“Son,” he said, trying out the word, so strange and yet so glorious. “Papa loves you.”
These were words that had grown easier to say with time. And he had Tansy to thank for that.
His son’s face screwed, going red, and he opened his mouth to emit a small, princely roar of protest, likely at having been removed from his mother’s arms.
“I don’t think he’s pleased with me,” he observed wryly.
“Rock him gently and pat his bottom,” Tansy instructed. “That seems to calm him.”
He did as she said, and the baby quieted.
“We must name him.” He glanced up at Tansy. “Nando recommends Ferdo.”
Tansy laughed. “That’s a terrible name.”
Ah, vindication.
“That’s precisely what I told him.” He traced the bridge of his son’s nose in awe. “If you’re in agreement, I would like to name him Caspian the Second, after my father.”
And the king who had been denied his throne, who had never lived to see the House of Tayrnes vanquish their enemies and rule victorious.
“Caspian,” Tansy repeated. “Caspian Ferdinando.”
“Nando would be most pleased.”
“Since we’re indebted to his matchmaking, the least we can do is honor him with our son’s name.”
Maxim gave her a searching look. “Has Nando been crowing to you as well?”
She smiled, a beautiful smile, one that was weary and yet filled with so much love and hope, so much promise for the future. “Of course he has.”
“He’s fortunate I love him,” he muttered, gently stroking the silken tuft of dark hair atop Caspian’s head.
“We’re all fortunate you love us,” Tansy said softly.
He leaned forward, slanting his lips over hers for a swift kiss. “No one is more fortunate than I am, my love.”
As they hadevery night for the last three months since they had welcomed Caspian into the world, Tansy and Maxim watched their baby son sleeping soundly in his crib, swaddled in his blankets.
“He’s an angel,” Maxim said reverently.
“Only when he’s sleeping,” she returned wryly.
Their son, in the fashion of his father, could be quite demanding. But she adored all the joys of being a mother, even when her refusal to use a wet nurse meant that she’d had precious little slumber each night in between feedings. She was exhausted and more content than she’d ever been.
“Papa says he’s an angel,” Maxim said. “That’s a royal decree, and it cannot be argued, not even by the queen.”
She chuckled softly. Watching Maxim dote over their son only made her love for him grow. He was a wonderful father, just as she had known he would be.
“Something tells me that Papa will have no end of royal decrees where his beloved son is concerned,” she said.
“And where his beloved wife is concerned as well.” Maxim drew an arm around her waist, pulling her into his tall, lean form. “Shall we retire to the library?”
After she settled Caspian down for a few hours of sleep in the evening beneath the watchful eye of his nurse, she and Maxim went to the palace library, a cavernous room laden with every manner of book imaginable, and spent a few precious hours alone.
But this evening, she had something else in mind.
“I think that perhaps I’ll retire to my apartments for some rest instead,” she told him as they left the nursery, careful to close the door softly at their backs, lest they wake their sleeping son.
