Page 100 of Owned by the Scarred Laird

Nearby, tucked into a basket lined thick with soft wool and set carefully in the shade of the old oak, the baby kicked both feet against the blanket lining and made a series of thoughtful, considering sounds at the leaves moving overhead, entirely unbothered by the debate raging a few feet away over ships and stags and dogs.

Chloe rolled onto her side to check on her, the way she found herself doing every few minutes. She found the baby watching a patch of sunlight move across the basket’s rim with the same solemn concentration William had once given to everything new in his small world, back before he’d learned to laugh at clouds and call them dogs on principle.

Jenny had come the moment word reached her the baby was on her way. She arrived breathless and half-scandalized at the state of the roads, and hadn't let go of Chloe's hand until well past the birth itself, muttering the whole time about how she ought to have been fetched sooner.

Thomas had stood in the doorway most of that night, useless and beaming, the way men who'd raised a daughter in every way but blood tended to be when it finally came round full circle.

“She’s awake,” Chloe said, and reached over to stroke one finger along the baby’s cheek, soft and warm under her touch. The baby’s eyes tracked the movement, found Chloe’s face, and something in her small features eased, recognizing.

“She’s got yer look about her when she does that,” Angela said, watching. “That same considerin’ way of studyin’ a thing before she decides what to make of it.”

“She’s got Edward’s temper, though. Screamed the whole first night like the castle was on fire, and naught wrong with her at all beyond wantin’ to be held.”

“Aye, well. She’ll grow into a fine, stubborn woman for it, same as her mother did.” Angela went quiet a moment, watching the baby's fist close and unclose around nothing. "Do ye ever wonder what our mother would've made of all this? Bairns everywhere, the castle full of noise."

Chloe considered her carefully. It wasn't a question Angela asked often. "What do ye think she'd have made of it?"

"I think she'd have liked it a great deal more than she ever got the chance to." Angela's smile went smaller. "I was young enough when she died that I never truly kent our father the way Edward did. They sent me to Aunt Muira's that same year, and there was naught in that house but warmth. I've spent longer being grateful for that than I ever have grievin' what I missed."

"Edward doesnae speak of her much."

"He doesnae speak of much of it. But he told me once she used to sing to him. Before." Angela shrugged, light again. "I like to think that's why he's so patient with William's noise, even when the rest of us have long since lost the will for it."

She paused.

“Ye ken, William asked me last week when she’d be big enough to run races with him.”

“What did ye tell him?”

“I told him soon enough, though he’ll have to slow down considerably for her to have any chance at winnin’.”

Angela smiled at the baby, who was gumming determinedly at Angela’s knuckle now, entirely unimpressed by the conversation happening above her. “He’s taken to her better than I expected, for a boy his age. I half thought he’d want naught to do with a squallin’ infant takin’ up all the attention he’s had to himself so far.”

“He surprised me too.” Chloe watched William, who’d abandoned the cloud debate entirely now in favor of turning somersaults down the gentle slope of the hill, Brochan loping after him. “He brings her things. Stones, mostly. Feathers. Once a very unhappy beetle that Melodie had to remove before he could present it properly.”

“That’s Edward’s doin’, that is. All that quiet devotion, dressed up in somethin’ a bairn can carry in his fist.” Angela glanced toward the castle, where a tall figure had just come into view along the top of the yard wall, making his slow way down toward them with a rolled parchment under one arm. “Speakin’ of which…”

Chloe felt the same small, settled warmth she felt every time she caught sight of him now, two years on from a distillery and a clearing and a night by a low fire when neither of them had known yet what they were building toward.

“Edward!” William abandoned his somersaults mid-roll and came scrambling up the hill toward him instead. Edward caught him under the arms and swung him once, high, before setting him back down and letting him run ahead toward the blanket, already shouting something about clouds and dogs and Angela being wrong about all of it.

Edward reached them a moment later, dropped onto the grass beside Chloe without any particular ceremony, and leaned over to look into the basket, where the baby had abandoned Angela’s finger in favor of watching her father’s face instead, solemn and considering, exactly as Angela had said.

“She’s grown since this mornin’,” he said, which was plainly untrue, and which Chloe had long since stopped correcting him on, because he said some version of it nearly every day and seemed to mean it every time.

“Ye said that yesterday, too.”

“Aye, and she had. I am certain of it.” He reached down and let the baby’s small hand close around one scarred finger, the same gesture he’d used a hundred times now, still careful every single time, as though some part of him had not yet fully believed he was allowed this. “William has told me three times already that clouds are dogs. Is that the official rulin’, then?”

“It is if ye ask him,” Chloe said. “Angela and I have been overruled entirely.”

“Wise boy, that one there.” Edward glanced up at the sky himself. “What do the two of ye make of that?”

“A ship,” Chloe said.

“A stag,” said Angela, at the same moment.

Edward looked between them both, then down at William, who’d flopped back onto the blanket beside the basket and was studying the same cloud with his chin tipped back.