“Then that leaves you with Horatia,” Darien said. “Unless Lucien has some family we don’t know about.”
“Damn you,” the marquess choked, glaring at his son. “Do you think it amusing to taunt me? You won’t find a wife who will take your by-blow.”
“Henry already has,” Darien said and followed her into the room.
“She’s so tiny,”Darien whispered, overcome with awe.
Henrietta sat on the bed like a cozy Madonna, the baby nestled in her lap. Her hair was coming loose from her cap, and her eyes, which had been a stormy gray all through the interview with his father, had subsided to their customary gray green.
She sent the wet nurse away, and Darien swallowed the strange urge to thank the girl for caring for his daughter. One did not thank the servants, who were paid to dispatch their business, but he wondered how she must feel, watching another child thrive in her care when she had not been able to nourish her own.
In the next room, Clarinda sat with his father, sipping tea and no doubt discussing marriage settlements. Lady Clarinda was as canny as her husband when it came to business dealings. She had dangled Henrietta—or rather, her properties—like a piece of choice meat before a famished dog.
“Look at her fingers,” Darien said, moved.
Henrietta held a tiny digit. “Look at her toes. Every nail is perfect.”
“And her eyebrows.”
“She scrunches her brow in a very fierce way sometimes. It reminds me of you.”
“Her eyes are so blue. Just like mine.”
Henrietta leaned closer and peered at the baby, who peered back. “But hers don’t have that ring of violet around the iris. I suspect she will be beautiful, much like her mother.” She laughed. “I shall not know how to teach her to deal with men. But Lady Mama can.”
Darien watched Henrietta, not the child. His Henry continued to surprise him. Sitting here like this, she was the most beautiful woman he had ever met, with her elegant shoulders and regal neck, her determined jaw and fierce chin, those eyes as mysterious and inviting as the depths of a forest.
Impossible for her to pretend she did not want him. He knew she did.
“My solicitor wrote that he has found a family for her,” he said cautiously. “A church sexton and his wife, with three children of their own.”
She stilled, her finger caught in the baby’s small fist. Her cinnamon curls fell over her face, hiding her profile.
“They cannot give her what I can.”
“Henry, you saw my father’s reaction. You will hear the same from all sides. A young unmarried woman cannot adopt a baseborn brat.”
“You asked me to marry you. You could adopt her. Make her yours in truth.”
Men of his rank rarely acknowledged their bastards. But the thought that the child might truly be his stirred a wasp’s nest of emotion in Darien’s chest. Amidst the turmoil he felt an aching wish to sit with Henrietta just like this, picking out their individual features in a child of their own, one they made together.
“An illegitimate child in the nursery with our trueborn children? It isn’t done.”
She bit out a laugh. “It is done all the time. Lady Melbourne has several cuckoos in her nest, and they say the Duchess of Devonshire plans to bring home her…indiscretion.”
Darien saw her rigid back and shoulders. “I am thinking of you, Henry. Each time you look at her, especially if she resembles Celeste, you’ll be forced to recall—” He swallowed. Itwasn’t infidelity. He couldn’t imagine wanting any other woman now. No other woman could fascinate him as she did. “My past.”
She raised her eyes in that curious, direct manner of hers. “When I look at Celestina, I will simply seeher,” she said. “The same way I simply see you.”
Darien’s throat went dry. The soft down of the bed felt like knives under his thigh. Impossible that she could see him, all of him, and love him. Not after all he had done.
“Are you accepting my hand?” he managed.
She swaddled the baby and held her out. “Do you wish to hold her?”
“I might drop her,” Darien said, alarmed.
“It is not that difficult.” Henrietta rose, smiling. “You make a basket with your arms and hold her in it.” She demonstrated.
