Page 14 of The Duke I Wished For
The moment was interrupted by a knock on the door, which was followed by Mrs. Barker’s entrance. She stopped and stared at the sight of Daffodil. “Why, my lady, I?—”
“It’s quite all right,” he said quickly. “Clarissa invited Lady Daffodil to join us for some tea and she was gracious enough to accept.”
He snuck a sidelong glance, only to find Daffodil giving him that smile again. A little surprised, a little approving, and filled with such sweetness it made something inside him ache with yearning.
“I’m sorry to intrude then, Your Grace,” Mrs. Barker said. “But Mr. Ludright is here for your appointment. Shall I…” Her gaze moved questioningly to Daffodil and Clarissa. “Shall I tell him to come back later? Or perhaps I could watch Clarissa for a while?”
She sounded doubtful—and rightfully so. Few people were busier than Mrs. Barker, who kept this home running like clockwork. And Clarissa had yet to warm to the housekeeper, this being her first trip to their London home.
He’d just opened his mouth to reply that she should tell his solicitor to return in the morning, but Daffodil spoke up first.
“I can stay with Clarissa, if you’d like.”
Both he and Mrs. Barker turned to her in surprise.
It was alarming how beautiful she looked sitting there in a too-small chair with her knees bent too high. She ought to look ridiculous, but her smile was bright and she looked so at ease…
Which was so at odds with how she’d looked the last time he’d seen her at that party, it had him wondering all over again who she’d been hiding from and why.
“Your Grace?” Mrs. Barker prompted softly.
Blast. How long had he been standing there like a dolt? He cleared his throat, turning his gaze to Clarissa, who was watching him so eagerly it was no question what she’d prefer. “I’d hate to break up such a delightful tête-à-tête,” he said somberly, earning another adorable grin from Daffodil as she bit her lip to hold back a laugh.
“I’d be delighted to keep Clarissa company while Isabelle works in the library,” she said.
“All right then.” To Mrs. Barker, he added, “Please see that Lady Daffodil and Clarissa have whatever refreshments they need.”
Mrs. Barker’s eyes were alight with laughter. “Yes, Your Grace.”
Blake regretted his decision almost instantly. Not that he doubted that Clarissa would be all right under Daffodil’s supervision. Indeed, he heard echoes of their laughter from his office down the hall.
No, as he stared at the top of Mr. Ludright’s balding head as the other man read aloud from the document in his lap, Blake regretted having left because he felt rather desperate to know what Daffodil was saying to make Clarissa giggle like that.
Truly, it had been a wonder, watching Clarissa warm up to someone so quickly.
“She likes her, Your Grace,” Mrs. Barker had said in a quiet murmur as she’d led the way out of Clarissa’s nursery.
So it would seem. His head cocked to the side as Daffodil’s light laughter joined Clarissa’s. When was the last time this house had been filled with laughter?
Certainly not since his wife passed.
Not before then either, that he could recall. His wife, God rest her soul, had been a quiet woman. Proper and dutiful, but there’d been little life in her, not even when she’d held her own child in her arms.
“A timid creature,” his brother had said when he’d first met Blake’s bride. “Are you sure she has the constitution to live with the likes of you?”
His brother had been teasing…mostly. But the answer, sadly, was no. He and his wife had lived separate lives, for the most part, so he couldn’t say he was truly heartbroken to lose her. But he’d grieved all the same, for the mother his daughter would never know. For the woman who might not have loved him, but who’d given him his heart when she’d given birth to their child.
Clarissa was his whole reason for existing now, and had been ever since she was born. And the girl deserved the very best.
She deserved a mother.
His fingers tapped on the desk, and he barely heard a word of what the solicitor said next. When the older man stopped speaking and waited expectantly, Blake had to force himself back to the moment, training his attention on the man in front of him rather than listening down the hall for the sounds of laughter. “Why don’t you leave the document for me to review,” he said. “I’d prefer to read it over when I…have a clearer head.”
And by that he meant, when my head is not full of a certain beautiful blonde with an intoxicating laugh and a smile that outshines the sun.
The moment the solicitor departed, he hurried back to the playroom. They didn’t hear him, and for a long moment, he stood in the doorway and watched them, his heart so swollen it threatened to burst out of his chest at the sweetness of it all.
Daffodil had moved to the rocking chair in the corner and was reading to Clarissa, who was curled up in her lap, looking content as could be as she snuggled this woman she’d only just met.
