In Which Lettie Is Called the Other Thing

July 13, 1178

Alina had been happy to go down for her nap without so much as a hiccup of protest, but Prior had resolved to stay awake whether Mama liked it or not. Well... whether Lettie liked it or not. There was no sense in getting attached to being Mama if she wasn't allowed to keep the title.

And yet, none of her other babies had loved her quite like Prior did. Not that the others hadn't loved her at that age, but that had been the way all newborns loved--a reflexive affection for the one who held them, fed them, sung them to sleep. There was something in the way Prior liked to reach, or the way he hated to be put down, or even the way his tiny mouth curved into a half-intentioned little newborn smile whenever she touched him. He must have known they didn't have long.

Or maybe she was just being stupid, just seeing what she wanted to see.

"Morning."

She hadn't heard the door, but Sparron's voice had been more difficult to miss. "Thought you would have left with your father."

Her eyes' devotion to the baby remained, but she caught a hint of a blond mane shaking in the peripheral. "Camaline's supposedly recovering from the birth here. What kind of husband wouldn't at least stay for breakfast?"

"Right." She studied him as he stepped around her and glanced down at Alina. Whatever he said, she doubted he'd stayed for Camaline's sake--especially given Searle's behavior the night before. "Mind filling me in on why my husband cried himself to sleep last night?"

In the crib, Alina stirred, eyelids cracking open to reveal a hint of blue. Sparron scooped her into his arms and sighed. "Angsting over what we put you through, I should hope."

Yes. And she was God damn Julius Caesar. "As if. Searle doesn't cry over me."

"Why shouldn't he?" Sparron took to massaging between Alina's little shoulders as she made herself comfortable upon his own. "He loves you."

"No. He likes me, but he doesn't love me." It was a fact she'd long ago come to terms with, but it still stung to say it aloud. "And he loves you, even if he doesn't always like you. Who would you sooner cry over? Someone you liked but didn't love, or someone you loved but didn't like?"

For Prior's sake, she rocked back and forth as she waited for the answer. Sparron stood still, letting Alina's fingers poke through a lock of his hair. "I'm not the man to ask. I like everybody I love. And most of my crying is over my own damn self, whom I neither like nor love."

It sounded like the sort of thing Searle ought to know, but it was hardly her place to tell. It wasn't even her place to have heard. "Well, I like you, if it helps. Not that it would, since you don't like me all that much."

"Maybe I didn't at one point--but if it helps, I like you now."

And with all of this, she supposed he ought to. But it was the grudging like of someone who'd been done a favor, more an obligation of gratitude than anything else... wasn't it? "Because I gave you Prior."

"No." He gave Alina one last rub, prompting a cute little yawn as he set her back down. "Because you're clever enough to listen and good enough not to judge."

Lettie sniffed. She'd often been called clever; the other thing, not so much. "Being objective is hardly the same as being good."

Sparron just shrugged. "Call it what you will."

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