His breath was soft against my chest. He traced nonsense patterns in the hair there. Occasionally he froze before returning to the soothing designs. After the fourth time, I caught his hand in mine—the one that wasn’t tangled in his silken waves. It was a temptation impossible to resist, and I pulled his hand to my lips and pressed a kiss on his fingertips. A filthy thought crossed my mind when my lips met his finger, but I brushed it aside for another day. I was far too spent for such teasing, so I set him free to resume his drawing.
“Tell me,” I demanded, my lazy tone discordant with the contentment I felt.
“What?”
“Whatever is causing that little divot right there,” I said, pressing a fingertip to the line between his dark brows.
Broad shoulders rose and fell at my side with his sigh. “I need to discuss something with you and I do not wish to.”
“Does it have anything to do with your conversation with Sorcha the other day?”
His stubble brushed against my chest with his nod.
“Tell me.”
“She asked me to raise the babe as my own.” He left the sentence to hang there, alone, in the crackle of the firelight.
“And you agreed?”
“Not yet. I wanted to speak with you first. But… I should— I would like to if her mind remains unchanged.”
My heart clenched and then refused to unclench, and I felt my blood run icy. “I see,” I choked out.
“She wants the babe to have the benefit of my name.”
The world turned sluggish, moving in slow motion even as my thoughts raced ahead. It was selfish, the question echoing again and again in my mind.Where does that leave me?There was a child in question, an innocent babe. I knew what happened to bastard children, I’d seen it with my own eyes. Michael may have made something of himself, but he’d also born the cost of my father’s poor choices. It was unquestionably the right thing for Xander to do—give the baby a life.
“When will you—”wed herremained unsaid, trapped in my tight throat.
“As soon as I decide, I suppose.”
“And it is… legal?” Even as I asked, I knew the answer. By law, Sorcha was the daughter of Mr. McAllen and bore absolutely no relation to Xander.
“Probably not. But I feel confident we can find a loophole of sorts, somehow.”
The marriage wouldn’t be consummated, I was certain of that. So why was my stomach threatening to revolt?
“I know it is probably not what you intended, when you set off for Scotland,” Xander said. “But it would be in the best interests of the child.”
“No, of course the child should have a name.” My throat bobbed with a harsh swallow.
“So you believe that I should?”
“You are right. It is best for the child.” I squeezed my eyes shut against the tears welling up, grateful his head was still tucked into the nook between my arm and chest. “When should I—” my ragged breath broke off the end of the sentence. “Go?”
Xander shot up to face me, hand pressing down on my chest for leverage, grinding away the knot there of his own tying. “Go! Go where?”
“London, I suppose. Or Kent. The weather may cause difficulties.”
“Oh, you do not wish to? It is too much?” His voice was strained and his expression unreadable, all wide eyes and angled brows. But something in the words, a note of incredulity gave me pause.
“I cannot watch you with a wife, Xander,” I explained, feeling the overwrought exhaustion settle in my form.
“What wife?” His hand flung out in a perfectly Xander gesture before he lost balance, propped the way he was, and it slammed back down on my chest. Whether it was his weight or the words that forced the breath from my lungs, the effect was the same, a breathless, desperate, hopeful inhalation.
“Sorcha.”
“Why in the damned hell would I marry Sorcha?”
