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When the door shut behind Finn, her father came to sit down beside her on the bed. “It’s not too late to back out,” he said, looking at her thoughtfully.
“And let someone else end up with that wonderful man?” She snorted. “You have to be mad.”
“He loves you,” her father said, as he pushed a lock of hair behind her pointy ear.
“I love him too,” she admitted. She nudged her father’s shoulder. “Don’t tell him that, or he’ll think much too highly of himself.”
“You’ll make a great mother,” he said, looking deeply into her eyes. Did he know?
“Umm,” she said.
“Things happen in their own time, Claire,” he said. “As they are meant to be.”
Claire exhaled long and loud. “I’m so glad you already know.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “So am I.”
“We were going to tell you after the wedding.”
“Why were you going to wait?”
She snickered. “I wanted him to look handsome for the wedding. And if you’d known about the baby, you’d have given him a black eye. Or worse.”
Her father’s expression clouded. “Baby?” he asked.
Claire sucked in a breath. “You didn’t know?”
“Baby?” he asked again, his mouth twisting. “I’ll kill him.” He thrust open the door and charged from the room, pushing past the startled guests as Claire clung to the back of his coattails.
“Don’t!” she cried. But her father already had Finn’s shirt front in his grip.
“What did you do?” he snarled.
Finn looked over her father’s shoulder and glared at Claire.
“Sorry,” she murmured to him as she continued to pull at her father’s coat. Truth be told, his allegiance was touching, and he felt more like a father to her than he ever had before.
Finn tried to duck when her father swung the first fist. But with the way her father had him in his grasp, it was difficult. Finn took one punc
h directly across the cheek before the duke grabbed her father and pulled him back.
Finn wiped his hand across his cheek, pressing at his cheekbone, as he said, “I take it she told you.”
“I didn’t mean to! He made it seem like he knew!” She still held on to her father’s coat.
Her father raised his fist and charged toward Finn again, but this time, her mother stepped between them.
Finn said, “The first one is free. The next one might cost you.”
“Not more than it already has. She’s my little girl,” Ramsdale bellowed.
Claire’s mother patted his chest and said, “Come with me.”
***
Lady Ramsdale led her husband from the room by the tips of his fingers. It was like trying to drag a tiger by his eyeteeth, but she held fast and didn’t let him jump back into the fray with Lord Phineas, though he obviously wanted to. She took him into the drawing room and closed the door behind them.
“Did you know about this?” he bellowed.
