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“Thank you for inviting me for tea, Lady Charlotte.” Louisa gave the three-year-old a quick curtsy and then smiled as the little girl did the same. Harry clasped Louisa’s arm and led her out the room. “Are we going somewhere, Your Grace?”
“Back to my study.”
“I believe we have already discussed everything, and I am rather tired. I shall retire to my bedchamber for a rest. Good day, Your Grace.” She twisted her arm out of his firm grip and raced to her room. As she closed the door behind her, she leaned against it with a long sigh.
That little girl needed a mother.
Chapter 4
HARRY PACED HIS STUDY as aggravation simmered in him. How dare she come back into his life and create such chaos? His being here suited him just fine. Until she arrived, Charlotte had no notion of going to town or seeing elephants, at least none that he heard of before today. He enjoyed his quiet life away from everyone.
It had taken him years to get over Louisa. Even after what happened with Sabita in India, he’d always thought how ashamed Louisa would have been of his actions. But he’d pushed those feelings aside to focus on his wife and daughter. For a year it worked, until upon his return from India, he saw Louisa again at his father’s home.
He had deliberately arrived late for the small dinner party that night two years ago. His father had befriended Mrs. Drake and her daughters when they had first arrived in London. Harry had known they would be attending the dinner party, but he hadn’t known they were the only guests Father had invited. Seeing Louisa at the long table had brought back feelings he’d tried to forget.
If he’d paid more attention to his wife, and not the woman he could never have, maybe, just maybe, Sabita would still be alive. He might have noticed how oddly his father acted that night. How strange that a duke would pour wine for Harry and Sabita with three footmen in the room.
Instead of watching his father, he’d been gazing at Louisa out of the corner of his eyes.
Now his mind thought of nothing but her again. In one day, Louisa Drake had turned his life upside down.
With her here less than one day, those feelings were returning, and he couldn’t allow that to happen.
He should have known the brash woman would follow him up to the nursery. Now she knew about Charlotte. Now everyone might know. He could not bear to see the pain on his daughter’s face when she saw the scorn of the ton for nothing more than being half-Indian. Those gossipy women in town were all dreadful people, which was part of the reason he had chosen to live at his estate in the North.
He had to keep Charlotte safe from them. And he’d been doing an excellent job of it.
Until Louisa came to call.
“Damnation!”
She had done more than turn his life out of order. She h
ad brought back sensations in him that he had buried. Lust was at the top of the list. He couldn’t take Louisa to his bed as much as he might wish it. She deserved a better man.
“Damn her!”
“What are you damning me for now?”
He turned and found her at the threshold of his study. Once again, tendrils of hair had slipped out of her chignon, framing her heart-shaped face in hues of red, gold, and brown. The breath left his lungs in a rush.
“Why do you think I was speaking of you?”
Her light laugh suffused the room and swirled around him until gooseflesh rose on his arms. Damn her!
“Who else would you be using such indelicate language on?” She stepped into the room and took a seat near the door as if to make a quick escape should she require. “And it’s hardly the first time you have cursed me. Do you remember when we caught Lord Ridgely having...well...in flagrante delicto,” she paused, her cheeks turning pink, “with a woman who was not Lady Ridgely? If I remember you blamed that all on me for wanting to discuss the economic effects the war had had on England in the back of the gardens.”
“I thought you wished to rest.” He stood near the fireplace staring at the flickering flames.
“I daresay we did not finish our conversation after all.”
“Oh?” He moved to a seat closer to her. “And what part did we forget?”
“I wish to learn why you are so unwilling to assist me, Harry. You know me better than any man. And as a man yourself, you know which of the currently available gentlemen would make a good husband for me.”
A husband. She wanted him to find her a husband. He couldn’t do it. The more time he spent with her, those too familiar feelings came back to him. And he couldn’t allow that to happen. He muttered a curse under his breath.
“I did hear you.”
