No Fury

Now: Sixty Three

Harry steps back, leaning against the wall behind him as if he requires the support.

"She is my blood?" he asks, looking back and forth between the two of us.

I nod, smiling gently at him. "She belongs to no other."

He stares, awestruck, and I hand her over. She puts her chubby hands on his cheeks, smacking lightly.

"Gentle," I murmur, touching a fingertip to the dimpled back of her hand. "Be nice to your daddy."

Harry's eyes fall closed, and he brings her closer so he can kiss her forehead.

"The night I nursed her with you near," I tell him, "I wanted to tell you. I wanted to tell you every time you looked at her with fondness."

"Then why did you not?" he asks, turning back to me. "Every day I have had to struggle with the anguish of falling in love with her and believing she did not belong to me."

I step forward, sliding my hand up his arm, over his shoulder and around the back of his neck. "I am sorry." I stare up at him, so giddy that he knows that I cannot hide my smile despite how much he reels from this truth. "It is only that . . . she looks just like you. There is no mistake."

He blinks, looking between the two of us. I know he is thinking, Aye, she looks nothing like her mum. A smile tugs at the edge of his lips, but he fights it.

"Harry," I say, biting my bottom lip. "Can you not see how clear it is? How I expected you to know as soon as you saw her?"

He nods his head, letting the grin curl one side of his mouth. "I fear I am dreaming."

"You are very much awake."

Glancing toward the heavens, he murmurs, "I want to remember it all."

My heart droops. "Even if you remembered everything, you would still not remember her first few months. She was born while you were away at war."

I can tell how this affects him, and he wraps one arm around my shoulders, pulling me to his side. "I want to forgive you this instant for not telling me the first time I laid eyes on her," he whispers. "But it is not easy."

Nodding, I stretch to kiss his jaw. "I know. But you did not even remember me. What if you found me disagreeable or plain? And then to hear that you had lain with me?" I shudder dramatically, trying to make him smile. "How horrible that would be for you."

He laughs at this. But he has otherwise gone so quiet, so contemplative, that it causes my heart to twist.

"Are you quiet because you are cross with me?"

He shakes his head, but says, "Yes and no." He kisses my temple. "I am trying to imagine our lives before, and how it could possibly have worked. I do not think I like the way it would have played out, with some other man raising my daughter, some other man lying beside my wife."

"You did not like it," I agree. "Just as I did not like the idea of you lying with the Queen."

Huffing out a quiet breath, he says, "I am trying to imagine a life without you both near me all the time, and it horrifies me."

"My love," I say, "let us go lay down."

He nods, but doesn't move. He simply gazes at his daughter, kissing her palm when she reaches for his mouth.

It is a torture for me to feel that maybe some of the harsher realities of our life and the war should be kept from him. I do not want him to lose the sunshine that he has reclaimed. I do not want all of the inevitable truths still to come to weigh him down.