Page 23 of Obsession: The Unspoken Sin
Several more beats passed.
“And we are?” he drawled, when she still didn’t say anything.
“We are waiting,” Alice said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“Waiting.” Denbigh paused. “You’re nodding, aren’t you?”
“I am, Laurence”
He counted the seconds.
Denbigh got to a whole thirty before he pressed his mysterious partner. “And exactly what is it we are waitingfor, Alice?”
“Well, if I wanted you to know, you wouldn’t be blindfolded,” she pointed out.
“Very true,” he allowed. “Very true.”
He counted the seconds once more. This time, he made it to ninety-six.
“I’d be remiss if I failed to point out being blindfolded in this place of all places has a hint of wickedness to it.”
“This place being your bedroom,” she drawled.
“Well, I did refer to here, at the Devil’s Den.” He paused for a beat. “But I would say as confirmation to your question that, yes,” he purred silkily, “being blindfolded in my chambers could hint at wicked—”
“Mama, are you playing blindman’s bluff without me?”
That sweet, slightly wounded child’s intonation brought a curse flying to his lips. Denbigh instantly swallowed as much of it as he could. Frantically, he wrestled with the knot Alice had wrapped at the back of his head.
A rather impressive knot. Maybe it was more that his fingers shook so badly. The task was impossible. Somehow, he managed to wrestle himself free of the bindings. And he looked.
A powerful, painful, swell of emotion lodged in Denbigh’s throat. Unlike the only other time he’d come face to face with the little girl when she’d referred to Alice as Miss Killoran. This time she freely called her mother.
“No, Laurel, we were not playing without you,” Alice said softly.
Suddenly, he put together the reason for the blindfold, the surprise she planned, and the little girl being allowed to drop her guard.
Alice fell to a knee beside her daughter. “I was surprising the earl withyou.”
“Me?” Laurel lifted those enormous eyes up to Denbigh. Adorable confusion creased the even more adorable little girl’s freckled forehead. “I’m not a fun surprise.”
In an instant, Denbigh fell head over heels, over toes, over his entire self in love with a little girl, with Alice’s daughter. So much love took hold of him, as did an all-consuming, all-powerful need to protect her.
Denbigh dropped to a knee beside mother and daughter. “On the contrary,” he said hoarsely. “I cannot imagine a greater gift than getting to spend time with you, Laurel.”
Alice’s daughter erupted into a fit of giggles like he’d just told her the most hilarious of jests “Mama, Laurence is funny.”
“Yes, he is,” Alice said, her voice thick with emotion.
Denbigh had to force himself to tear his gaze from little Laurel, he needed to look at Alice. The same way in which he was overwhelmed and consumed by the moment, so too was Alice.
A light tugging on his hand brought him back to the moment. He stared at Laurel’s fingers; she’d laid her palm in Denbigh’s. So trustingly and tenderly, her fingers so small, so tiny, so delicate against his larger, darker, harder ones.
And all he wanted to do was fold his palm around hers and protect her forever. Her and her mother.
“Do you know any jests, my lord?”
“I do,” he acknowledged.
