Dear lord, how alarming that her body seemed to be petitioning for the job without her permission.
Felicity might be innocent, but she now understood why authors described lust as hunger. It was so physical and base. So consuming. When one needed to eat, the body and brain rarely allowed any function until the hunger was sated. The need was obsessive. Overwhelming.
So, too, was this.
Her entire being thrummed with awareness. With desire. And it would be impossible to think of anything else until she either got the hunger under control…
Or filled that emptiness with Gareth Severand.
Chapter 11
Gareth couldn’t measure the depth of his relief when the housekeeper returned holding warm glass bottles with little rubber nipples.
She fussed and bossed him as he fed… Oh, shit. He’d forgotten which one he’d been holding. Caroline? Catherine? Charlotte?
It wouldn’t do to ask either of the ladies, who handled the little ones with expert care. Not when they seemed so delighted with him.
Looking down at the small human in his lap, he was struck by an odd sense of wonder. The child stared back at him with eyes the startling color of Felicity’s, her fingers inelegantly gripped the bottle, even as he held it steady. Her lips sealed around the nipple as she gnawed on it rather than suckled. He ran a single finger over thin black curls through which he could see her round head.
It was difficult to believe, to comprehend the size of her toes, even though they were right in front of him. How did one’s feet go from looking like a mangled dumpling to the useful appendages people so relied upon? How did something so plump, dimpled, and creased with rolls, stretch into a whole person?
How was it possible that he’d once been like this? Small. Helpless.
It was due to his mother and a few miracles that he and Raphael survived.
He almost hadn’t. So many times. His father would not have minded his demise so long as he profited from it.
The mirror had told that story until recently.
“’Tis nice to have a man about the house again.” Mrs. Pickering’s comment drew his notice to where she stood over him, beaming down with an approving smile. “Despite the circumstances.”
He nodded his thanks, not exactly knowing what to do with a compliment. “Do we have a place for them to sleep?” he asked.
“Well certainly, but you have to burp her first.”
Certain he misunderstood, he cocked his head. “I have to… what?”
“Prop her on your shoulder and give her a few swats.”
His jaw dropped. He’d heard of the aristocracy having some odd and alarming child-rearing practices, but this? “I am not striking an infant.”
At that she crowed a laugh. “Like this, you dolt.” Plucking the girl from Felicity’s arms, she propped the baby up on her shoulder and gave her a few firm pats on the back. “Where did ye find this oaf?”
Felicity’s breathy laugh joined in. “I found him in the archway, and I’m ever so glad I did.”
The warm spark the evening had ignited in his chest expanded to a glow that rivaled that of a good whisky.
“Now you try, lad,” Pickering instructed. “Like so.”
Hesitantly, he propped up the little mop-haired angel and cupped his hands, gently patting her on the shoulders and back.
Both women sighed in tandem, which drew his brows together in puzzlement.
“Am I doing it wrong?”
A rude little sound erupted next to his ear, followed by a warm spread of something on his collar and down his back.
His eyes went wide as a sour smell followed. “Oh fuck. I mean— shite. I mean… sorry, ladies. Is it— she— all right? Did I—”
“Don’t fret, my boy, it’s something babies like to do from time to time.” The housekeeper bounced Caroline, her apple cheeks bunched in an endlessly amused smile.
Felicity surged to her feet and bent over him, lifting the baby from his shoulder. The darling miscreant looked oddly pleased with herself as she plucked at a lock of his hair before she was dragged away from him.
Tucking the child against her hip, Felicity wiped at the corners of the baby’s mouth and was unable to cover a giggle at his dumbstruck expression. “I’m so sorry she soiled you. Please don’t be cross.”
“I’m not.” He shrugged. “I’ve been soiled with worse.”
He couldn’t identify what he saw in her expression before she hid it from him. Something like distress, or maybe desire… Perhaps he needed his own vision checked. “You’ll be wanting to