“I knew you were near,” she said with moist eyes. “I could feel your presence. It gave me strength during the most difficult part.”
“I couldn’t be anywhere else. I only wished I’d been next to you, holding your hand.”
“Do you want to hold him?”
Gabriel didn’t respond, simply approached the bed and gathered the baby from her outstretched arms. It was such a small bundle, and yet it exerted such a powerful pull on him. Serious eyes, a shade lighter than his, peered up at him from between swollen eyelids. He stared back, transfixed by the marvel of this wee human they had created. The tiny button of a nose. The rosebud lips. He was perfect. Babies had been bornevery day, ever since the beginning of humanity, and yet it was still a miracle.
“What will you name him?” he asked.
“I was thinking Arthur?”
“God, no. Nothing reminiscent of the legend of King Arthur.”
Her brow furrowed in confusion at his vehemence. “Why?”
“Lancelot and Guinevere?”
“Oh, it did not occur to me.” She raised her gaze to him. “You are not Lancelot. And you did not betray anyone.”
“Still... the story is too close for comfort. How about Samuel? Samuel is the son of Hannah in the Bible.”
“Samuel. Yes, I think it’s perfect. It suits him.”
Yes, it did. Little Samuel. He couldn’t give his son his own name, but at least he had helped to name him.
“YOU DON’T HAVE TO LEAVEimmediately,” the duke told him at dinner three days after, when he announced he would be leaving the next morning.
“Yes, I do,” Gabriel insisted.
“You can stay as long as you want. You are always welcome here.”
“Thank you, but you must agree it would be strange for me to stay as a long-term guest. Especially now, when you have welcomed a blessed event. It should be family time. My stay here would only set tongues wagging.”
“But you are family,” the duke protested. But his tone was sad, defeated. As if even he had to admit the flaw in his logic.
“I know. In our hearts, we are. But nobody else can know. Wasn’t that the deal?”
The duke sighed and looked down. “At least, promise to visit again soon. I’ll write often.”
“I’ll try, sir.”
Gabriel didn’t know where he would ever find the strength to go away. Or if he would be able to stay away. But he knew the longer he stayed, the harder it became to leave. Was it possible to live with your heart beating somewhere outside your body? Because even if he left, his bleeding heart would stay behind. Here in this house lived his father, the woman he loved, his son. They were his only family. The family he’d never had.
And he did not belong with them.
CHAPTER 41
IT SEEMED TO GABRIELthat his life in the past year had become an endless desert of waiting punctuated by oases of dazzling emotion. It had all started when he found out the duke was his father. Then came his brief affair with Hannah, which now seemed so long ago, and yet it was still so vivid in his mind, as if he had held her in his arms just yesterday.
From that moment on, everything in his life had revolved around her. When he found out she was expecting their child; when he saw her belly and felt his child move; when his son was born, and he held him in his arms for the first time. That was three months ago.
He had taken refuge in his estate and the work that needed to be done. But every month, on the day his son was born, he went to visit him. And each month it became more difficult to leave afterwards. Autumn had come and gone. Winter was again upon them. An entire year, the four seasons. The circle was complete, and yet he was in the same place. This time last year, he was at the beach with Hannah. Those halcyon days were the highlight of his life.
He missed her with an intensity that did not abate, no matter how much time passed. Maybe he shouldn’t go visit this month. Put some distance between them. Begin to forget. Yet the thought of not seeing his son was unbearable.
A knock at the door interrupted his morose musings.
“Enter,” he called, and his butler walked in.
