His bairn, his babe, his legacy.
With his wife.
Despite his protestations and anger, his sorrow and pig-headedness, everything in his life with Blair had fallen into place. Reade stepped forward and embraced her again, desperate to feel her presence, to feel the realness of her.
“And what are ye thinking now, lass? About this bairn, about me?”
Her cheek pressed against the curve of his chest, as if she belonged there – as if she had always belonged there.
“I have grown to care for ye, Reade. ‘Tis senseless, perchance foolish, yet every time we stumbled, ye were contrite and vowed to try again, try harder. And every time ye did, my heart opened more and more. I realized in the woods that those traits ye had are ones I hoped to find in my bairn, traits that ye can teach him. I canna explain it more than that.”
Reade threaded his fingers through her thick hair, combing through the soft strands so her hair tickled his palm as he tried to rein in his own thoughts.
“I, too, care for ye, lass, and my stomach was in my throat when I knelt before ye and offered ye your freedom. I worried ye might take it. I dinna know what I would have done if ye had. Probably searched ye out and begged ye to return. I tried too hard to hate ye when I first learned of your existence, but ye stuck out your chin and didn’t back down from any obstacle. Ye turned it around, and ye have done the same for me. I care for ye, lass deeply, as nonsensical as it may seem. But then, affairs of the heart rarely make sense.”
“Mmm,” she murmured into his chest. “How boring the world would be if life was a journey of a straight line.”
“Ye have twisted my world around, wife, ‘tis certain.”
Blair lifted her face to him, her eyes finally clear of the uncertainty that had shadowed them. “And ye dinna regret it? Me, our marriage, our conflicts, this bairn?”
Reade moved his face so his lips were a breath from hers.
“I would no’ have had it any other way.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The next several weekspassed in a flurry as spring fully entrenched the lands and planting began in earnest. Blair didn’t wander farther than the kitchen gardens, even though the larger fields needed tending and wild plants needed gathering. Reade had instructed her to stay close to the keep, nearly begging followed by ordering her. Sorcha had explained that Blair was a hale young woman, and she could keep working in her expectant state, but Reade had been adamant.
Ah, that thick-headedness was still there, merely redirected.
Even though the kitchen gardens didn’t take as much work in their tending, she still fell into bed hard each night. It had been days since she and Reade had shared a private moment. When he finished wiping the dirt and sweat of the day off his skin that night, the low firelight dancing across his skin in a caress that Blair craved to mimic. He sat in the chair by the hearth and pulled her onto his lap. She lifted her skirts to straddle his thick legs, her feet dangling off the floor. He rested his head on her breasts, still confined under her loose bodice. Sorcha had warned against keeping the stays laced, if wearing stays at all. Scandalous, but better for the babe, in Mona and Sorcha’s estimations.
The babe had managed to unite them in a way that their marriage arraignment, wedding vows, or promises to each other had not. The bairn was a real, tangible tether between them, one that made them better for themselves, for each other, and for the babe.
The world had calmed much since her first riotous days at the keep, so much that she dared to breach a topic of conversation that they hadn’t spoken of in their shared effort to maintain that joyous peace. Though they hadn’t spoken of it, the question had lingered in her mind. She decided now was as fine a time as any to inquire.
