She snorted. She was constantly busy with the school for faeries that she ran. She got to hand out missions and attend missions with new faeries, and they didn’t have to go back and forth to the land of the fae and leave their human families for very long.
She also stayed busy helping with Finn’s investigations. She could play the part of anyone he made up, and play it to perfection. He didn’t ask her to do it often in her state, but at times, it was helpful to have her around.
As she’d gotten bigger, it had become more and more difficult to go into and out of paintings. So, they hadn’t yet located Mayden. But they’d checked all the paintings that were not of real places, and he wasn’t in any of those. If he had been, he would have been stuck there. Instead, he’d been tossed into a real place and was now fending for himself wherever he ended up. They’d find him eventually. But it hadn’t happened yet.
Claire’s belly tightened beneath his hand. “What was that?” he asked.
“That was your son. I believe he’s ready to make an appearance in the world.” She grunted and lumbered to her feet. “You had better send for the physician. And my mother.”
Sophia had had her baby two weeks earlier and was still settling into motherhood. She would visit after the baby was born, Finn was certain. Robin visited with him often and even helped with his investigations. Not to mention that Robin had left some of his
land holdings in Finn’s care since he’d done such a good job those three months when the duke had been gone.
Finn didn’t mind the work. It kept him busy. But no matter what, he always found time for Claire. He loved her to distraction. And when he’d learned that she’d given up her magic for him, that she’d chosen him, his heart had swelled with pride and affection. She’d picked him.
Another contraction racked her small frame as she climbed into bed naked and pulled the counterpane beneath her armpits. She looked up at him. “Finn, I have a secret to tell you,” she murmured. “But you have to promise not to be angry at me.”
Any time she said that, the hair on the back of his neck stood up and he grew truly fearful. “What is it?”
“The physician said I’ve gotten awfully big during this pregnancy.”
Finn was aware of every nook and cranny of her body. He knew exactly how big she’d gotten. “What of it?”
A contraction racked her frame. “He said there’s a good chance we might have more than one baby.”
“At one time?” he barked.
“Yes, at once,” she said, the contraction easing as her face softened. “I need my mother.”
Not long after that, her mother and the physician both arrived. And the physician was right. They had one little girl with pointy ears and one little boy with the same. Two fae children. The boy they named Lucius after Claire’s grandfather. And the girl they named Cynthia. As she came into the world, Finn said, “She sounds like a tinkling bell.”
Then she let out the biggest cry they’d ever heard. “That’s no tinkling bell, my lord,” the physician had said. “That’s a church bell, which can be heard far and wide.” But the moniker stuck. She was often called Tink or Bell when she was old enough to protest the nickname. But she was Lord Phineas’s first fae child. The first of many.