Did he mean he’d carry her daughter, Prim thought with astonishment. James MacKintosh…holding a toddler? Willingly? She couldn’t even envisage such thing.
Her surprise must have shown for he rolled his eyes. “I won’t drop her. I promise you, I have quite a lot of expertise in this particular practice.”
Again, he accurately read her bewilderment without her saying a word.
“Most of those siblings you once asked me about have been astonishingly productive these past few years.”
The decision was taken out of her hands when her normally shy daughter flung herself across the gap between them. Prim yelped, thinking Hazel might fall, but James caught her handily and hefted her up to his shoulders where she perched with a squeal.
He looked down at Prim, eyes dancing. A broad grin as bright as the new-fallen snow flashed across his swarthy, handsome face as Hazel tore his hat from his head and tugged at his dark hair. Prim knew a moment of tenderness and rapture as her heart raced at nothing more than the sight. It was promptly followed by a twinge of distress.
She’d made a terrible mistake.
* * *
He’d done the right thing, James thought, looking down at Prim, her face framed by the lush brown mink hood of her velvet coat. Rich in color, but not as much as her hair touched by bright sunlight in the front. Her eyes were light with laughter, her pale cheeks rosy with the effort of walking through the deep snow.
She looked lovely and free. Just as she ought to be.
Aye, he’d been right to decide to help her gain some autonomy from her family…even if it meant helping himself in the process.
“Look at me!” Hazel cried, bouncing hard against his shoulders and breaking the spell the sight of a smiling Prim Eames had cast over him.
“Hazel, darling!” she chided. “Don’t pull Mr. MacKintosh’s hair.”
“Sorry, Mama,” she said immediately.
“It is not I you need to apologize to.”
Pudgy hands caught his cheeks and urged him to look upward until he was nose-to-nose with the toddler as she leaned down. Eyes of a familiar hyacinth stared back at him.
“Sorry, Mr. Mac-in-shhh.”
Charmed to his bones, he could only smile up at the bonny child. He hadn’t considered that Prim might have her children along when he’d asked her to meet him. One didn’t normally greet a suitoren masse, but James found he didn’t mind. Theirs wasn’t a true courtship after all.
“Quite all right, wee lassie.”
She grinned in return and resumed her bouncing…without the hair pulling this time. James steadied her with one hand and swept an arm out, motioning for Prim to precede him.
She was staring at him peculiarly, as if he were some novelty in a freak show. Finally, she shook her head, the pursed lips and censuring air he’d long associated with her returning.
“Are you going to allow a lady to blaze a trail for you, Mr. MacKintosh?”
“Why not? You’ve been doing a fine job of it so far,” he assured her teasingly.
Prim pressed her full lips together but couldn’t completely hide her grin. “Some gentleman you are.”
“You’ve enough gentlemen in your life, haven’t you?” he asked. “Perhaps it’s time someone started assuming you’ve the same measure of competency any man has.”
The words were meant to be playful, but James could tell by her expression that she liked the sound of that. Without any remark, she turned. Grasping her skirts with both hands, she determinedly plowed a path through the snow until they met a more well-trodden trail leading to the sledding hill.
James lifted the little girl from his shoulders and set her down. She was off and running before her feet met the ground.
“Oh!” Prim cried, setting off after her daughter, but James held her back.
“She’ll be fine. Let her go,” he said. There were only a dozen or so children and a handful of adults gathered at the top of the hill. The toddler streaked with purpose toward a stalwart looking woman in a plain gray coat and started tugging at her skirts. “Your nanny, I presume.”
Prim stepped forward, then back and forward again before she stilled at his side. All three children were piling onto the long sled, fighting over who got to be in front.
