Page 114 of The Dangerous Lord

She was losing the capacity to breathe. “You mean ... like this?” Reaching up, she began to untie his cravat.

“Exactly.” He reached for her hair.

“Not the hair, Ian!” she protested. “I’ll never get it back up properly, and then everyone will know what we’ve been doing!”

With a dark smile, he began removing the pins. “Good. I must live up to my reputation, after all. I’d hate to make a liar out of my wife.” He bent his head to kiss her throat. “Especially when she went to so much trouble to enumerate all my bad qualities.”

“I didn’t begin to enumerate all of them,” she said testily as her hair tumbled down around her shoulders. “I forgot to mention your insistence on having your own way ... your arrogance ... your tendency to choose the most inappropriate times and places for seducing me. Shall I go on?”

“Not now, my darling viscountess,” he whispered as he pressed kisses down her breastbone. “Save something for your column. Because right now, I’m planning to illustrate my bad qualities by doing the one thing you find most ‘annoying.’”

“Oh? What is that?”

“I believe you called it, ‘demanding my husbandly rights.’”

And to her utter delight, her troublesome husband did just that.

Epilogue

Readers will be pleased to learn that Lady St. Clair has borne a son, christened Algernon Jordan Lennard, heir apparent to her husband, the Viscount St. Clair. Both mother and son are doing well, and the viscountess will return to authoring this column soon. The Honorable Mr. Edgar Lennard, the viscount’s uncle, has reportedly left England to reside on a plantation he purchased in America. We wish him and his family all the best in their new home.”

Lady Brumley, The Evening Gazette, November 11, 1821 (Martinmas)

Three identical blond heads bent over Felicity as she sat propped up in the huge master bed at Chesterley, cradling her three-day-old son. “Give poor Algernon room to breathe, boys,” she admonished as the triplets crowded around her. “You’ll have plenty of chances to look at him, I assure you.”

“Why is he so wrinkled?” Ansel asked. “He looks like an old man.”

“So did you when you were born,” she told him. “All babies look like that when they first come out.”

“Does he know we’re his uncles?” William asked.

“Not yet. But he will. And think how lucky he will be to have four uncles living in the same house with him.”

Georgie peered more closely at the baby. “He sleeps an awful lot, don’t he?”

“Doesn’t he,” a stern female voice automatically corrected behind him.

“Doesn’t he,” George repeated, with a furtive glance at the woman who towered over him.

Felicity smiled up at Miss Greenaway. “You’re making progress, I see.”

Miss Greenaway rolled her eyes. “Yes. Now I only have to correct Master George ten times a day instead of twenty.”

“I ain’t—I’m not—all that bad,” Georgie grumbled.

Both Felicity and Miss Greenaway burst into laughter. That woke the baby up, who immediately started caterwauling.

Miss Greenaway cast her most governess-like look on the triplets. “Come now, you three, we’ve got Latin lessons to finish. And your sister needs a rest.”

Their chorus of groans didn’t deter the young woman, and in seconds, she had all three boys marching out of the room like real soldiers. Felicity shook her head in amazement. That had been the best move she’d ever made—asking Miss Greenaway to be the boys’ governess. The woman had a natural ability with children, if her work with the triplets was any indication. Miss Greenaway had leapt at the opportunity as well, since a woman with a bastard child would have difficulty finding suitable work.

Lately Felicity had noticed Ian’s unmarried man of affairs eyeing Miss Greenaway with something more than idle curiosity. Miss Greenaway had rebuffed his initial attempts at courtship, telling Felicity that a man of his intelligence and position deserved a “pure” woman.

But Felicity knew the man would wear Miss Greenaway down. When the only thing that stood in the way of love was a dark past, the principals in the affair never had a chance. Love would always triumph. She’d wager all her pin money that there’d be another wedding at Chesterley soon.

Little Algernon’s mouth was opening and closing like a fish’s. Quickly, she lowered her gown, and he fastened his tiny mouth to her nipple, dragging on it lustily. He was perfect, she thought, surveying the little snip of a nose, the shells of his ears, the still-blue eyes that would probably soon turn black to match the fuzzy raven hair that whorled around the center of his delicate head.

He looked like his father, of course. A little sultan to match the big one. Well, there’d be no harem for her darling boy, if she had anything to say about it. No, he must have a nice, presentable girl ... some lovely earl’s daughter or even a duke’s⁠—