The Diamond King (46 page)

Alex stood beside him, the perfect side of his face in her view. He looked magnificent, but then he always looked that way, no matter her view. The area around his eyes crinkled frequently now with humor rather than bitterness. It crinkled in that appealing way now as tenderness radiated from his face. He had waited for this day for a long time.

His family. Her family.
Their family
.

Meg and Robin were as much a part of it as were eight-year-old Rory, six-year-old Sarah, and four-year-old Alexandria. There would be another addition in six months. Jenna hoped for another lad to balance their brood, but any bairn would make them happy.

Alex had been made for fatherhood. She’d known it almost from the first weeks of their meeting, but he’d perfected protecting his heart then. Once those walls had tumbled, he’d embraced life and love and family with the same fierceness he’d once used to deny them. Oh, he’d had a few setbacks—morose times when he’d feared life was too good and designed only to take back what it had given. But in the succeeding years, as one healthy child followed another, as laughter—and even tears—had filled their town house in New Orleans, those moments had faded while his smile broadened.

He’d been uncommonly successful. The diamonds had given them seed money, and subsequent voyages to Brazil—an effort financed by himself, Etienne in France, and Claude—had made them all rich. Alex had built a shipping company that now had seven ships trading throughout the world.

She had gone on one voyage with him, but that had been the one and only adventure they’d shared outside Louisiana. It was before they had children. Their adventures now were the children and the business. Someday, perhaps, when the children were grown, she and Alex would go adventuring again.

She turned and looked back. Rory Forbes and his wife, Bethia, were there. Jenna knew the stories now. How Rory Forbes had been the Black Knave in Scotland, a mysterious man who spirited Jacobites out of Scotland under Cumberland’s nose. How the legend had continued with Neil Forbes, who was still in Scotland and married to Alex’s sister. Neil had helped Alex, Meg, and Robin escape Scotland.

Neil had written Rory and Bethia about the connection to Alex and his new wife. They had become friends through letters, then the Forbes had decided to visit the Malfours, the name Alex and Jenna continued to use. Robin, in fact, had spent a year in Virginia, working with Rory’s stables; he’d wanted to raise horses himself, and Rory had been his mentor.

“We are gathered in the sight of God,” the priest began.

Alex looked at her and winked.

Memories flooded her. Their own quick wedding in New Orleans and the lovely night afterward. The house they had bought in Beinville. The wedding of Celia and Burke, who remained with them as companion and butler.

Then the birth of their children. The first had been hard and long, but Alex had never left her side despite the outrage of the doctor. Then the easier births of their two daughters. She would never forget the way Alex had looked at them, wonder in his eyes and tenderness in his touch.

And now there was another on the way, and he was ecstatic.

Her eyes moved from the older Rory—friend—to young Rory, who sat next to his namesake. The latter looked just as Alex probably had as a lad, except he had lighter eyes, more like her own. He had his father’s dark hair and crooked smile and sense of adventure.

His sister sat next to him. Sarah. Quiet and shy and bookish, just as her mother had been. She had a small birthmark of her own. A mark of great good fortune, Jenna told her. Her own birthmark, after all, had brought her Alex.

And young Alexandria. She had all of both her parents’ sense of adventure. Bold and bright, she was all energy and mischief.

Jenna loved them with all her heart, just as she loved Robin and Meg who were as much hers as the children she actually birthed.

And now she watched as the two made their vows and promises, and her heart sang.

The ceremony finished and they exchanged a kiss long enough that it drew arched eyebrows. Then they turned to Alex and her and gave them blinding smiles.

Meg mouthed the words “I love you both,” before sweeping down the aisle.

Alex took her hand. “Thank you,” he said softly.

His heart was in his eyes. It said so much. “We did well, didn’t we?” she replied.

“Aye,” he said, his eyes roaming over her figure, which was beginning to change. “Four more weddings to go.”

She grinned. “Are you sure only four?”

“Nay,” he said. “With you, anything is possible.”

“With
us
, anything is possible,” she corrected.

And then he kissed her and she knew it was true.