The Duke and His Duchess - By Grace Burrowes Page 0,42
his father’s coat, and Gayle kept Valentine by the hand. Maggie, as always, hung back, though she was smiling, as was her father.
Another healthy girl child safely delivered was an excellent reason to smile.
“Can I see the baby?” Victor asked.
As small as he was, he could not see his mother in her great bed, much less the new baby. Percival tucked Sophie in against Esther’s side and hoisted the children onto the bed one by one. They arranged themselves across the foot of the bed, never quite holding still, but demonstrating as much decorum as they were capable of.
“There, you shall all have a look,” Percival said when he’d positioned his troops. “But no shouting or bouncing around lest you rouse your baby sister Louisa.”
“She’ll mess her nappies,” Gayle observed. “You named her for Uncle Peter, because his real name was Peter Louis Hannibal Windham.”
“We did,” Esther said, though she shared a smile with Percival over the scatological preoccupations of the young male mind.
Not to be outdone, Bart gave his next-youngest brother a push. “You named Sophie for Grandpapa, and that’s why she’s Sophie George Windham.”
“Sophie Georgina,” Gayle said, shoving back.
Percival scooped up wee Sophie and settled with her, his back to the bedpost. “The next fellow who shoves, pushes, or interrupts his brother will be sent back to the nursery.”
“No pudding,” Victor said again, grinning at his older brothers.
Percival tousled Victor’s dark hair. “Heed the young philosopher, boys, and follow Maggie’s example of juvenile dignity.” He winked at Maggie, which always made the girl turn up bashful. “Esther, how do you fare?”
This had become a family ritual, this bringing the older siblings to see the new arrival, and what a darling new arrival she was. Louisa had Victor’s swooping brows, which on a newborn made for a startlingly dramatic little countenance.
“I am well, Percival. Childbearing is not easy, but it does improve with practice. Would you like to hold your daughter?”
They exchanged babies with the ease and precision of a parental drill team, and Esther beheld the Duke of Moreland give his heart, yet again, to a lady too small to understand the magnitude of such a gift.
Gayle also watched his father gently cradle the newborn in his arms. “If you have another baby, Mama, will you name her Cyclops?”
“Cyclops is stupid name,” Bart started in. Percival silenced his firstborn son and heir—Bart was arguably Pembroke now, though no parent in their right mind would tell the boy such a thing yet—with a glower, while Esther waited for Victor to pronounce sentence on the pudding again.
“Cyclops is not a stupid name,” Gayle replied with the gravity peculiar to him. “Sophie was named for Grandpa, and he died. Louisa is named for Uncle Peter, and he died right after Grandpa. Nobody has seen Cyclops for days, so she must be dead too, and that means we can name a baby after her.”
Percival left off nuzzling the baby long enough to smile at Gayle’s reasoning. “I think if you climbed up to the straw mow on a sunny morning and were quiet and still long enough, you’d find that Cyclops has finished her own lying-in and has better things to do than let little boys chase after her and threaten to take her prisoner.”
“Girls don’t like to be taken prisoner,” Maggie said. “May I hold the baby?”
The idea made Esther nervous, though Maggie would never intentionally harm her siblings.
“Come here,” Percival said, patting the bed. Maggie crawled across the mattress to sit beside her father. He placed the baby in Maggie’s lap and kept an arm around his oldest daughter. “I think she looks a little like you, Maggie, around the mouth. She’s very pretty.”
Characteristically, Maggie blushed but did not acknowledge the compliment. “Sophie was bald. Louisa has hair.”
Little Valentine squirmed closer and traced small fingers over the baby’s cheek. “She’s soft.”
“She’ll mess her nappies,” Gayle warned.
Bart apparently knew not to argue with that eternal verity. “Can we go now?” He looked conflicted, as if he might want to hold his baby sister and didn’t know how to ask without losing face before his brothers.
In Esther’s arms, little Sophie squirmed but did not make a sound. “Take Thomas with you if you’re going to the mews, and mind you big boys look after Victor.”
Four boys who’d needed help to get up onto the bed went sliding off it, thundering toward the door, while Valentine remained fascinated with the infant.
He stroked his sister’s dark mop of hair. “Soft baby.”
“She is soft,” Percival