“Tess said he and Lady Ellie were shouting in there,” Meg informed her.
“Were they? I’m afraid that doesn’t interest me.”
“Posh,” Meg scoffed. “You’d give your eyeteeth to know what they said about you.”
“You assume they were arguing about me.”
“If not you, what then?”
“What indeed?” Nicholas asked from the open doorway.
Meg turned in a huff, cursing herself for not closing the door. Reggie, lying on the floor, tilted her head back for an upside-down view of her husband. She was flat on her back, her son stretched out on her chest. She sat up slowly.
Nicholas approached her, seeing a small head on her shoulder, one fist jammed firmly into his mouth. Black tufts of hair and vivid blue eyes were unmistakable. A Malory, through and through.
He came around her and offered her his hand. “Do you do this often, love?”
She wasn’t fooled by the mellow tone. There was a hard set to his lips, a heated glow in his eyes. Why, he wasn’t pleased about his son at all! How could he stand there looking at him and not be delighted? Her mother’s pride came rushing to the fore. She held on to his hand and stood up, but the moment she was on her feet, she turned her back to him.
“If you haven’t come here to see Thomas, you can leave,” she announced frostily.
“Oh, but I have come to see him.” Nicholas smiled grimly. “You named him Thomas, after your father?”
Reggie gently put the baby down in his bed and leaned over to kiss him. She turned and faced her husband. “Thomas Ashton Malory Eden.”
“Well, that certainly takes care ofyourside of the family, doesn’t it?”
His sarcasm made her boil. “If you wanted him named after your side, you should have been around for his birth.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Her eyes narrowed. In another moment they would be shouting, and this she would not allow in the nursery.
“Meg, stay with Thomas until Tess returns, will you?” Then she said to Nicholas, “My rooms are across the hall. If you care to finish this conversation, you may visit me there.”
Reggie didn’t wait for him but stalked across the hall and into her sitting room. Nicholas followed, closing the door loudly. She turned around and glared at him. “If you wish to slam doors, kindly do so in another part of the house.”
“If I wish to slam doors, which I did not do just now, I will bloody well do so inanypart of my house. Now answer me! Why didn’t you tell me?”
What to answer? She wasn’t going to admit that she hadn’t wanted to hold him that way. She wasn’t at all certain just then that anything could have held him, not when he had failed to show the slightest inkling of pleasure in either her or his son.
At last she simply asked, “Would it have made any difference?”
“How will we ever know, since you didn’t tell me?” A sardonic note entered his manner. “Of course, there is the possibility that you didn’t know and therefore couldn’t tell me.”
“Not know that I was four months pregnant?” She smiled. “I did have very few symptoms, it’s true. But four months? Any woman would know by then.”
He moved closer until he was standing directly in front of her chair. “Usually at four months everyone else knows as well,” he said softly. “For the obvious reason of an increased girth. You were lacking that, love.”
Reggie’s eyes met his and widened at what she read. “You don’t think he’s yours!” she whispered incredulously. “No wonder you barely looked at him!” She stood up and he moved back to allow her to pass. She spoke to the room at large. “Oh, this is famous. I didn’t once consider this.”
She could see the humor in it, though, and under other circumstances she’d have laughed. What a perfect revenge for his treatment of her, presenting him with another man’s child on his return. But Reggie was in no condition to feel the humorous side of things. There was the shock of seeing him again, and the nastier shock of his ugly conclusion.
He touched her shoulder, swinging her around to face him. “Is this pretended surprise the best performance you can manage, madame? You have had ample time to invent some excuse to explain why your wedding gown clung to your very tiny waist the day I married you. I am most curious to hear your fabrication.”
The gypsy slant of her eyes became more pronounced as they narrowed to furious slits, but she kept her voice calm. “Are you? There is the obvious excuse of a tightly laced corset, so shall I say that’s what it was? Would you believe that? No? Just as well, since I never lace my corsets tightly.”
“Then you admit it?” he snarled.
