Niabheara nodded. "I won't say I know how you feel, but . . . I don't feel quite right sending her away when it would be so easy for her to stay here. I wouldn't have offered if I wasn't ready to go through with it. I'm not ready to be a mother, but I'm told I make a very good aunt, when pressed." She tried to smile.

"I don't know how I feel about that," Miranda said softly. She looked at the baby again, pursing her lips. "She needs to have a mother, not just an aunt. They aren't the same thing. And what happens when you decide you are ready to have children? Then you'll be their mother, but you'll still be just her aunt, and that might make her feel...well. Left out of things."

"I like to think I had a very good example for not being left out," she replied. "But aye, I know, I've already thought of that, too. I told Marcello that if we did keep her, I wanted to keep her. Not leave her to a nurse or a bard. I'd want her to belong here, e'en if she didn't belong to us. But I'm not much more ready for it than you are, I'm afraid."

Miranda swallowed. "I still need to talk to Cormac," she said. "See what he wants. If he's willing to...well. Maybe he'll keep her if he knows you'll be raising her, too, and then she'll have at least one parent who's a parent and not just an aunt or uncle. That might make it better." Her voice turned up at the end, as if she wasn't sure if it was a statement or a question.

"He'll be here. He can see her whene'er he wants, I promise. I'll transfer him to the house. I've already spoken to his captain." She patted the baby's back. "I think he's as scared as you are."

"All right," Miranda said, and bit her lip. "He...as long as he can still see her when he wants, that's fine, then. Is it fine with you? I feel...I feel like you're making a sacrifice I'm not making, and that seems wrong."

"I'm trying to think of what's going to be best for the baby," she said quietly. "I'd like to think the best thing would be for her to stay with her family. Meg tells me it might not be. But it's still early enough that, if we need to--if things don't work out--we can still change our minds. She's too little yet to remember."

That seemed to put Miranda at ease. "That sounds better," she admitted. "If I wait a year and decide maybe I want to be a mother after all, I can come back and she won't remember that I wasn't here, will she?"

"I really don't know what they remember or not when they're so little," Niabheara said. "I know people take in orphans when they're much, much older than one year, and it tends to work out, so long as everyone involved is very patient. Meg would know, if you want."

Miranda nodded. "I do want to know," she replied. "I want to understand everything; I don't want to make a stupid mistake just because I'm rushing to get away from another stupid mistake."