Clinkscales sat without speaking for several seconds, then leaned back in his chair and exhaled softly.

“I hadn’t considered it from that perspective, My Lady,” he admitted. “I don’t think most Graysons would. Our clan and family structures have been so tightly organized for survival purposes since the early days of the settlement that we’d probably feel at loose ends without that external factor helping us to define who and what we are. But for all that, I’ve seen the consequences of breeding for an heir solely out of a sense of duty or ambition. Remember the disparity in our male/female birth rates and the fact that up until nine years ago, only males could inherit. So, yes, I’ve seen the way that knowing his parents conceived him only because the steading or the clan required an heir can sour and scar a man.

“But that doesn’t happen often,” he went on earnestly. “Children are the most precious gifts the Comforter ever gave us, My Lady. If anyone knows that, it’s Graysons. And children who are genuinely loved and cherished, even as the products of pure marriages of state, don’t grow up thinking they were born only out of the political needs of their parents.”

“Yes, but—” Allison began, but Clinkscales stopped her with a gentle shake of his head.

“My Lady, I knew your daughter,” he said quietly. “And anyone who had the privilege of knowing her as well as I did also knew there was never an instant in her life in which she wasn’t absolutely secure in her love for you and her father and in your love for her. That gives me a very good opinion of you—and of your ability to raise another child with the same love and sense of self. Don’t let your own grief or doubt push you into doubting yourself on that deep a level.”

Allison blinked stinging eyes and felt her mouth tremble for just a moment. My God, she thought in deep amazement. I thought he was some kind of museum-exhibit fossil when we first met—some sort of throwback to a time when men walked around on their knuckles in a testosterone haze… when they weren’t beating their chests and yodeling in triumph. But now—!

She felt a distant burn of shame for her own past readiness to dismiss him, but it was lost behind a far deeper sense of wonder at the insight and gentleness he’d just displayed. And of how bare it laid the foolishness of her own fears. She still had her doubts about whether or not she and Alfred should produce an heir to the Harrington Key on demand, as it were, but not about whether or not they could raise another child with the same love and welcome they’d shown Honor.

Of course, there is that other little matter. Clinkscales doesn’t know what I’ve turned up in the genome project… and I still haven’t decided whether or not to go public with it. I wonder how he and Protector Benjamin will feel about “breeding” a Harrington heir if the Harrington name turns into “Mud” when—if—I break the news!