"Well, maybe that's another option, then," Marcello replied. "But they might not take kindly to being uprooted from their home. I don't know. We can ask them. Shall I talk to Cormac about it?" he asked. "I, er...this whole being family-and-the-boss thing is a little confusing."

Niabheara looked alarmed. "Oh no. I meant Mira and Cormac, not Mira, Cormac and all Cormac's southern relations." She sighed. "I should like to avoid the family-and-mistress arrangement as well but if it's for the good of the baby . . . "

Marcello frowned. "I'll talk to Cormac, you can talk to Mira. Then there's no family pressuring her, either." He sighed. "It seems so preposterous, doesn't it? All these people desperately wanting a baby, and here's a perfectly beautiful, healthy little girl, and we don't know what to do with her."

"Better than Mira not being able to keep it and no one else wanting it," she replied. "But aye, I was thinking the same. I don't like the idea of something having to be done with it, as if it were a stump in the middle of the field."

Marcello laughed. "Aye, I know." He was quiet a moment. "I'd be willing to have it if you were," he said. "That would mean she'd still be able to see her parents. We could be Auntie and Uncle."

"I'd feel better about playing Auntie than I would about sending the baby away entirely," she said. "It's practically clan. You don't send away clan if you can possibly keep them."

"Well, technically, there is no reason we can't keep her," Marcello replied. "I...it's not what I want, but you're right. We can't just abandon her."

"It is not exactly what I want either, dear." She took up his hand again. "But it is the choice that I like better than all the alternatives. In any case it would be up to Mira to decide."

Marcello nodded. "And Cormac will be happier with that, I think," he said. "If he can at least see his daughter."

"I'll speak to Mira," she promised. "Perhaps with Meg, if Meg's up for it." She half-smiled. "This is going to be a noisy house, with three babies in it. We'll have to find a nurse. There are always women with milk in the village by spring." Her smile faded a bit as she remembered why that was.