Page 69 of Dangerous

She shook her head at his words. “Pooh!”

“Pooh?” He cocked an eyebrow at this new addition to her vocabulary, undoubtedly the gift of one of his daughters. “And where did you learn the term ‘spanking’? I’ll wager from the girl under discussion. If you use that term in polite society you will get a spanking,” he promised.

She ignored the threat. “Now,” she said, getting up off his lap and looking down on him, “I have something I would like to show you, my lord.”

Adam’s stomach lurched with joy at the two small words.

“I think you might find it interesting,” she continued, standing on her toes and putting her bottom on his desk, dangling her feet as she slowly inched up the hem of her gown.

“Oh?” Adam asked faintly, unwilling to trust his voice any further than that.

“Yes.” She nodded. “I found it this morning when I was getting dressed and I immediately thought of you.”

Adam’s eyes followed the rising hem, holding his breath as she slowly pulled the skirt over her knees and then all the way back to her hips.

As usual, she was not wearing any drawers.

“Ah,” he said, his voice choked. “I think I may have seen something like that once before.” He’d lowered a hand on each of her knees and gently pushed.

“Perhaps you need a closer look to be certain, my lord?” She slid her hips closer to the edge of the desk—to him.

“Adam. Adam?”

At the sound of his name, Adam shoved the erotic memory into the increasingly overcrowded corner of his brain where he stored such treasures.

Mia had come to stand before him, an amused look on her face, her glance flickering down to his bulging buckskins, which she was strategically hiding from the curious faces behind her.

“We were speaking of frocks, Adam.”

He frowned, looking past his wife’s shoulder and then back. “We were?” He cleared his throat. “Yes, I mean we were. Speaking of frocks. What an excellent idea. I suppose that means a trip. Will Brighton satisfy you? Or need we take an armed frigate to Paris?” He tried to sound resigned to his fate, but actually found the idea of a trip to Brighton appealing.

The room erupted in female chatter and Adam hastened to escape as the women returned their attention to the magazine on the table. Just as he closed the door he caught his wife’s eye and she gave him a smile of pure joy that rocked him to his core.

It had been a long time since Adam had placed his happiness so fully in the keeping of another person. The realization of what he’d done sent a ripple of anxiety through the otherwise pleasurable wave he’d been riding. He’d learned long ago that happiness was a two-sided coin—and the other side was pain.

Chapter Twenty-One

While many women—especially step-mamas—would have found the company of three girls for six hours in an enclosed carriage torture, Mia found their company both delightful and liberating. After months spent with adults in London, whose notions of propriety and decorum never matched hers, it was a relief to be with three people who admired, rather than despised, her temperament and manners. The same could not be said for their disapproving governess, Miss Temple, who thankfully rode in the second carriage.

Mia had tried to persuade Jessica to join them on a trip that promised to be pleasure-filled and of not too long a duration, but her sister-in-law—generally so retiring on most subjects—had adamantly refused to join the party.

“It might be selfish, but I would rather enjoy some time to myself,” Jessica had admitted before giving Mia one of her rare smiles. “But I have no qualms about sending you off with a long shopping list.”

The three girls were more than a handful and Jessica had given selflessly to them. Her new daughters were sweet and unspoiled girls. Even Eva, whose high spirits might have been viewed by outsiders to be a sign of overindulgence, was thoughtful and kind to both her sisters and the people on Adam’s estate.

They sat crowded in the seat across from her, bickering about some book Catherine had brought to entertain them on the journey. Two jet-black heads and one sandy-blond.

Mia had guessed almost immediately that Melissa could not be Adam’s child. Unlike her two older sisters, whose delicate bone structure and dark hair were the very image of their father’s, Melissa was fair and plump, her button nose, full mouth, and brown eyes demonstrating no sign of the marquess, her aunt, or any of her sisters.

To give Adam his due, he dealt equally with all three of his daughters. That was to say, equally distant. Mia could not understand why he held his children at such a remove. Beneath his façade of cool disdain was a loving and generous man. It had taken Mia a shockingly short time to discover the real man beneath the thick façade. But, try as she might, she could not expand the circle of warm affection the two of them shared to include his children.

She simply could not understand his remote attitude toward his daughters. Her love of Jibril was such an overpowering emotion, she could no more hold him at arm’s length than she could survive without breathing. She knew Adam loved his daughters, even the one who was not his own blood. She’d seen the affection in his eyes in those brief moments when his guard lowered and he allowed his love for them to show. But those moments were always short, and seemed to be followed immediately by an expression she could only describe as dread.

She had tried to probe the matter a few times, but his face had become shuttered, as closed and hard as it had been the first weeks of their acquaintance. Mia had recoiled like a coward, terrified the intervening weeks of loving and passionate companionship had been nothing but a vivid product of her imagination.

She shuddered at the strength of her emotions. She could no longer hide from the truth. For the first time in her adult life, she was in love; in love with her husband.

He rode beside the carriage, acting as outrider, his elegant form in no way diminished by the mist that covered his black curls and handsome caped coat. He glanced toward the carriage and saw her watching. His mouth curved slowly into a smile that caused her entire body to thrum. As if he knew what effect he had on her, he turned to face the road, his attractive profile smug.