Tristan obliged, watching with a bemused smile as Bea raced across the room to Hadley’s open arms, scrambling onto his lap and peppering his face with kisses.
“Och, there’s my favorite Honey Bea,” Hadley laughed, tickling her face with his beard until she lost her breath to giggling.
At times, Tristan marveled at the oddity of sharing the people he loved most—Isolde and Beatrice—with a man he once loathed and who had loathed Tristan in return. But over the years, respect and a grudging love had grown between himself and his father-in-law.
Tristan smiled and met Rafe’s gaze, reading admiration there.
Rafe, however, had become a brother in truth. The person Tristan turned to for advice and support.
Recently at Hadley’s urging (of all people), Tristan had begun to tiptoe again into politics. Though Her Majesty still objected to Isolde’s extensive education, she very much approved of the Duke and Duchess of Kendall’s example of domestic felicity.
Moreover, he had discovered that kind and generous behavior was a more productive way to build popularity and support. Tristan had gained many friends over the past three years. Now, a trip to White’s involved warm greetings and long conversations with like-minded Peers.
Bea settled in to play a game of pat-a-cake with Hadley, sitting back on his knees and laughing when her grandfather deliberately made a mistake.
Tristan paced back over to the window, swallowing back his anxiety.
Please, he silently pleaded.Please let my Isolde be well.
Twenty minutes of nervous pacing later, the cry of a newborn babe rang down the stairwell.
Tristan was already at the drawing-room door when the housekeeper burst in, all radiance and excitement.
“Congratulations, Your Grace,” she said on a curtsy. “The duchess has birthed ye a strong and healthy babe. Her Grace fares well. I shall leave it to her to tell you if it’s a boy or a girl. Give us thirty minutes and then ye may join us.”
The following half an hour was rather the longest of Tristan’s life. But he dutifully waited.
Thirty minutes to the second later, Tristan walked into his bedchamber with Bea gathered against his breastbone once more.
Isolde sat in the bed, a tiny bundle in her arms, as the midwife and others fussed around her.
Hair tousled, cheeks flushed, his wife had never looked more lovely.
Frowning, Bea pushed out of his hold and scrambled across the bed to her mother.
“Come see.” Isolde beckoned.
Bea eagerly cuddled into her mother’s side, looking at the baby’s tiny face.
Without a word, Tristan leaned over the bed and kissed Isolde soundly.
His wife returned his kiss before pulling back on a grin.
“Ye kiss me before knowing if I’ve birthed ye a son or daughter?”
“Always,” he rasped. “You are well. The child is well. I need know nothing more.”
Isolde laughed at that. “Ye be too easy tae please at times, my love. Come.” She patted the bed at her side. And then giving him that wide, summer-bright smile he adored, she added, “Here, hold your son.”
Three hours later,Tristan was still nestled beside Isolde under the counterpane, his new son cradled in the crook of his arm.
Beatrice had long ago fallen asleep at the foot of the bed, her chubby arms flung with abandon over her head. She needed to return to thenursery, but as usual, both Tristan and Isolde were loathe to part from her.
They had accepted well-wishes and congratulations from Rafe and Lord and Lady Hadley, all of them cooing over the new heir—
Andrew Tristan Rafe Gilbert, Lord Hawthorn.
Hadley, in particular, had surreptitiously wiped his eyes when he realized that the new babe had been named in his honor.
