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James sighed dramatically. "You are remarkably difficult."

"I have been told that before."

Their eyes met, and they both began laughing again. The baby seemed to study them, his tiny mouth changing shape until the corners lifted in what looked remarkably like a smile.

Olivia gasped, leaning closer. "James, look."

He glanced down and smiled. "He is smiling."

"He is a happy child," Olivia said softly.

"A very happy child," James agreed, his thumb brushing gently over the baby's little hand.

James looked thoughtful for a moment before saying, "Felix."

Olivia repeated the name silently, then looked at the baby's peaceful face. "Felix," she said, and this time she smiled. "Yes. I like that."

As though he had been waiting for them to settle the matter, Felix began to whine softly against James's chest.

The wet nurse returned at once, smiling knowingly. "I believe someone is hungry, for it is this time that he eats," she said, reaching for him. Then her gaze fell upon the purple-red marking along the baby's face, and her smile faded slightly.

"That mark is quite something. My grandmother would have said it was a fairy curse."

Olivia's hands tightened. She said nothing, but she disliked the words immensely. There was nothing cursed about Felix. He was simply a baby who had been abandoned, and Olivia refused to let anyone turn the mark upon his skin into something frightening. She looked down at him as he settled into the wet nurse's arms, and then at James, who had grown unusually quiet.

"Felix," Olivia murmured once more, as though sealing the name between them.

Whatever the world might say about him, she knew what he was, their little boy, happy and innocent and finally loved. She watched the wet nurse carry Felix toward the adjoining room, but she could not quite bring herself to look away. The woman's careless mention of a fairy curse had unsettled her more than she cared to admit, and she found herself studying the purple-red mark again, wondering how anyone could look at such a sweet little face and imagine something sinister.

"He is not cursed," she said quietly, more to herself than anyone else, folding her arms as she turned toward James. "He has simply been born with a mark."

James nodded, his expression becoming serious. "I agree. And I will make certain no one in this household speaks of him that way."

Olivia looked at him, surprised by the firmness in his voice. "You promise?"

"I promise," he replied, meeting her gaze without hesitation. "Felix is our son, and he will be treated accordingly."

The words sent an unexpected warmth through her.

Our son.

She knew they were pretending, knew the arrangement was built upon a secret, yet hearing James say it made something inside her ache. She tried to hide the feeling with a smile.

"You know, for a man who claims not to want children, you are becoming rather protective of one."

James's mouth twitched. "Perhaps he is an exception."

Olivia raised an eyebrow. "Perhaps?"

Chapter Fourteen

Emotions are inconvenient enough when they belong to oneself, but allowing them to become connected to another person is an altogether more dangerous matter.

James walked back toward Glenmore Manor with Olivia on his arm, but his thoughts were not on the path beneath his boots. He could still see her holding Felix, the way her entire expression had changed the moment the child was placed against her chest, as though some part of her had finally become whole again.

"He is a jolly child, is he not?" she said.

"Indeed," he answered as short as possible.