The Problem with Seduction - By Emma Locke Page 0,58

let in. Why, he almost felt like a proper suitor. It wasn’t every day he went for a stroll with a pretty woman on his arm. He was almost looking forward to it, actually. After all, he couldn’t really have expected to deny her the right to join him when she’d looked at him like he might very well misplace little Oliver somewhere between her townhouse and his mother’s sitting room. Even if it did disappoint him to know she had so little faith in him, he allowed that he was unlikely to manage the baby without her.

He rapped again on the door. This business of being made to wait for entrance was an odd way of keeping one’s mistress; at least, it seemed so to him. He supposed if he were truly paying her an annuity and keeping her in style on his own penny, he wouldn’t have to haunt her steps like an errand boy.

He liked her competent manner. Even if it made him all the more aware of his own lacking. He expected a woman in her profession to laze about during the day, eating ripened berries and taking the occasional walk to improve her figure. Every time he came to Elizabeth’s house, on the other hand, it felt as though he’d arrived at the absolute worst time. Her staff always seemed to be engaged in resolving a problem, and today was no different.

When he was finally let in he had to show himself to the drawing room as the footman who’d opened the door ran off to attend to some matter of more importance than the arrival of the madam’s protector.

Maids scurried past the drawing room door as he waited for Elizabeth to join him. After a quarter hour Rand entered, causing Con to look up from the book he’d opened across his lap.

“I thought you might like to know what all of the fuss is about,” the butler said in a statelier tone than Con would have thought possible. “The young master has learned to roll over. The housemaids are in a frenzy collecting all the long tablecloths and other dangling bits that could present a danger, for I am told that very soon now he will be able to sit up and reach for them.”

A smile tugged Con’s lips. “And Elizabeth?”

“Madam is so charmed, I daresay she hasn’t left the nursery since the news was brought to her at breakfast.”

Con nodded slowly. Then he closed his book and set it on the couch, preparing to come to his feet. “In that case, I’ll go up.”

“You’ll frighten the upstairs maids half to death if you arrive unannounced.”

Con smiled. “Then you’ll have to announce me.”

Rand grunted, but Con thought he saw the man smile just before he turned and presented Con with a view of his broad back.

Con felt embarrassingly slender in comparison to the massive servant. Rand’s expansive shoulders weren’t like the shoulders of any butler Con had ever seen. He nonetheless managed to maintain his aplomb as they navigated the narrow hallways and stairs to reach the nursery.

Nothing about Elizabeth’s household, Con was coming to realize, was what he’d consider dull and normal.

“Lord Constantine to see you, madam.” Rand bowed with an elegant flourish.

“Oh, no, I—” she exclaimed, but it was too late. Rand stepped aside to allow Constantine entrance.

She froze. Instantly, Con knew why she’d objected to his presence. Just as suddenly, he knew why she was considered one of the most beautiful women in London.

She stood in the center of the room with one arm stretched toward the floor and one toward the wall, as if Mrs. Dalton and she had been measuring a distance. She wore not a hint of cosmetics. He wouldn’t have ever noticed that she normally wore the stuff, except that the freshness of her face unmarred by powder and kohl nearly bowled him over.

Her pink lips were slightly parted, as though his sudden arrival had thrown her off-kilter. Dark brown curls escaped an ivory turban wrapped haphazardly around her head. In the back of his mind he slowly registered that everything, even time, seemed to have stopped the moment he’d walked in the door.

A white-gowned little body flipped over at his feet and just like that, everything became about Oliver again.

“He just started that?” A hint of pride took root in Con as Oliver pushed himself up onto his forearms and lifted his head to watch Con with large, inquisitive eyes. The area just under Oliver’s bottom