The Problem with Seduction - By Emma Locke Page 0,55

with the baby.

“Not at all,” Con replied. “If anything, I’m disturbing him. I believe you said he should be sleeping.” Con’s blue eyes looked up at her. He wasn’t thinking about having her against a wall anymore. He wasn’t thinking about her at all.

Strangely put out, she crossed her arms under her breasts.

He turned Oliver around so that her baby faced him. “He doesn’t seem interested in sleep, does he? I think he wants to play.”

“Mrs. Dalton will see him to bed when he’s ready. You have no need to worry yourself about him.” When he continued to disregard her, she added, “It’s quite out of your realm to even be in here.” It was the least accusing way she could think to order him out.

What was it about his commitment to her son, and now his lack of interest in her, that made her defensive?

Con was too busy forming exaggerated Os with his lips to look up at her. “He just wants to be where the excitement is. You could never convince me to nod off right now—Ow!”

“Goo!” Oliver replied. “Goo, goo!”

“Talkative little thing,” Con muttered, but she didn’t think he meant for her to comment. She felt strangely irrelevant…and more than passingly uncomfortable to realize she was jealous of her own son.

“We should retire to the drawing room, my lord,” she tried.

“I think he’s trying to tell me something,” Con said, ignoring her statement. “Is it about the goo? Give me more hints, Oliver. I want to know.”

“My lord, what are you doing here?” she exclaimed, for he didn’t seem to have come for her at all.

His eyes darted sideways at her. “You invited me?”

“Not to the nursery.” She stressed the last word, but Con was finished with her, at least for the moment.

He watched Oliver intensely, never ceasing the rhythmic bounce bounce bounce of jiggling the baby on his knee. “I should like to take you out for a day, little chap. It’s high time we became better acquainted. What do you say? Your mother might not agree, I suppose…” Con turned his head ever so slightly to make inquiring eyes at her. “Pleeeease?”

She wanted to laugh, but she would not be charmed by yet another man whose primary interest in her was Oliver. Her teeth ground just a little. “It seems you hardly need my approval to entertain my son.” His absorption with Oliver was too similar to how Nicholas had behaved before he’d sent her packing. When would a man ever see her?

Con’s brow arched again. “Your son? I thought he was our son.” He peered into Oliver’s sunny face. “He looks enough like me, I suppose.”

She forgot her annoyance for the moment and took a step forward. If enough people agreed with Con, Nicholas would lose his advantage there. “Do you think so?”

Con laughed. “I’m fair and blue-eyed, Elizabeth. Of course he doesn’t look like me. But he does look like you.”

Disappointment coupled with her frustration. For no rhyme or reason, she preferred to think Oliver looked like Con. “No one cares a whit if he looks like me.”

“Captain Finn is dramatically dark-haired and brown-eyed. I can’t say I’ve spent any length of time admiring his features, but even I know that we’ll have a hard sell convincing anyone this baby isn’t his. You did realize that?”

Was he trying to anger her? “Of course I have!”

Then she glanced at Mrs. Dalton, just remembering the young woman’s presence. “You may leave us.”

Mrs. Dalton looked disappointed to be dismissed. Nevertheless, she bobbed and went to the door. “You’ll ring for me?” she said before pulling the door closed behind her.

Belatedly, Elizabeth realized she’d just asked to be left alone with Lord Constantine and her baby.

Too late.

Con resumed making popping noises at Oliver. Elizabeth could almost believe he’d forgotten their previous conversation, but then he looked up at her quizzically. “You were saying about Finn?”

Why should she trust him with the nightmares that kept her up at night? What was he to her? “It’s no matter.”

Oliver tossed his body full-force against Con’s broad chest without warning. Con caught him in a modified bear hug. “Whoa, there! You have some legs on you, my boy!” The room echoed with Con’s crack of laughter.

Oliver shrieked back in delight. Unbidden, a smile came to Elizabeth. She wanted only for Oliver to be happy. She must set aside her jealousy and ignore her pride. Lord Constantine had a natural way with children. He might never be more to her than that.