wife and daughters, diving into the very center of them like a king among his courtiers. But they were his center, his queens, his sun. He would give everything for them.

Jackson would do the same for his family.

Cass elbowed Jackson’s ribs. “If he’s waiting for me and Ada to… you know… he might be waiting a while. She’s not keen at the moment, and neither am I, frankly. One day, but…”

“The man’s deuced impatient,” Max said. “If he’d just wait another fortnight or so, he’ll receive news that will make him pleased enough.”

Cass swung to look at Max. “Is that so? Well, congratulations for the thing you’re not saying yet.” He clapped Jackson on the back. “You too. You too. I’ll be keen to hold the little bundles as long as I don’t have to change any nappies.”

Jackson and Max wrinkled their noses. For Jackson, a surface reaction merely. He embraced whatever hardships—and yes, nappies—the future held for he and Gwendolyn.

Life bustled about them loud and bright and good. And his moon, the center of his universe if no one else’s, laughed in the arms of his family, blushed and smiled, and gave joy with no reservation into the world.

The stones behind them, and the mysteries they signified, had stood for hundreds of years, the past gone but never quite faded, its mark always upon the land, the soul. The stones made this land what it was. And their pasts—his and Gwendolyn’s—had shaped them just as surely into hearts and minds the perfect fit for one another. In dreams, in life, and in all else—present and future—they walked side by side.

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