A carriage rolled in front of them—far too close, almost clipping their toes—and he jabbed his arm in front of Laney, pulling her into him to shield her.
He looked out at the scene in front of them.
Madness. Pure madness.
People, carts, horses, sailors, carriages, wagons—all falling madcap over each other without direction.
Worse than London—far worse.
What had he done? New York? What had he been thinking?
When he’d come into this port years ago, it hadn’t been like this.
Or had it?
Maybe he hadn’t noticed because he hadn’t had Laney and the babe she was growing inside her belly to protect. He’d just moved through the crowds without thought.
His arm tightened around her just as another black carriage cut in front of them. Only this one stopped directly before them.
The carriage door swung partially open, hitting his shoulder.
“Move back a step, man,” the driver barked from his high perch.
With a glare to the driver, Wes shuffled him and Laney back a step, mostly so their toes weren’t sliced off when the carriage moved onward.
“Weston, dear Weston—it is you, isn’t it?” A cane hit the inside of the door, knocking it wide open and a tiny grey-haired lady shuffled along the bench, leaning forward. The widest smile cut across the layers of wrinkles along her cheeks. “It is you. I knew it. Posh on Freddy up there. He didn’t think it was you, but I was sure it was—your head towers over the others.”
His grandmother.
Her gloved hand went onto the layers of white ruffles lining her chest, her laugh managing to pierce through the sounds around them. “Your size, it still tickles me so. You. Your father. Such big, big men. I never thought my Henrietta would like such size. But she did. Precocious girl that she was, of course she did—how could she not?”
Her hand beckoned them forward. “Come, come, get in before you two get trampled.”
The driver wasn’t moving from his perch so Wes yanked the steps to the carriage as the man already in the coach shifted to sit next to his grandmother. Wes ushered Laney up into the carriage, shoved the steps in and hopped into the interior, sliding into the seat next to Laney.
A jerk, and the carriage moved, weaving through the mess of humanity outside the carriage.
“Cousin, good of you to make it to the states again.” With a good-natured smile his cousin, Lance, inclined his head to Wes’s grandmother. “Grandmother has been crawling out of her skin these last weeks waiting for your ship.”
Wes shook his head and looked to his grandmother. “You didn’t need to meet us here.”
“Nonsense. Any grandson is met by family. A distant relation—ehhh. We’d send a coach.” She lifted her shoulders. “But a grandson. A grandson we meet. That is our way—that you slipped into New York last time unannounced and just showed up at my door still sits in my craw.” Her crooked finger lifted, pointing at him. “I still haven’t forgiven you for that one, boy. Note the disgust on my face.”
Laney’s fingers went to her lips as she stifled a laugh next to him. At least she was feeling well enough to manage a chuckle at his pea-sized grandmother taking a man five times her size to task.
Wes glanced at his cousin. “You’d bring her into this mayhem at the docks? I almost lost a foot back there.”
Lance shrugged his shoulders. “I couldn’t convince her otherwise. I tried.”
Her hand slapped onto Lance’s knee. “I’ve been running through these streets since I was five, Lancey, and you very well know it.” Her hand swung about in a circle in front of her. “Nothing could keep me from this—from meeting my new granddaughter and my new great-grandchild she is carrying. Get to the business of introducing your wife, Weston. The scowl that refused to leave your face years ago is gone and I can only attribute that to this delightful creature.”
All of his grandmother’s attention swung to Laney, her wrinkled grey eyes assessing his wife.
“Grandmother, Lance, this is my wife, Helena.”
Laney produced a smile, the first real one he’d seen in weeks for how miserable she’d been. “But please, Laney is what I’m most accustomed to.”
His grandmother’s fingers twitched toward the hard mound of Laney’s belly. “The seas did not take well to your belly? You’re a pretty one, but the color of your skin is unnatural right now, child.”