“So did someone else I know,” Broc assured her, as he came in the door. He stood in the doorway, watching his brood.
“Uncle Broc!” Constance exclaimed.
“Da! da!” Griffin shouted with glee and continued to dance about in the tub, splashing water everywhere.
Elizabet turned to her husband. Her heart still quickened at the sight of him. Even after all these years, the mere sound of his voice still took her breath away.
He lifted a brow, casting Elizabet a nod, and turned back to Constance, assuring her, “’Tis the truth. I held that bare little arse of yours in my arms far too many times, lass. I thought you would grow up nakey.”
“Uncle Broc!” Constance protested, making a face. “That is so verra disgusting!”
“Aye, but ’tis true, Constance. Ask your Aunt Elizabet.”
“Or ask Page,” Elizabet suggested, greeting her husband at the door, “she chased you about far more than I did.”
“I dinna believe you!” Constance exclaimed. But she knew it was true, because she couldn’t suppress a guilty grin.
Broc nodded, “Och, lass, I dinna think you wore clothes until you were twenty,” he remarked.
Constance rolled her eyes, giggling at his obvious exaggeration. “I’m only thirteen!” she declared.
Elizabet stifled her laughter and crooked a brow at her husband. “And where is Suisan?” she asked.
He wrapped his arms around her, turning her aboutso that he could hug her and place his hands upon her belly. “Suisan is outside riding the dog,” he disclosed.
Suisan was their eldest daughter, their firstborn, conceived the day of their vows. She was her father’s joy, and her father clearly was hers. She claimed to want to grow up to be just like her da. And at seven, she much preferred wielding sticks as swords and galloping about upon the backs of tired old dogs to hanging about her mother’s skirts.
Her husband glanced over at Maggie lying upon the bed and whispered into Elizabet’s ear, “Have you any notion how beautiful your children are?”
She cast him a reproachful glance. “Are they not yours, as well?”
He winked at her. “Only when they are laughing,” he told her. “When they are crying, they are yours.”
She rolled her eyes and smacked him upon the thigh. “You are incorrigible!”
He hugged her then, holding her close, kissing her upon the cheek. “Och, woman, mayhap so, but do ye realize how much I love you?”
Elizabet sighed contentedly and leaned back upon her husband’s chest, savoring the quiet strength of his arms. She smiled. “Not as much as I love you!”
He shook her gently, growling low. “I beg to differ, woman!” he said. “Just look at how many children I gave you!”
“I bore them!” she reminded him.
He squeezed her gently. “Aye, well, I watched you bear them!” he countered, vying with her.
“You most certainly did not!” Elizabet argued. “You hid your eyes!”
He had the nerve to look wounded by her accusation. “Och,” he protested, kissing her upon the ear. “Only because I could not bear to see you in pain, wife.”
Elizabet laughed. That much was true. He hadn’t been able to bear her screams, though he’d threatenedto kill the midwife if she did not allow him to remain within the house. Despite her protest that it was unseemly, he’d paced the floor of her chamber with his hand upon his eyes. The very memory left her smiling.
“And what will you do this time?” she asked, patting her belly.
“I will not leave your side,” he swore. “Even if you curse me with every breath.”
Elizabet laughed. “I would never!”
He gave her a mock sigh. “Ah, but you did. You told me you’d rather I were a bugger and that if I dared ever touch you again you would wrap me up in my—”
