The pounding in Fox’s head crescendoed.
Heaven defend him from small children and their appallingly direct questions.
“I cannot say, Madeline,” he replied, licking his lips and willing the contents of his stomach tostay put. “There are . . . impediments.” Namely his suit before the Court of Arches and a tentative truce that allowed him to keep Madeline in his care.
“Im-ped-i-ments,” she repeated slowly, as if savoring the word and committing it to memory.
Damn, but she looked like her mother.
How odd to think that Madeline would never know her mother. Never recognize the sound of her laughter or recall the soft lullabies she would sing to her baby while still in the womb.
And would there come a day when Fox could think upon the circumstances of Madeline’s birth without grief and rage clogging his throat?
“I should like a mother,” Madeline informed him.
“I shall take that under advisory,” he replied.
“When will I get one?”
“Madeline,” he said on a sigh. “Leah isacting as your mother.”
Madeline brightened considerably. “Can I call her Mamma then?”
Fox pinched the bridge of his nose. “No, I don’t think that would be—”
“If I can’t call her Mamma, then she isn’t my mother.” A hysterical edge laced the girl’s words. “I need a mamma.”
“I cannot give you a mamma, Madeline,” he snapped. “Your true mother is gone, and there is nothing I can do to bring her back, no matter how much you or I wish it. Leave this be!”
The girl recoiled, eyes wide and welling with tears.
Fox wanted to flinch away from himself, too. Why was he snarling at his bright, golden girl? The one who had only ever brought light into his life?
His eyes darted toward the whisky decanter.
But not before seeing Madeline’s sad face, her bottom lip quivering and a flush crawling up her cheeks.
All precursors to a truly terrible fit of pique.
Dammit.
Madeline hadn’t had a tantrum in years, thank goodness. As a rambunctious three-year-old, she would pitch horrific fits and hold her breath until she lost consciousness. All his gray hairs, Fox was quite sure, were a direct result of her antics.
“Madeline . . .” He reached out a hand for her.
She shook her head, pivoted, and raced from the room before he could say another word.
The door slammed behind her with a loudthwack.
Fox sagged back in his chair, moaning and pressing fingertips to his pulsing temples.
Nowhe needed to apologize to Madeline as well.
No wonder all the women in his life had left him in one way or another.
He was an unbearable arse.
The whisky decanter glinted in the sunlight, beckoning him. How simple it would be to sink into its promise of oblivion.
