Rafe’s three sons.
And Alex’s wee heir, Ian, calling to the older children, “Wait up! Wait up! My legs is too little.”
Kieran caught James as he launched himself into his arms.
“Isolde found a snake, Papa!” James said, his voice high and excited. His dark mop of curls and green-gray eyes—so like his mother’s—always sent a burst of love through Kieran’s chest.
“An adder?” Kieran’s brows drew down. Adders were the only snakes in Scotland. They were also, unfortunately, the only venomous animal in all of Britain.
“We were careful,” Isolde laughed, wrapping her arms around Andrew’s neck and kissing his cheek.
“Yes,” Rafe’s oldest, John, joined in. “Don’t worry. Mamma taught us all about them and how to keep a safe distance. It was just sunning on a log.”
“Aye,” said his brother, “we left it there.”
“I’s no touch it,” Ian lisped, crawling into Alex’s lap.
James twisted in Kieran’s arms, looking across the lawn to the tea party.
“Are those biscuits?” he asked.
All seven little heads whipped in choreographed synchronization, mimicking their fathers’ only moments before. They were off like launched rockets with cries of “Uncle Ewan!” and “Biscuits!” ringing across the garden.
Poor Ewan disappeared under a pile of children tackling him to the ground and nearly upending the tea table entirely.
Lily and Gabriella initially shrieked in anger. But then decided that jumping atop Ewan as he writhed and tickled the children looked like more fun than a stuffy old tea party anyway.
And for a moment, it seemed as if the combined might of fifteen children might keep Ewan down.
But Kieran merely counted to ten and sure enough, Ewan rose—gently, carefully—from their mass of bodies, a twin clutched under each arm, the rest of the children clinging to him like barnacles.
With a roar of laughter, Ewan looked at his friends where they lounged comfortably in their chairs and slowly started to walk toward them, carrying all the children with him.
“See.” Alex pointed toward Ewan. “He always wins.”
“The winningest,” Kieran agreed with a chuckle.
Later that evening, after all the children had been put to bed and the staff had retired for the day, the five couples gathered in the drawing room.
“I think I’m fair knackered,” Kieran sighed.
“How so?” Ewan asked, a sandwich in his hand.
“Aye,” Alex chuckled, nodding toward Ewan. “Ye didnae fend off the exhausting weight of all our progeny today.”
“I’m tired justthinkingupon it,” Kieran amended, cuddling Eilidh against his side on the sofa.
Andrew snorted and passed around a decanter of his finest whisky, his Jane joining the men in pouring some into her tumbler.
Alex, of course, sipped tea. His wife, Lottie, joined him in a show of solidarity.
Rafe sat in a wingback chair, pulling his wife, Sophie, onto his lap.
Ewan was still eating a roast beef sandwich, Violet tucked against his side.
“What shall we drink to tonight?” Andrew asked, lifting his glass.
“To the simple pleasure of us all being here together?” Ewan said.
