by Darcy Burke
“Yours are very little, however,” he chattered on, “just the right size for such an adventure. Ack! Not my eye! I’m particular about those. But you have little lashes, don’t you? What a fine man you are, now that I’ve had a good look at you. I don’t know why your mother ran off, do you? I think I might have frightened her away. At any rate, she never has let me have a good look at you, God knows why. You’re a sturdy little chap. Yes, bounce on my thighs if you must, but—OW! My chin!”
Elizabeth rushed into the room, intending to scoop her baby off of Con’s lap. She didn’t want him to think he’d made a mistake. But he surprised her. His large hands expertly lifted Oliver and moved him from one knee to the other just fast enough that she was left to grasp thin air.
Oliver’s chubby arms waved indiscriminately in the air. He gave her a toothless smile and sucked one fist, then the other. “Gah!” he chortled happily. “Mah! Bah!”
She stopped in her tracks. “I thought he was disturbing you.” She felt silly even as she said the words. Oliver’s cheerful patter certainly hadn’t implied vexation. And Con dandled her son on his right knee as easily as if he’d handled children all his life.
A quick glance around the room revealed nothing amiss, if she didn’t count Mrs. Dalton hovering nervously in the corner. Although, to be perfectly truthful, her nursemaid seemed to be trying very hard to hide a dumbstruck expression. Elizabeth’s belly squeezed at the soft, almost longing look on Mrs. Dalton’s face as she watched Con play with the baby.
“Not at all,” Con replied. “If anything, I’m disturbing him. I believe you said he should be sleeping.” Con’s blue eyes looked up at her. He wasn’t thinking about having her against a wall anymore. He wasn’t thinking about her at all.
Strangely put out, she crossed her arms under her breasts.
He turned Oliver around so that her baby faced him. “He doesn’t seem interested in sleep, does he? I think he wants to play.”
“Mrs. Dalton will see him to bed when he’s ready. You have no need to worry yourself about him.” When he continued to disregard her, she added, “It’s quite out of your realm to even be in here.” It was the least accusing way she could think to order him out.
What was it about his commitment to her son, and now his lack of interest in her, that made her defensive?
Con was too busy forming exaggerated Os with his lips to look up at her. “He just wants to be where the excitement is. You could never convince me to nod off right now—Ow!”
“Goo!” Oliver replied. “Goo, goo!”
“Talkative little thing,” Con muttered, but she didn’t think he meant for her to comment. She felt strangely irrelevant…and more than passingly uncomfortable to realize she was jealous of her own son.
“We should retire to the drawing room, my lord,” she tried.
“I think he’s trying to tell me something,” Con said, ignoring her statement. “Is it about the goo? Give me more hints, Oliver. I want to know.”
“My lord, what are you doing here?” she exclaimed, for he didn’t seem to have come for her at all.
His eyes darted sideways at her. “You invited me?”
“Not to the nursery.” She stressed the last word, but Con was finished with her, at least for the moment.
He watched Oliver intensely, never ceasing the rhythmic bounce bounce bounce of jiggling the baby on his knee. “I should like to take you out for a day, little chap. It’s high time we became better acquainted. What do you say? Your mother might not agree, I suppose…” Con turned his head ever so slightly to make inquiring eyes at her. “Pleeeease?”
She wanted to laugh, but she would not be charmed by yet another man whose primary interest in her was Oliver. Her teeth ground just a little. “It seems you hardly need my approval to entertain my son.” His absorption with Oliver was too similar to how Nicholas had behaved before he’d sent her packing. When would a man ever see her?
Con’s brow arched again. “Your son? I thought he was our son.” He peered into Oliver’s sunny face. “He looks enough like me, I suppose.”
She forgot her annoyance for the moment and took a step forward. If enough people agreed with Con, Nicholas would lose his advantage there. “Do you think so?”
Con laughed. “I’m fair and blue-eyed, Elizabeth. Of course he doesn’t look like me. But he does look like you.”
Disappointment coupled with her frustration. For no rhyme or reason, she preferred to think Oliver looked like Con. “No one cares a whit if he looks like me.”
“Captain Finn is dramatically dark-haired and brown-eyed. I can’t say I’ve spent any length of time admiring his features, but even I know that we’ll have a hard sell convincing anyone this baby isn’t his. You did realize that?”
Was he trying to anger her? “Of course I have!”
Then she glanced at Mrs. Dalton, just remembering the young woman’s presence. “You may leave us.”
Mrs. Dalton looked disappointed to be dismissed. Nevertheless, she bobbed and went to the door. “You’ll ring for me?” she said before pulling the door closed behind her.
Belatedly, Elizabeth realized she’d just asked to be left alone with Lord Constantine and her baby.
Too late.
Con resumed making popping noises at Oliver. Elizabeth could almost believe he’d forgotten their previous conversation, but then he looked up at her quizzically. “You were saying about Finn?”
Why should she trust him with the nightmares that kept her up at night? What was he to her? “It’s no matter.”
Oliver tossed his body full-force against Con’s broad chest without warning. Con caught him in a modified bear hug. “Whoa, there! You have some legs on you, my boy!” The room echoed with Con’s crack of laughter.
Oliver shrieked back in delight. Unbidden, a smile came to Elizabeth. She wanted only for Oliver to be happy. She must set aside her jealousy and ignore her pride. Lord Constantine had a natural way with children. He might never be more to her than that. But she could be pleased with herself as she watched them from afar, knowing she’d chosen the best possible man to be Oliver’s father.
Mayhap it was time to ask him about Devon. He didn’t seem to be ready to move to the drawing room posthaste. “I saw Finn today,” she began.
She stopped when his face tightened. Her heart seemed to turn over. Did he care?
“So you said in your note.” He sat Oliver on his knee. “I trust you didn’t get into a shouting match in the middle of the park. I believe our goal is to bore the gossips to death, not titillate them.”
She hadn’t even considered that. Had they been indiscreet? At the time it had seemed like he was hounding her; certainly they hadn’t been taking a pleasant stroll. She hoped no one had taken notice of them. Funny, as at the time she’d prayed for a kind stranger to intervene. “Not a quarrel. He did try to take Oliver from me. I would have screamed without a second’s hesitation, had he succeeded.”
Con straightened. Finally, she had his attention. “The rotter. How did you hold him off?”
She remembered Nicholas’s anguished eyes. Perhaps “take” was too strong a description. He’d wanted to hold Oliver. Would he have stolen him?
Maybe. Maybe not. She must assume the answer was yes. “I mentioned the canal in Devon to him, my lord, and relieved his mind about our dubious history. A crumb of information that places us both in the same area at the same time.”
Con went silent. He dandled Oliver by rote, clearly deep in thought. Her instinct was to fear for her son’s safety. As though Con might forget altogether he held the baby. But quickly, unsettlingly, she realized that his handling was instinctive. He didn’t need to think directly about Oliver to keep him from coming to harm.
“I wish you wouldn’t have told him,” he finally said.
Con sounded weary, not angry, but a churning in her belly sent her rushing to explain. “He already knew about the canal. He was more surprised that I knew. I seized upon that doubt and attempt
ed to double it by…” Here was her opportunity to explain her true quandary and trust Con would want to help her. “…by telling him that we are about to set out on holiday to see it for ourselves.”
“We?” He glanced down at the top of Oliver’s downy head. “All of us? I can’t possibly afford a trip to Devon. Even if I could”—he shot her a warning look, as if to quell any offer to finance the trip—“I don’t think it’s at all the thing for a man to take his mistress on that sort of venture. Mixing business and pleasure is bound to be seen as inappropriate.”
“I don’t think so,” she said carefully.
“Have you ever heard of such a thing?”
Hm. She hadn’t. A man’s business was a matter for his wife to handle, not his mistress. Nonetheless, she couldn’t give up.
But how did she convince him?
She’d already settled on telling the truth. What was a little more truth now? “I spoke thoughtlessly to Finn. I reached a bit. But surely you can see the imperativeness of following through. I fear what Finn will think of my untruth if we don’t go.”
Con’s lips turned down. He adjusted Oliver’s gown and touched his round cheek. Then Con looked up at her with those devastating eyes and said, “We could stay here and attempt to make our relationship just as convincing.”
His voice held a gravelly hint of promise, as though he were willing to follow through…
She was close. She quelled the urge to push too much, when he’d given her the perfect opening to do so. “We could, I suppose. I don’t think staying here would be quite the same.” She walked closer to him, then turned and stood by his side. Presenting herself as unified with him, as opposed to a quarrelsome wench. “I read a bit of news in the papers that might be of interest to you. The Grand Canal Company has made headway. Exciting, is it not?”
He seemed to mentally pause, as if he couldn’t quite believe it. “What kind of headway?”
Perfect. He was distracted. “Something about puddle clay.”
He formed an ironic moue with his lips. “Yes, of course. That was going to be my first guess.” He returned to cooing at Oliver.
She shrugged. “I’ll fetch the copy when we go downstairs. I saved it. I thought you might like to speak to your solicitor about the decisions that have been made by the board, and perhaps go to Devon to see the progress for yourself.”
He looked up in surprise. “You know I haven’t got a solicitor.”
She kept her face expressionless. “All the more reason to investigate their actions yourself, wouldn’t you agree?”
“I can think of nothing I would know less about than the building of a canal,” Con replied drolly.
She tried for an empathizing smile. “Don’t you care if they lose the last of your money?”
His furrow deepened. She was on dangerous ground, if his expression were any indication. “I don’t know what I could propose that would be helpful to the board—or anyone involved, for that matter.”
“You could learn.” She drawled this as wickedly as if she’d offered him lessons in seduction.
He looked aghast at her. “Why?”
And here their perspectives clashed. He was a creature of the moment, content to float along on others’ whimsy, and she made her own fortune. “To know. You don’t know the first thing now, but you could learn. Then the next time you make a decision, you may do so wisely, or at least, in an informed manner.”
He scowled. “You make me sound like an idiot.”
“What else are friends for?” She gave him her winningest smile.
He cracked a grin in return. Elation lifted her. She’d pushed him far enough that he heard her, but not so far that he was angry.
“Suppose I agree to learn about canal-building. How do you propose I do it? I can’t exactly walk around asking my friends. It would ruin my reputation.”
She laughed. “My solicitor can be made available in a trice. As for Devon, an investor like you should be welcome to observe the venture at a moment’s notice. If you are greeted any other way, then there is a serious issue that most certainly warrants concern.”
His lips pressed together as though he remained unconvinced, but his laughing eyes ruined the effect. “Should I be wary of your intelligence?”
“Most certainly, my lord.”
“I’m not without an ace of my own,” he warned her. His gaze fell to regard the back of Oliver’s downy, dark head. “Before we leave for Devon—because I don’t fool myself thinking you’re going to allow me the use of your solicitor and not demand to be brought along—I need to borrow this little one.” Before she could object, he said, “My mother is asking to see him. Trust me, it’s difficult enough to suffer her disappointment for the way I’ve gone about procreating.” He sighed and looked ashamed of himself. “Given the ‘no time a’tall’ it’s taken me to become fond of him, I foresee more than one such excursion in his future.”
Elizabeth didn’t need time to think about his request. Absolutely not. He was not going to take Oliver out of her sight. What if Nicholas harassed him? There were other dangers, too. Runaway carriages. Ruffians and pickpockets. Oliver crying inconsolably. “I need to be there.”
Con regarded her with just a touch of pity. “I can’t take you to see my mother.”
That hit her squarely in the chest. She wasn’t welcome at Merritt House. Naturally, she wouldn’t be. But it bruised her to hear him say it. “Just to your door, then,” she said. “Let me go with you across the park to your house, then wait outside. I need to be there if he needs me.” She didn’t want to risk letting Oliver out of her sight when he was in the open for all to see and grab. Nicholas seemed to haunt the parks.
Con kissed the back of Oliver’s head. A blade stabbed between her ribs at the unconscious gesture of affection. He cared about Oliver. Even if he had no reason to care about her.
She shamed herself with her pitiful jealously. She’d always been a petty, spoiled girl. Could she really be resentful of her son simply because two people loved him, and she had no one?
Even she couldn’t be so horrid. She was being foolish again, and putting feelings into her heart that might not actually exist. It was too soon for her to have anything more than a passing interest in Lord Constantine. He was handsome and kind, but that was all. His affection for her son should have no effect upon her own poor heart, so what did it matter if he didn’t care about her?
Though she couldn’t shake one little word…
Yet.
***
Con arrived at Elizabeth’s front door the following day at two of the clock, rapped once and waited to be let in. Why, he almost felt like a proper suitor. It wasn’t every day he went for a stroll with a pretty woman on his arm. He was almost looking forward to it, actually. After all, he couldn’t really have expected to deny her the right to join him when she’d looked at him like he might very well misplace little Oliver somewhere between her townhouse and his mother’s sitting room. Even if it did disappoint him to know she had so little faith in him, he allowed that he was unlikely to manage the baby without her.
He rapped again on the door. This business of being made to wait for entrance was an odd way of keeping one’s mistress; at least, it seemed so to him. He supposed if he were truly paying her an annuity and keeping her in style on his own penny, he wouldn’t have to haunt her steps like an errand boy.
He liked her competent manner. Even if it made him all the more aware of his own lacking. He expected a woman in her profession to laze about during the day, eating ripened berries and taking the occasional walk to improve her figure. Every time he came to Elizabeth’s house, on the other hand, it felt as though he’d arrived at the absolute worst time. Her staff always seemed to be engaged in resolving a problem, and today was no different.
When he was finally let in he had to show himself to the drawing room as the footman who’d opened the door ran off to attend to some matter of more importance than the arrival of the madam’s protector.
>
Maids scurried past the drawing room door as he waited for Elizabeth to join him. After a quarter hour Rand entered, causing Con to look up from the book he’d opened across his lap.
“I thought you might like to know what all of the fuss is about,” the butler said in a statelier tone than Con would have thought possible. “The young master has learned to roll over. The housemaids are in a frenzy collecting all the long tablecloths and other dangling bits that could present a danger, for I am told that very soon now he will be able to sit up and reach for them.”
A smile tugged Con’s lips. “And Elizabeth?”
“Madam is so charmed, I daresay she hasn’t left the nursery since the news was brought to her at breakfast.”
Con nodded slowly. Then he closed his book and set it on the couch, preparing to come to his feet. “In that case, I’ll go up.”
“You’ll frighten the upstairs maids half to death if you arrive unannounced.”
Con smiled. “Then you’ll have to announce me.”
Rand grunted, but Con thought he saw the man smile just before he turned and presented Con with a view of his broad back.
Con felt embarrassingly slender in comparison to the massive servant. Rand’s expansive shoulders weren’t like the shoulders of any butler Con had ever seen. He nonetheless managed to maintain his aplomb as they navigated the narrow hallways and stairs to reach the nursery.
Nothing about Elizabeth’s household, Con was coming to realize, was what he’d consider dull and normal.
“Lord Constantine to see you, madam.” Rand bowed with an elegant flourish.
“Oh, no, I—” she exclaimed, but it was too late. Rand stepped aside to allow Constantine entrance.
She froze. Instantly, Con knew why she’d objected to his presence. Just as suddenly, he knew why she was considered one of the most beautiful women in London.
She stood in the center of the room with one arm stretched toward the floor and one toward the wall, as if Mrs. Dalton and she had been measuring a distance. She wore not a hint of cosmetics. He wouldn’t have ever noticed that she normally wore the stuff, except that the freshness of her face unmarred by powder and kohl nearly bowled him over.
