He held out his arms, clearly fully expecting Madeline to deposit the baby inside them obediently.
She glowered at him. “I’m sorry for your loss, Your Grace, but everybody knows that you and your family turned your backs on Anthony when he married Betty. Betty was my friend, and she made me promise that if anything happened to her and her husband, I would raise her baby. I intend to honor that promise, so you can put your arms away, climb back into your oversized and very noisy carriage, and take yourself back off to London!”
There was a tense silence. The duke let his arms drop back to his sides.
“I see,” he said at last. “Well, Hilda might have written to you to bring you here, but she also wrote tome. Upon mybrother’srequest.”
Madeline clenched her jaw and glanced over to where Hilda stood silently in the doorway.
“Is this true?”
The duke stared at the sight of Hilda standing there.
“Heavens, you crept in here like a cat,” he muttered.
“It’s true,” Hilda said at last. “Betty was determined that you should be called, your ladyship, and Anthony wanted his brother informed. So I fulfilled their wishes.”
“Which of us do you think should keep the baby?” Madeline pressed.
Hilda sighed, scratching her head. “I couldn’t say, truly, I couldn’t. The way I look at it, whichever one of you takes the baby, he’ll get a better life than what I could give him. If you need me, I’ll be outside.”
With that, Hilda slipped away as quietly as she’d come, leaving Madeline and the duke glaring balefully at each other.
“It seems,” the duke said heavily, “that we have reached an impasse.”
Madeline tightened her grip on the baby.
“He needs a mother,” she tried again. “You don’twantthe baby, surely?”
“Iwantto respect my brother’s wishes. Besides, he needs more than a mother. He needs a title and wealth.”
“Papa and I can give him those things!”
“I’m sure you could,” the duke shot back, offering a grim smile, “only that the baby was left tome, and I will be taking him.”
Madeline swallowed hard. So far, the duke had made no attempts to grab the baby out of her arms. What if he did? Were they really going to stand there and grapple over a baby?
I won’t let you down, Betty. I won’t let Anthony’s wretched family get their hands on your baby. I won’t let them take him.
“I’m sure you’ll agree,” she tried again, forcing herself to catch the duke’s eye and hold it, “that a lady is a far better choice to raise a baby than a wild, hedonistic gentleman. Better a quiet, educated lady than a…a…aDevilwho spends his nights at a club, drinking and carousing and entertaining heaven only knows how many ladies!”
The duke gave a grim smile and a neat, mocking bow. “I am touched at your high opinion of my prowess, Lady Madeline. To counter your point, I am sure thatyouwould understand how a duke—a man of great and stable wealth—might be more equipped to raise his brother’s son than a young, unmarried woman who might one day marry and produce children of her own, therefore losing interest in the child she adopted as a passing whim.”
Color flared in Madeline’s cheeks. “How dare you! This isnota passing whim!”
He inspected his fingernails. “I am quite sure you believe that. Let me be clear, Lady Madeline. I have no intention of allowing you to walk away with my brother’s child. I have no intention of taking a back seat in the raising of my own nephew, nor will I watch anxiously as you build your own family and progressivelylose interest in the child. I willnotcollect my nephew from an orphanage, or let him rely upon the charity of others.”
“I am not…”
“He is a Lovell, Lady Madeline,” the duke interrupted, eyes flashing. “He is a Lovell, as I am, and as his father was.”
Anger flared inside her. How dare he? How dare this man, who had turned his back on his brother and probably never even met Betty before, tell her thatshedid not care enough about Adam to care for him?
Buoyed by anger, Madeline took a step closer, close enough to hear the rasp of the duke’s breathing and smell the sharp scent of his cologne. He did not back away, only lifted his eyebrows in amusement.
“Don’t you dare accuse me oflosing interest,” she hissed. “And don’t talk of those charities and orphanages as though they are hell on earth. As if a man like you knows what an orphanage is like! I doubt you’d visit an orphanage or offer any help if your very life depended upon it.”
“Eloquently put, my dear. But I will not fail my brother, and you cannot argue me out of it. Give me the baby, if you please.”
