Page 30 of The Pleasures of Passion
A sigh escaped him. That was unlikely. She wasn’t trying to impress him these days. She’d gained the life she wanted—that of an independent woman with her own estate—and she had no use for him anymore.
Not that he cared. He was immune to her machinations now. If she had any. Which he’d just decided she didn’t.
Deuce take it, he couldn’t wait to have this particular mission over.
Meanwhile, the lad had already begun to forget his injury, for he was squirming on his mother’s knee. Bree looked up at Niall. “Would you like to hold him?”
“God, no,” Niall said hastily. Too hastily, judging from the cloud that darkened her brow. “I don’t know a thing about children. I wouldn’t want to alarm him.”
“Better get used to being around babes, my lord, if you mean to fill your nursery,” Lady Pensworth said bluntly. “You’re not getting any younger, and you’ll need at least an heir and a spare.”
A fetching pink suffused Bree’s cheeks, making Niall’s pulse jump. It was all too easy to imagine engaging in the very pleasurable activity of filling their nursery. Not that he would need any such excuse to bed her. Just the sight of her all rosy and soft made him crave her. And if she belonged to him . . .
Best not to think of that.
Avoiding his gaze, Bree set Silas down. “I’m sure his lordship will feel differently about his own children.” She chucked the lad under the chin. “Why don’t you go show Lord Margrave your jack-in-the-box?” She glanced up at Niall. “Your sister’s husband made it for him.”
“Ah, yes,” Niall said, relieved to be on more solid ground in the conversation. “Edwin likes building that sort of thing.”
Silas merely stood there, one hand on the hapless clown and his other thrusting his thumb into his mouth as he eyed Niall with rank suspicion. Why did Niall get the feeling that the lad regarded him as the enemy?
Nonsense. What did Silas know about enemies? He was a baby.
But a damned cute one, who clearly had his mama wrapped around his finger. And that mama was going to be difficult to manage if she thought Niall disliked her child.
Stifling a sigh, he squatted to look the lad in the face. “Will you show it to me, then, Master Silas?”
Silas crept closer, then thrust his toy out, a trifle warily, as he kept his damaged thumb squarely in his mouth.
“It looks like grand fun. Can you make it work?”
His face brightening, the lad started shoving on the clown to get it in the box, then tried to close the lid before the clown was fully inside.
“Oh, dear,” Bree said. “He keeps doing that.” She rose from her chair. “Come here, my sweet, and let Mama do it.”
That only made the child more determined to make it work—shoving hard on the lid as if that would solve the problem.
“Easy there, lad,” Niall said. “You must be careful with it and be sure to get all the clown inside the box—and your fingers free—before you close the top.” He opened the lid, then caught the boy’s hand and carefully helped him shove the clown inside the box and press the lid down until it clicked into place.
Silas stared solemnly at him, then turned the crank until the clown leapt out, which sent the boy into gales of laughter. But before Niall could even revel in that laughter, the child started pushing on the lid with the same excitement as before, then fussing when he couldn’t get it closed because part of the clown still stuck out.
Lady Pensworth laughed. “I’m afraid the lad is a bit young to be learning that lesson, Lord Margrave. But it was a good try.”
Feeling disgruntled, Niall rose. “As I said, I don’t know much about children.”
Then he caught sight of Bree’s face. Her eyes were decidedly softer than before. “You’ll learn,” was all she said.
He nodded, though he prayed he wouldn’t be spending enough time with them to learn. Because he could very easily grow attached to the little devil. The babe was much like Bree—obstinate and inquisitive and entirely too . . . cute.
Thoughcutewasn’t really the word for Bree. She could never be anything but beautiful. Today she wore a cream-colored day dress dotted with red embroidered flowers. On anyone else it might have looked simple, but on her it looked like a garden, one that had the odd effect of making her hair glow redder than a setting sun, since she wore no cap to cover it.
What he wouldn’t give to be able to take that luscious hair down, to see how far the curls fell, how sweetly they curved about her hips and her—
Damn it, he must stop thinking about such things. This was neither the time nor the place. Not that therewasa time or place for that. Not with her.
He grimaced. Sadly, that argument became less convincing by the moment.
Lady Pensworth was giving him quite the dark look over the top of her spectacles, and he quickly changed his train of thought.
