The Problem with Seduction - By Emma Locke Page 0,54
nice to feel as though he indulged her because he wanted to, rather than because she twisted him to do her bidding?
Nelly poked her mobcapped head into the hallway as Elizabeth approached from the stairs. “Is aught amiss, madam?”
“Oliver has no regard for the dearness of watered silk,” she replied with amused chagrin.
Nelly covered her smile with her hand.
Elizabeth quickly stripped to her chemise. She bathed her arms and neck, then changed into a clean chemise overlaid by a plain silk gown. Once again dressed properly, she turned to leave, but one look at her lady’s maid’s distressed face and she was reminded of her hair, now tumbled down around her shoulders, and the talc powder that had no doubt caked on her cheeks long ago.
She dutifully sat on the stool before her dressing table and let Nelly primp at her hair. All the while, she simultaneously wondered how in heavens’ name she’d managed to forget her disastrous appearance, and silently urged Nelly to be quick about her tasks.
A hurried knock at the door caused both women to startle. Nelly set down the hot tongs and scurried to open the door. “Sally! What on earth! You know better than to come to my lady’s chambers.”
Elizabeth leaned to see around her maid. It was a girl she barely recognized, up from the kitchens. The fretful maid stood wringing her hands in Elizabeth’s doorway.
Elizabeth immediately anticipated the worst. “What is it?”
The girl bobbed. “I’m so sorry to be a nuisance, ma’am, but Mrs. Dalton begged me to bring you a message. Lord Constantine—I believe that is his name, ma’am—he returned to the nursery a while ago and insisted on her fetching the little master for him.” The girl’s youthful face blushed brightly. “She don’t know what to do and thought you might want to come straightaway. That’s why she sent me, because the rest o’ the staff is sleeping.”
Elizabeth pushed her mass of half-tonged curls over her shoulder and rose. She collected the small reticule containing her face powder and a few cotton cloths—in the event Oliver decided to play the same trick on her again—and slipped past the girls and into the hall. She took the stairs as quickly as her narrow skirt would allow and paused only long enough to catch her breath when she reached the nursery door. Mistake.
Con’s voice drifted through the open entrance. It struck a chord that vibrated straight through her heart.
“Why yes, that is my nose. It’s a nice nose—well, I’ve always thought so, anyway, though I’ve never thought to hold it just like that.”
His friendly, simple chatter affected her with a sudden, sharp poignancy she hadn’t dreamed possible.
“Oh?” he continued. “No, you didn’t have to let it go… Yes, yes, that’s also my nose, but not a place fingers usually go…”
She smiled at the nasal quality to his voice.
“Yours are very little, however,” he chattered on, “just the right size for such an adventure. Ack! Not my eye! I’m particular about those. But you have little lashes, don’t you? What a fine man you are, now that I’ve had a good look at you. I don’t know why your mother ran off, do you? I think I might have frightened her away. At any rate, she never has let me have a good look at you, God knows why. You’re a sturdy little chap. Yes, bounce on my thighs if you must, but—OW! My chin!”
Elizabeth rushed into the room, intending to scoop her baby off of Con’s lap. She didn’t want him to think he’d made a mistake. But he surprised her. His large hands expertly lifted Oliver and moved him from one knee to the other just fast enough that she was left to grasp thin air.
Oliver’s chubby arms waved indiscriminately in the air. He gave her a toothless smile and sucked one fist, then the other. “Gah!” he chortled happily. “Mah! Bah!”
She stopped in her tracks. “I thought he was disturbing you.” She felt silly even as she said the words. Oliver’s cheerful patter certainly hadn’t implied vexation. And Con dandled her son on his right knee as easily as if he’d handled children all his life.
A quick glance around the room revealed nothing amiss, if she didn’t count Mrs. Dalton hovering nervously in the corner. Although, to be perfectly truthful, her nursemaid seemed to be trying very hard to hide a dumbstruck expression. Elizabeth’s belly squeezed at the soft, almost longing look on Mrs. Dalton’s face as she watched Con play