“Where did you think Mike would be?”
“I meant Socks,” Lana said cheerfully. “I might have known he’d get himself here.”
“You been looking for him?” Garrett queried, and Lana gave him a grin that matched Shelby’s.
“There were five messages on our phone when Dylan and I got home,” she said. “Five! All complaining about Socks and demanding that someone in the family do something. So I left Dylan holding the baby and went to fetch him. Missed him by inches.” She smiled happily at her sister. “Guess that was you, huh? Got there before me and rescued Socks. You always were the lucky one.”
“So I get the dog hair and muddy paw prints all over my passenger seat,” Shelby said morosely. “As well as dog slobber on my windshield. While you get to carry baby clothes.”
“I figured while I was there I might as well bring them over,” Lana said virtuously. “And besides, I wanted to see…” She turned to look at Michael, and it was very clear what she wanted to see.
“Mmmfff,” said Michael, and they all burst out laughing. Finally Garrett took pity on his brother and went over to haul the adoring mutt onto the floor. Socks immediately shook his wet self from stem to stern, spraying everyone. He looked adoringly at his master and then flopped down, exhausted, at his feet.
“What a dog!” Garrett said admiringly. “Now no one needs a shower.”
“Speak for yourself,” Shelby said darkly, wiping mud from her nose. “Ugh. Anyway, enough of mutts. Michael, how’s Jenny and the new little one?”
“Asleep.” Michael cut his reply short, and Shelby stared, laughter fading.
“There’s nothing wrong, is there?”
“No, but…”
“But he doesn’t know if she loves him,” Garrett finished for him, and Michael glared.
“Butt out.”
“Of course she loves him.” Lana ignored Michael entirely. She was talking only to Garrett and Shelby.
“She’s called her son Gary,” Garrett told them.
“Gary?” Shelby’s mouth dropped open, and her voice was shaky. “Gary,” she quavered. “Oh, Michael, that’s lovely. She must love you to bits.”
“But Jenny promised her husband on his deathbed that she’d allow his son to be brought up as a little earl,” Garrett continued, ignoring Michael’s dark looks. “So she’s going through all sorts of conscience barbs trying to come to terms with bringing him up here in the States. Seems that’s getting in the way of her relationship with Mike.”
“You mean she can’t love Mike because she’s broken a promise to her dead husband?” Shelby frowned over this one.
“That’s crazy,” Lana said, but Shelby shook her head.
“No. I can see that. Too much has happened too fast to Jenny. Widowed, pregnant, remarried, hounded by her mother-in-law, changing countries, worrying about money, giving birth, getting to know Michael… Her head must be spinning off her shoulders.”
“So he should just give her time?” Lana demanded.
“Hey, excuse me,” Michael said in a voice that boded ill for the fate of his siblings. “This is my love life we’re talking about.”
“Of course it is,” Shelby said kindly. “So shut up, Mike, and let us get on with it.” She swiveled to face Garrett. “So Michael definitely loves her?”
“Of course he loves her.” Garrett tossed a laughing look at his younger brother. “You ever seen someone so besotted as our Mike?”
“Nope.” Shelby grinned. “Can’t say I have. You, Lana?”
“Not me.” But Lana was thinking fast. “This is tricky, though, Garrett. Jenny can’t take Gary back to England. I’ve met Gloria. She’s a horror. But if Jenny’s feeling so guilty, she just might.”
“No!” Michael said, but he was ignored.
“We have to face it as a possibility,” Lana decided. The Lord siblings were nothing if not a team, and they never worked so well as when one of the brood was under threat. Garrett and Shelby and Lana were totally focused, and Michael might as well not have been there. “So what do we do?”
“Keep her promise,” Shelby said, and everyone stared at her, even Michael
“What?”
“What exactly did she promise?” Shelby demanded, and Michael shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
“Hasn’t she told you?”
“Yes, but…”
“Then think. Remember. It’s important. Come on, Michael, you’re trained to remember details. Think!”
“Okay, okay.” Michael’s brow furrowed. He was way out of his league here, emotionally exhausted, but he knew his siblings too well to think they’d let go.
What had she promised? He thought back, and suddenly the words were right there. “‘He made me promise to bring our child up as he ought to be raised-as the next earl,’” he told them. “That’s what Jenny said.”
“No specifics?” Shelby demanded. “Like promising to live in a castle for nine months a year and keep ten foot- men, thirty maidservants and a butler or six?”
“I hardly think so.” They thought it was a joke, Michael thought grimly, but he wasn’t laughing. “Peter was dying when he made her promise. I can’t imagine a dying man would be into specifics. He’d just ask for what he wanted most-that the kid grow up enjoying his inheritance.”
Shelby’s smile faded, just as his had.
“Then where’s your problem?” she asked gently. “Gary Lord can be brought up to be Earl of Epingdale right here. You teach him about his inheritance and his history from day one. You teach him everything he needs to know to take over his father’s mantle-when and if he ever wants it. And once a year you use some of that ill-gotten cash you have floating around to take him over to visit his family seat.”
This was crazy. “But…”
“But what?”
Michael stared, his mind racing a mile a minute, discarding one thought after another. One thing stood out above all. “Gloria will never agree.”
“I don’t see Gloria as having a choice,” Shelby said bluntly. “As far as Gloria is concerned, it’s that or nothing.”
“She’ll give Jenny hell if she goes to England.”
“Not if you’re beside her,” Shelby said triumphantly. “And all the other little Lord kids you intend having. They’ll play baseball in the ancestral halls. You can raise the Stars and Stripes from the ancestral flagpole. Hey, you could even invite us! Garrett, Lana-how do you feel about visiting a real live English castle?”
“We could do it,” Lana breathed. “For Jenny.”
“Of course we could do it-for Jenny,” Shelby said soundly. She took Michael’s hands and reeled him in to give him a hug. “And for Mike, too. So what do you say, brother mine? Give it a go? Or not?”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
JENNY WOKE to flowers. Flowers as far as the eye could see. There were flowers by her bed and there were flowers on the blanket box at her feet. Vases and vases of them. By the window there were stands-maybe a dozen stands-and every one had a vase with maybe thirty blooms in it. Their smell was all around her.
The window was open. There were more flowers in the gardens beyond the terrace, and the smell of rain- drenched flowers was everywhere.
There was the faintest murmur beside her, and Jenny looked down to see her son stirring in his sleep. His tiny fist was just touching his rosebud mouth, and his bottom lip was trembling. Her son! Gary. With one wondering finger she touched his cheek. His eyelids fluttered open, his face turned momentarily toward her, and he stared at his mother with a look that would stay with her for the rest of her life.
