The Defiant Wife (The Three Mrs #2) - Jess Michaels Page 0,26

theatre, their friends…but he didn’t allow things to be personal anymore. And he hadn’t included her, thus far, in whatever he was planning.

Truth be told, she was nervous about that. Rhys was nothing but kind, but she’d learned the extremely hard way that a man could put on one face and live an entirely different existence. It was possible, however remotely, that he was planning something she wouldn’t like. That he would take away her home and the child sitting before her.

She shivered, but was dragged from her thoughts when Kenley let out a shriek that could have broken glass and tossed the block down on the floor.

With an arch of her brow, Phillipa got on her hands and knees and playfully moved toward him. “Are you in the very worst mood?” she asked. “Perhaps because it’s your…naptime?”

She said the last with great excitement, and that elicited a small smile from the boy before he shrieked again. She shook her head. Though she loved seeing him develop and grow, the increased lung capacity was…something.

“Mrs. Montgomery?”

She lifted her head to find Mr. Barton at the door. “Yes?”

“A letter has arrived.”

He moved to where she still sat on the floor and she took it from him with a smile. But it fell when she saw the handwriting. “From my father.”

Mr. Barton inclined his head, but she saw the tension in his face. Her father had visited this home a few times, and it had never been pleasant. She was embarrassed her servants…her friends…had to experience that.

“Shall I fetch Mrs. Barton to come get this boy?” Mr. Barton asked, and as he did so he made a funny face at Kenley. The baby clapped his hands together with another screeching squeal that made both adults turn their heads with a flinch.

“I think she’s busy preparing that roast, yes?” Phillipa said. “I want her to focus on that—it’s my favorite. I’ll put him down.”

“Very good, ma’am,” Mr. Barton said before he waved one last time at Kenley and then stepped from the room. “Pardon me, my lord,” she heard him say from outside her view in the hall.

She stiffened and glanced back toward the door as Rhys stepped into the parlor. His gaze flitted over her, sitting on the floor and she thought the corner of his mouth twitched like he was suppressing a smile. When he glanced at Kenley, the expression became more uncertain.

It was evident the man didn’t have much experience with children. Not that it was an uncommon thing. Most members of the Upper Ten Thousand didn’t have much relationship with their offspring at all, let alone other children. At her father’s assembly she remembered a duke and a marquess once arguing over how many legitimate children they each had. They’d even placed a bet on it. Neither had guessed correctly.

But as she watched this man, one so unlike the others, she realized he was capable of much more. She swept up Kenley and got to her feet. He tapped on her face as she carried him toward his uncle.

“Good afternoon, my lord,” she said and, without preamble, set Kenley in his arms.

For a moment they both froze. Rhys looked abjectly terrified and Kenley uncertain. But then the child lifted his pudgy hand to touch Rhys’s chin, and Rhys…smiled.

Her breath caught watching them together, watching him relax as he began to rock Kenley, answering back to the baby’s meaningless gibberish. She laughed at his enthusiastic, “Oh, yes? Tell me more.”

“You’re a natural,” she said softly, and he glanced at her. His bright blue eyes caught hers, and in that moment she realized she was in love with this man. She was in love with the Earl of Leighton, her late husband’s half-brother, a man she could never have.

And yet she loved him.

He tilted his head as he looked at her. “Are you well?”

She faked a smile. “Very well, thank you. I assume you didn’t come into the parlor to have me force the sweetest boy in England on you.” She squeezed Kenley’s cheek and he turned his face into his uncle’s shoulder with a shy giggle. “Did you need something?”

He cleared his throat and his gaze slid away from her. “Er, yes. I did come to talk to you about some things I’ve found. I have some thoughts for the future.”

The area around her heart felt like someone was squeezing, but she ignored it and held out her arms for Kenley. “Let me put him down for his nap and then