“Because,” he said reasonably, “she would have told me about the baby in order to keep me here if she’d been pregnant when I left. You cannot tell me she wouldn’t have known if she’d been four months along. Also, she would have shown some sign of it, which she didn’t. She could only have been one or two months pregnant when I left and obviously unaware of her condition.
“Nicholas Eden, until you can stop being so perverse, I shall have nothing to say to you!” With that, Eleanor swept angrily from the room.
Nicholas grabbed the brandy decanter, about to send it the way of the glass. He tilted it to his lips instead. Why not?
Yes, she’d have told him if she’d been pregnant when they married. He recalled the times she let other men take her home. He recalled George Fowler in particular and the red-hot rage he had felt over that. Had it been intuition? Had he known the young bastard wouldn’t take her straight home?
Nicholas was so furious he could barely think straight. He had tried not to think about the child from the moment he’d learned of his birth. His son, was he? Just let her try and convince him of that.
Chapter 28
REGGIE smiled absently as the little fist kneaded her breast. Feeding her son had always been such a lovely, satisfying time for her, but tonight her thoughts were downstairs. She didn’t even notice when the small mouth stopped sucking.
“He’s off to sleep again, Reggie,” Tess whispered.
“Oh, so he is. But not for long, eh?”
Reggie gently lifted the infant to her shoulder and patted his back. His head snuggled there, his mouth sucking air for a moment before it went slack. She smiled up at her old nurse, now her son’s nurse.
“Perhaps this time he will stay asleep,” Reggie whispered to Tess as she put him back to bed. But the moment she laid him down on his belly, his head popped up jerkily, his feet started to wiggle, and those inquisitive eyes opened.
“It’s to be expected.” Tess grinned. “He just doesn’t need as much sleep now. He’s getting older.”
“I’ll have to start thinking about getting you some help then.”
“Bother that,” Tess scoffed. “When he’s six months old and starting to crawl, then I’ll welcome the help.”
“If you say so.” Reggie laughed. “But you go on and have your dinner now. I’ll stay with him until you’re through.”
“No you won’t, my girl. You have company below.”
“Yes,” Reggie sighed, “my husband. But as I have nothing to say to him, I am not going down. Now go on, Tess. And please have a tray sent up here to me, will you?”
“But—”
“No.” Reggie picked up the wide-awake baby again. “This gentleman right here is the only company I want tonight.”
Tess gone, Reggie dropped all pretense of ladylike behavior and got down on the floor to play with her son, imitating his sounds and gestures, coaxing him to smile. He wasn’t quite up to laughter yet, but that wouldn’t be long in coming, for he heard enough laughter around him. His many visitors, from the servants to her uncles, all tried to make him smile with crazy antics that were quite as ridiculous as his mother’s.
How she loved this little person. Right before he was born she had fallen into a terrible depression. But after the birth, which had amazed the doctor by being such an easy labor for a first child, Reggie was filled with euphoria. Plainly and simply, her child brightened her life. In fact, in the last two months she had been so busy learning about and enjoying her new motherhood, that she rarely thought of Nicholas, at least not more than a dozen times a day.
“But now he’s back, love. What are we going to do?” Reggie sighed.
“You don’t expect him to answer that, do you?”
“Oh, Meg, you startled me!”
“D’you want this down there on the floor?” Meg was holding a tray of food. “I caught the maid on the way up here with it.”
“Over there on the table, please,” Reggie directed. “And now tell me all about your outing with Harris.”
Nicholas had left Harris behind, to the valet’s endless misery. The poor man had been bereft all these months and especially unhappy after Reggie moved into the townhouse. He was downright hostile, and he and Meg had had a few heated exchanges, defending their territory.
Abruptly, after the baby arrived, all of that changed. Harris warmed to Reggie or, more exactly, to Meg. Meg and Harris astonished themselves by discovering a liking for each other. They had even been going out together lately and got along famously just so long as Meg said nothing derogatory about the Viscount.
Meg put the tray down with a bang. “Never mind about that hardheaded gent I’ve been passin’ time with. I don’t think I’ll be doin’ that anymore. What does he do the moment he hears the Viscount is here? He doesn’t give me a by-your-leave, but rushes upstairs to find his lordship! And I could’ve save him the trouble. Tess informed me another bottle of brandy was just delivered to the music room.”
“The music room? Ah, yes,” Reggie giggled suddenly. “The music room. I’d forgotten what I did to his study.”
