John tugged with a strength that could only be regarded as ambitious by someone fond of him. The cloth slipped from the book and fluttered onto his blanket. His mouth opened, and he let out a delighted little sound, soft and bright and alive.
Violet froze at the joy of it. Then the ache followed.
Jane should have heard that.
Jane should have been here in some quiet corner of the room, laughing at Violet for reading a travel account to a baby who was more interested in food than geography.
Jane would have tilted her head, eyes warm, and said that Violet had finally found a listener who could not argue back. She would have reached for her son and learned the shape of his laugh.
Violet looked down at John until the page blurred.
“Oh, ye clever little thing,” she whispered. “Jane would have loved that sound.”
John kicked again, entirely careless of her grief. That was the cruelty of babies. They went on living with no respect for the broken hearts around them.
Violet adjusted his blanket, smoothing it under his chin. His fingers still gripped the blue cloth. She let him keep it.
“I will always make ye smile,” she told him softly. “No matter what stern lairds and badly written books try to do to us.”
John answered with another small sound. Violet’s smile trembled, then grew steady.
A voice suddenly came from the doorway. “Ye shouldnae lie to him.”
Violet jumped so hard the book nearly slid from her lap. Heat rose in her face before she even turned. She had been too absorbed in John, in Jane, in the warm little fist wrapped around blue cloth, that she had not noticed Connor intruding on her refuge.
He stood in the doorway, one hand resting lightly against the frame. He had not closed the door behind him. That detail reached her before his expression did. He had entered carefully, leaving the door open, leaving her the dignity of propriety even while he disrupted the only peace she had found all morning.
Her heart skipped a beat at that thought, and she hated it, so she corrected it with temper.
“Do ye make a habit of appearing in doorways like that?”
Connor stepped further into the library. “Well, I daenae make it a habit. I only do that when someone is lying to bairns.”
“I wasmakinga promise.”
“A dangerous one at that,” he responded, his voice gentle, even though his face was unreadable.
Violet lifted her chin. “What lie?”
“That ye willalwaysmake him smile.” Connor’s gaze dropped briefly to John, and something in his face shifted when the baby clutched the blue cloth harder. “When he is a lad of fifteen, I suspect neither of ye will think the other amusing.”
“And ye ken this from yer long history of raising sons?”
“I ken this from having beenfifteen.”
“That explains a great deal.”
His mouth twitched slightly, almost a smile, though he did not let it fully form. He walked further into the room, his boots quiet on the floorboards, his presence shifting the air without demanding it.
Violet held John closer and hated that the gesture felt less like defense and more like preparation.
Connor looked at the open book. “What are ye reading him?”
“A travel account.”
“That isnae a good idea.”
Violet shrugged. “What can I say? He has excellent taste. Also, he cannae flee.”
