The Blood of a Baron - K.J. Jackson Page 0,65
her amber eyes. Never mind that the dress was too short on the sides—though it did sweep the floor with ruffles both in the front and back.
The short sides of the hem accentuated her height and it struck him then what else was different about her. Her shoulders were pulled back, taller. She held herself with strength again. Pride. He’d always hated how she slumped when he was thirteen and she was twelve and still taller than him. Like she was trying to shrink. She hadn’t lost that slump until he had soared past her in height. But that slump had been back in her shoulders when he’d arrived at Gruggin Manor, a permanent fixture dissipating ever so slowly until now, when it had been banished.
His heart swelled.
“Here you are.” She shook her head. “These corridors are a labyrinth—I don’t know how many dead ends I ran into and I found myself entangled in loops that led me nowhere.”
Rune mirrored Wes’s movements as he stood, and then Wes crossed the room to her, his hand slipping around to the small of her back for a long second, just needing to touch her, make sure she was real and in his presence again. “Drink?”
She looked to the sideboard. “Yes, claret or even brandy would be helpful—does Lord Troubant have that available?”
“Only the finest.” Wes stepped to the sideboard and poured a glass of claret for her, then ushered her to the settee. He sat down next to her, handing the glass to her. “Jules is well?”
She shrugged as her free hand twisted her still damp hair and she pulled the loose blond locks over her left shoulder. “I do not know. She was only in the room for a few moments before Lord Troubant came in and swept her away. I have been listening to the screams, though. It does not sound pleasant.”
“No, it does not.”
“It’s enough to make one almost reconsider birthing children.”
His look shot to her, his eyebrow lifting. “It is?”
An off-center smile lifted her right cheek. “Almost. But it is nice to see your reaction.” She set her fingers onto the top of his thigh, squeezing. A sip of her claret and her eyes widened. “Oh, and I did meet Lady Troubant’s aunt, Lady Raplan, in one of the corridors. She travelled here to be present for the birth and help where she could. She was very nice in directing me down here, and is young—I was surprised she was the aunt.”
“Yes, she was born after Jules was born, if I recall correctly, so they are more akin to cousins,” Wes said.
A sad smile lifted her cheeks. “I imagine it is comforting in such a situation to have family nearby.”
Wes nodded and took a sip from his glass. It was not lost on him that Laney was the last of her blood and she would have no cousin, no aunt appearing at her side for a birth.
His chest tightened, his heart fracturing for her.
He—he had extended family and didn’t want anything to do with his cousin and his family.
But Laney had always longed for that—people she could depend upon no matter what. And she’d never had it—her father had died and then Wes had abandoned her just before their wedding. She’d been alone with Morton for too long.
All he wanted to do now was give that back to her. Stability. Himself. Whatever family they could cobble together so that she would never be alone again.
He slid his arm behind her head and along her shoulders and pulled her into him.
Tucking her feet under the ruffles of her skirts, she leaned into him, snuggling under his chin and taking intermittent sips of the claret.
The box in her pocket jutted into his thigh. The urge to rip the damn box from her dress and throw it from the cliff into the ocean was hard to stifle. They were safe at Seahorn, but he still didn’t want Laney anywhere near the box. He’d almost lost her to it more than once and if he could smash it to dust, he would.
His fingers straining white around his glass, he took another sip of brandy. He would need a few more glasses of it if he was to remain sane that night.
It was a five-hour wait. Food was brought into the library, books opened and closed and opened again, feet tapping as the screams continued to bounce along the corridors, tangling with the sounds of the winds howling along the edges of the