“What the devil are you talking about?” He was still caught on the wordher.
“She is probably hungry, although I nursed her before I brought her in. I warn you, she eats all the time. Worse, she pisses as much as you do. The two of you should rub along well.” She opened the door, shooting him a disdainful look. “I also wish to say, I don’t think you should brag about your inability to lie, Mars. I believe you make the claim to hide that you are simply incapable of love.”
“That is a nasty barb.” He could love. He just hadn’t—yet.
Her expression said she thought he was fooling himself. “Goodbye, my lord.”
At that moment, a worried sound escaped from the bundle. The covers moved and a decidedly feminine head popped out. Ababy. She was on her belly. She pushed herself up and looked around with large, searching eyes—and then focused on him.
Mars knew nothing of children. He stayed away from them. He even kept a respectable distance from Balfour’s baby and he’d been present when she’d been born.
This baby had hair as dark as Deb’s. Except, instead of the mother’s curls, her hair stood up like a hedgehog’s spines that pointed wherever they wanted.
She swiveled her head to look at the door where Gibson, Nelson, and the footmen peered in with what could only be described as fascinated horror—a look that was probably mirrored on Mars’s face.
And then the baby appeared to grasp that she had been left. Abandoned.With him.
A lip puckered and then she gave out a cry so loud and so heart-wrenching it could have summoned the troops for miles around, and she didn’t stop. Not even for breath.
The wailing sparked Mars into action. He went charging from the room, barefooted and half-naked. He shouldered aside Gibson and the others. Reaching the top of the stairs, he saw Deb almost at the foot of them. “You can’t leave,” he demanded. “You can’t just walk off.”
Glancing up at him, she coolly answered, “Yes, I can.”
“But that is ababy.Yourbaby.”
“No,yourbaby, my lord—”
“It couldn’t be. I take precautions. I’m always careful.” He’d never wanted to pepper the countryside with bastards.
“Not all the time, you didn’t. And to be perfectly honest, because I, too, am incapable of lying, I’m done staying up through the night with her, having her pull on my breasts like they are udders, and then spit up on my clothes. I can’t stand the smell of it. I’mnotagood mother. I don’t want to be one. So, now it is your turn. Truth is, it will be easier for you—you have plenty of money, so hire someone to take care of Menadora. Or . . .” she paused self-righteously “. . . toss her aside the way you did me. She is no longer my concern.”
On that note, she sailed out the open front door to a waiting coach, a coach he had paid for. Meanwhile, that child with the ridiculous name was growing increasingly vocal. Her cries rang through the house.
And Deb didn’t care. Her step didn’t falter.
Mars did the only reasonable thing a man in his position could do—he ran down the stairs and out the door, thinking to stop his ex-mistress. She couldn’t leave a child withhim.
Unfortunately, he was too late.
With impressive speed, Deb boarded her coach and, with a snap of the whip, her driver sent the horses racing down the drive.
Mars stood for a long moment in its wake as if he could will her back. The coach rounded a curve and disappeared from his view. “Damn her to hell,” he muttered. And then added, “That baby isn’t mine.” It couldn’t be. He and both of his parents had blond hair. Besides,he took precautions.
But had he always?
He could recall a time or two when he hadn’t been as disciplined as a wise man should be. Times when his vices had the better of him.
Dear God.
Mars turned toward the door to see that all his servants from the haughty Gibson to eventhe scullery lad stood on the step watching him with wide-eyed, concerned looks.
Nelson weaseled his way through the crowd with Mars’s dressing robe. “My lord,” he entreated, holding the garment up as if to preserve his master’s dignity—but a more pressing concern had claimed his lord’s attention.
From where Mars stood, he could still clearly hear a squalling baby.
“Who is with the child?” he demanded.
His servants, all male, all long in his family service, looked at each other as if they had expected the man standing to the left or right to be watching Menadora. Even the usually efficient Gibson.
