She wasn’t wrong there. He wasn’t the politest fellow in the world.
“Oh, but I would beg to differ,” he countered. “I have been working quite hard on being a gentleman. I will accept all forms of bribery from you, regardless of whether it involves cheese.”
“What’s briarby?” Pandy asked, her nose crinkling as she struggled to repeat the word.
“Bribery, Pandy girl,” Brandon and Lottie corrected in unison.
Their gazes met and held, a becoming tinge of pink creeping over Lottie’s copper-dusted cheeks.
Her affection for his daughter was plain. And he loved her for it.
“Bribery,” Pandy repeated, slowly dragging out the syllables.
“There you have it,” he said, tearing his eyes from Lottie and smiling down at his daughter.
“But what’s it mean?” she wanted to know next, curious poppet that she was.
“It means persuading someone to do something you want them to do by offering them something they dearly love in return,” Lottie answered for him. “Such as persuading Cat to sit by offering her cheese.”
“What do you love, Papa?” Pandy asked him, looking at him with wide eyes so like his own. “So’s I can ribe you.”
“Bribe,” Lottie corrected gently.
Surely it was wrong to teach an impressionable child how to bribe someone, he thought, trying not to laugh.
“You needn’t bribe me,” he told his daughter. “You’ve already managed to twist me around your pinkie and do your bidding.”
She shook her head stubbornly. “Not true.”
“No? How so?”
“You didn’t let me put a dress on Cat.”
She wasn’t wrong. Given the hound’s penchant for eating fabric, he’d deemed it ill-advised to do so.
A noise stole from Lottie, and he glanced back at her to find her attempting to suppress her laughter and failing.God, she was beautiful when she was amused. She was beautiful always, actually. But her smile, the husky sound of her chuckle, the way her sky-blue eyes danced with levity—it was almost more than a man could endure.
He wanted to kiss her.
But, of course, he couldn’t do that. Not in front of Pandy.
“I pray you can forgive me, Pandy girl,” he said solemnly. “However, I think it was a reasonable enough denial, since Cat likes to make dresses her supper.”
“It wasn’t suppertime,” Pandy pouted.
He sighed. “You know what I mean, dearest. Now, enough talk of bribery. It looks as if the rain is holding off. Why don’t we all take a stroll about the gardens? Unless Lady Grenfell objects?” He glanced at Lottie, waiting.
“Some fresh air would be just the thing.”
“Hope Cat don’t find no more pig trotters,” Pandy grumbled.
Lottie raised an eyebrow, giving him a searching glance, and Brandon launched into his tale of the infamous rotten trotter. By the time he was done, tears of laughter were sparkling in the corners of her eyes, they were crunching down the gravel path past blooming roses, and he didn’t think he’d ever known a moment of such complete and utter happiness in all his life.
CHAPTER 18
Lottie woke to the early traces of dawn being painted across the London sky. A heavy, masculine arm was wrapped around her waist, and the hot brand of a strong chest was at her back. Beneath the counterpane, she was naked. And there was no mistaking the rigid length prodding the cleft of her buttocks.
It took her a moment to blink the slumber from her eyes and recognize her surroundings. She was in Brandon’s bedroom at his love nest in St John’s Wood, where they had decamped for dinner following an afternoon with Pandy and Cat.
