Marcus thought it a healthy sign that appearing weak disturbed Garrett, which might make him want to fight his way out of that wheelchair. Marcus believed that having a reason to overcome his physical impairment would matter to Garrett in the end. “I also have a good idea of how to introduce you to everyone tomorrow that will get you as easily accepted by the children as the women.”
“Fine, tell me what you already know about Jade and her family and then tell me how you’re planning to introduce me.”
“Fine, start by telling me what’s supposed to happen with the railroad tomorrow night. Did you bring a copy of Jade’s land option, by the way?”
Having crawled into bed at two, Marcus disliked being awakened at three by a pounding on his door. However, when he opened it to find Jade sleep-mussed and inviting in a ruffle-necked nightshift and robe, his body woke with a vengeance.
“Eloisa has childbed fever,” she said, clearly distressed. “Beecher is with her, but the babies are screaming and Garrett and Abigail need help. I ... I can’t face this without you.”
Marcus had already tied his dressing gown and grabbed his slippers. “Let’s go.”
It wasn’t long before they were told by Beecher that Eloisa should recover in a day or two, though Jade continued to worry. “She’s in good hands,” she told Marcus, to reassure herself, as they approached Garrett’s room. “Beecher’s an excellent doctor.”
Marcus’s brother didn’t look quite so dangerous sitting in bed, his hair at odd angles, and trying, uselessly, to calm two screaming babies. The grateful look he bestowed on them, when he spotted them, humanized him further.
“Where’s Abby?” Jade shouted over the babies’ screams.
“Finding bottles and preparing pap. I hope.”
“I’ll go help her.”
“No!” the brothers shouted in unison, but nothing of her lingered except her honeyed scent.
Marcus swept the bedroom-turned-nursery with a sceptical eye. “Honest, Garr, if anyone ever told me I’d find you playing nursemaid, I’d snuff their lights.”
“I’ll snuff your lights, if you don’t pick up one of these howlers and try to quiet him.”
“Which one’s ours?”
“We are not keeping one!”
Marcus chuckled at Garrett’s measure of stress. “Which is the one named after me?” Marcus shouted above the din. “The one Jade and I will care for tonight? You know,” he said when Garrett just stared at him, brows furrowed. “Little Garrett will be yours and Abby’s to tend, and Little Marcus will be ours. Doesn’t that make sense?”
“We’re not playing bloody house, you know, and I can’t bloody well tell them apart!”
Jade breezed in and plugged one tiny mouth with a bottle, Abby, the other.
Silence.
Marcus and Garrett released their collective breaths.
“I met Abby on her way back. You two were screaming so loud, the whole bloody house must have heard.” She raised a brow at Garrett and he had the sense to squirm.
Marcus hid his smile.
Jade examined the babies’ faces. “That one’s Garrett, so this one’s Marcus.” She lifted Marcus in her arms. “I think we should call him Mac.”
Abby unplugged Garrett’s bottle long enough to pick him up. “We’ll call this one Garth.”
“Perfect nicknames for the hatchlings. What do you think, Garr?”
“I think you’ve all run off your tracks. Shouldn’t we ask Eloisa?”
“She’ll agree,” Abby said. “It’ll be easier than designating which Marcus and Garrett we’re talking about.”
Garrett conceded with a half-shrug. “Jade, how do you tell them apart?”
“Garth has a small notch at the top of his right ear. I noticed that when you handed him to me, Abby. And later I noticed that Mac has the same notch on the opposite ear.”
“You’re brilliant,” Marcus said, thinking that the two of them caring for Mac would be difficult enough, never mind with Garrett and Abigail looking on.
The babies finished eating and burped like a couple of Saturday-night sots, before they finally became content. Marcus thought Jade, all tussled from sleep, with Mac on her shoulder, the most beautiful sight he’d ever beheld.
He covered her hand on Mac’s back. “What do you say to moving to the room we used yesterday. It’s crowded in here with four adults and two babies. Separating will give us all more space, and a bed in each room might allow for at least one member of each team to catch a bit of sleep before the night passes.”
With the approval of everyone concerned, Marcus collected supplies enough for a month, and he and Jade bid Abigail and Garrett goodnight.
In the vacant bedroom, Jade set Mac on the bed.
“Let’s unwrap him to make certain he’s got enough fingers and toes to go around,” Marcus said. “I would have liked to do that earlier, and I wanted you to see his tiny feet.”
Jade unwrapped the mite, her face a study in wonder. “He’s perfect. Oh and you’re right; his feet are precious tiny.” Jade bent down to kiss the tips of five tiny little toes. “Uh, Marcus, he doesn’t smell very good all of a sudden.”
“Oh, I never considered that. Change him?”
“You change him. He’s named after you.”
“But you’ve done it before? Please say yes.”
At her negative shrug, he sighed. “Guess we’ll learn together, then.” He untied the nappy and stepped away.
“Praise be, it’s not as bad as I thought,” Jade said.
“Looks bad to me,” Marcus said, observing from a distance. “Smells bad too.”
Jade grinned and washed the baby’s bottom and got him all dry and sweet-smelling again, without Marcus’s help, praise be. “You’re such a man,” she told him when she finished.
“That’s why you love me?”
“Hah! But men do come in handy at times, like now.”
“Oh?” He came closer and tested the mattress, remembering how she’d felt in his arms in this very bed, wishing he’d not been so lightheaded at the time.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Oh. How else can I be of service, though I must warn you that my best skill—”
“Kindly name Mac’s boy parts for me.”
Wide awake after being washed, Mac lay there bare bottomed and kicking in joyful freedom.
“You’re joking.”
“I’m not. My grandmother raised me. I had no brothers. I never saw a male human being naked, before Mac here. My male education consisted of observing stallions, and I’m sorry to say that Mac doesn’t seem of stallion quality to me.”
“Hey, give the boy a chance.” Marcus lifted Mac in his arms as if to protect him from her. “He has to grow some. He’ll get there. Don’t go insulting his manhood his second day on earth.” He turned his back on Jade and kissed Mac’s little head. When the baby shivered, Marcus tucked him beneath his dressing gown and walked away, cuddling him close. “Don’t you worry about her. You’ll be stallion quality and chasing pert-tailed fillies before you know it.”
To his champion, Mac awarded his highest honour. He piddled on him.
An hour later Marcus walked the screaming baby in nothing but his dressing gown, his nightshirt having been discarded due to rain.
Jade was in love, but determined to get over it.
She lay on the bed, as Marcus insisted, but couldn’t sleep. She watched him croon and cuddle that baby boy.
She saw him wince when a tiny fist caught a handful of his chest-hair, but when he lifted the tiny fist away, he kissed it.
Jade fell deeper.
She smiled at his outrage when she’d maligned Mac’s manhood, however unintentionally. He never had named those parts, drat him, but if his dressing gown came any farther apart as he paced, she might get a view to ponder.
“I have an idea,” he said, turning toward her, and catching the direction of her gaze. “Damn it, wouldn’t you know we’d have a baby with us when you’re
that interested.”
Jade felt warm. Very warm. She didn’t say a word. She couldn’t.
Marcus sat on the edge of the bed. “You are interested, aren’t you? That is lust in your eyes?”
“It’s curiosity. You didn’t name his parts.”
“You want me to name mine?”
“No. ... What’s your idea?”
“Lay back.”
“I said no.”
“What do you take me for? This is an innocent baby, though after tonight, he’s probably going to worry his whole life about the size of his ... Do lie down, will you?”
To Jade’s surprise, Marcus put the crying baby, face-down on her stomach, his little head nestled between her breasts. She put her arms around the little ball Mac made of himself and he quieted instantly.
Marcus covered them both up to Mac’s tiny ears. “This is only his first night away from Eloisa, and from his twin, as well. I thought he might miss that place he’s been for all these months, with Eloisa’s heartbeat so close.”
Jade relaxed. It felt good having Mac near her heart, but he made her yearn to carry a child of her own. She regarded Marcus watching over them, and thought, “his child,” but she pushed the daft notion ruthlessly away. “Now you can lie down too,” she told him.
He shook his head and pulled the rocker over. “I’ll just sit and keep watch to make sure he doesn’t slip off, or you don’t roll over.”
When Marcus sat, he spent a minute fighting with his dressing gown to keep all his man parts covered. After he succeeded, he caught her watching him and grinned. “All you have to do is ask.”
By mid-morning the following day, Eloisa’s fever broke and by noon she felt well enough to have the babies back in her room. Beecher, pleased with her progress, gave everyone the news.
Marcus thought his brother and Abigail looked as if they’d had a difficult night with little Garth. It seemed Jade, who hadn’t let go of baby Mac the entire three hours they slept, was the only adult who rested.
Sitting in her study waiting for her, Marcus grinned, remembering the big wet spot on her dressing gown as she made her way upstairs to wash and dress.
It had been his original intention to feed her the railroad information the first thing this morning, but frankly, the more he thought about it, the less he wanted to ruin the rest of her day. He decided he’d take her for a walk while everyone else went to tea and tell her then.
He heard her step outside the door as he studied her ledgers. “Good afternoon,” he said, appreciating her in a robe dress, green and bright as a sunlit sea. “You look splendid, as if you’re dressed for a special occasion.”
“Today is special. You said you wanted to introduce Garrett and show the babies off at tea.”
“I do. And now we can show you off too.”
Jade came around behind him to regard his figures. “I think having babies in the house is making me feel feminine,” she said.
He rose from his chair and knuckled the bow at her bodice. “Maybe that’s what comes of having a babe against your breast.”
She coloured and stepped back. “Abby said Garrett was amazing with little Garth last night.”
Marcus respected her change of subject. “Garrett was?”
“According to Abby. Does he have experience?”
Marcus shook his head. “Beyond the occasional emergency delivery, and holding namesakes, no, not that I know of. How was Garr amazing?”
“She said he took complete charge but asked her to stay in case he needed legs. When I first went in, after Beecher gave us the news, I ... ah ... found him and Abby in bed together. They were facing each other talking, the baby sound asleep between them. Garrett said he got piddled on twice last night.”
Marcus barked a laugh. “He squirted Garr? Lord, I love that boy.”
How alike Garrett and Marcus were, except that Garrett lacked the half-smile-eye-twinkle thing that made Marcus such a charmer, making Garrett appear stern and serious in comparison. Garrett’s lips weren’t as perfectly sculpted, either.
Jade had fallen asleep last night tracing Marcus’s lips with her gaze, wishing he’d been close enough for her to meet them with her lips.
“Aren’t you pleased?” Marcus asked.
Jade realized she’d not been attending. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“This,” Marcus said, tapping the paper in his hand and frowning in puzzlement. “The receipt from the South Downs Railroad for the land option.” He held it out to her.
“Oh thank God. Now I’ll know how much I can’t find.”
“Honestly, Jade, that’s a frightening statement. Do you know how much money you should have, in addition to the land option amount?”
“Neil Kirby stole my money and my records. I kept trying to warn my grandmother, but I think she was just too sick to understand. By the time I inherited the estate and discharged him, my finances were a confused jumble.”
“You know, you could apply to your banker in London for the transactions that have taken place against your account for however far back you’d like.”
“I didn’t know that. I’d really like to see those transactions, especially for the year before my grandmother hired Kirby. But how do I go about asking for them? What do I say?”
“Give me the name and address of your banker and I’ll draft the letter. Then you can copy it in your own hand and sign it. We can dispatch a messenger this morning. Now that you know you received a thousand pounds for the option, you’ll want to see when, or if, it was deposited.”
“I love it when you talk business,” she said.
Marcus stilled, alert, ready. “Jade Smithfield, are you flirting with me? Because I’m trying to be a good employee here.”
“I’m sorry. Where did you say you found the paper from the railroad?”
“You were right. I didn’t look hard enough the other day.”
She pressed her lips to his, silk and fire, quick and wondrous, bringing instant and hard arousal. “That was a celebratory kiss,” she said. “Thank you for finding—”
Marcus’s body thrummed. Heat pulsed through him, settling heavy in his loins. “Did you suspend the business-only rules?”
“Only for a minute.”
“The minute’s not up.” He pulled her into his arms, closed his mouth over hers and settled her body against the steel of his.
Chapter Nine
Marcus stood beside Garrett’s chair outside the ballroom as they waited for Ivy’s puppet-show to finish, so he could bring Garrett in, while all the women and children were present, and introduce him to everyone at once.
The entire household rarely gathered in the same place at the same time, except during a puppet show. To draw the children, Garrett held a baby in the crook of each arm.
“You’d think Ivy would be done by now,” Marcus said, less than patient.
Garrett chuckled. “Lick your paw, grumble-bear, and get it over with. Abby told me that she walked in on you and Jade and what she found.”
“One kiss. One kiss in two days and we get interrupted.”
Ivy gave the signal and Marcus pushed Garrett in.
The room hushed, much as it had done the first time Marcus entered. Some of the women had seen Garrett arrive, but several had not, and the children didn’t know him at all. The striking absence of fear marked the difference from his own first day, Marcus noted. He’d like to think his attempt to ease their fears had something to do with it.
Jade introduced Garrett and the babies.
Marcus pushed Garrett’s chair into the centre of everyone and the babies drew them toward Garrett.
Marcus grabbed Jade’s hand. “We’re going for a walk,” he told Abby. “Garrett’s yours.”
“Mucks?”
Marcus stopped. “Emmy-bug.”
Jade chuckled at his chagrin. Then Emily raised her arms and he picked her up, his look turning to love as he hugged her. “I missed you Emmy-bug.”
She put her arms a
round his neck and lay her head on his shoulder and they both sighed in contentment.
Jade’s throat tightened and she lost another piece of her heart.
He loved Emmy. He loved Mac. He certainly kissed and touched her as if ... Foolish woman. What is the matter with you?
Besotted, that’s what. Addled. Still reeling from the kiss that Abigail interrupted. She should be thanking her maker, Jade knew. Honestly, she might have lain right down on the carpet with Marcus, otherwise. He turned her inside out with needs and yearnings for things like babies, him as their father, Garrett as their uncle. A real life. A family.
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