LITMIR.BIZ

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and erotic as he remembered, and he now regretted that Milos knew the pleasure of her soft feminine curves against his body. She was a Halliday.

      Nicholas didn’t approve of her or trust her but he was responsible for protecting her and seeing to her well-being and that of her son. Like it or not, Stephen’s obligations were now his. His chest constricted at the reminder that this woman’s welfare belonged to him.

      He didn’t want the responsibility of meeting her needs.

      He didn’t trust her.

       Or was it himself he didn’t trust?

      He had no choice.

      Aware of the slick cool fabric of her dress on his wrists, the mysterious rustle of petticoats beneath, and the jolting beat of his heart against her breast, he climbed the stairs.

      He entered her suite and started for a chair.

      “The bed, please,” she said with a fatigued wave.

      “You are ill.” He leaned forward and deposited her against the bolster of pillows.

      “No. Just tired.”

      Nicholas reached for her hat, remembered it would be anchored somewhere, and instead flicked the veil back revealing her colorless face. Those solemn blue eyes met his gaze in surprise and…embarrassment? Or was it shame?

      “This day was difficult,” she said softly.

      He moved to stand at the end of the bed.

      A dark smudge beneath each eye proved either her words or her skill with cosmetics. He fought against viewing her the way she wanted him to: fragile and painfully in need of care and guardianship. The vulnerable person he saw here contrasted vividly with the hard-edged women who had been his brother’s preference.

      But he wasn’t about to be fooled. He had his mother and the business his father had built from the ground up to protect.

      William’s cries carried up the stairs and along the corridor. Claire peeled off her gloves.

      “I’ll go for your chair,” he said.

      “Just leave it in the hall, please. I think I’ll rest here for a while.”

      He nodded in consent.

      Mrs. Trent bustled through the doorway with the squalling baby. Claire unpinned her hat, and a long strand of her hair caught and fell to her shoulder. She tossed the hat aside and watched the older woman. The governess carried him to his crib.

      Nicholas followed and observed as she changed the baby’s wet clothing. William was a sturdy little fellow with fair hair that looked as though it would be feather-soft to touch. He had smooth pink cheeks that invited Nicholas’s fingertips to test the softness, but he kept his hand firmly at his side.

      The baby’s flailing chubby legs testified to his health and appetite. He was a child anyone would be proud of. A little fellow who would be hard to resist if Nicholas didn’t know better. Yet he still wasn’t convinced this was really Stephen’s son. He studied the child, seeking something to significantly identify him as a Halliday.

      The reports he’d received on Claire testified that Stephen had not been the first man with whom she’d kept company. She’d worked as a seamstress, but spent her evenings among the theater crowd. That was where, after brief relationships with at least three other men, she’d met Stephen.

      A baby looked like a baby, Nicholas concluded. How could one compare those tiny features to an adult’s? It was impossible. His mother would be devastated if this were not Stephen’s child.

      Mrs. Trent finished her task perfunctorily, rewrapped William and gave Nicholas a questioning glance.

      “Give him to his mother,” he said.

      She carried the child to Claire. Claire looked up at Nicholas, and embarrassment gave her cheeks the first color he’d seen on her face that day.

      Feeling very much like an intruder, he excused himself and quit the room. For a woman who’d known her share of men, she certainly played the demure and modest young mother to her fullest advantage. And why shouldn’t she? As Stephen’s widow, she would never have to work another day in her life…or play another man’s mistress.

      Mrs. Claire Halliday had it made.

      Realizing he’d left his gloves behind, he stepped back to the partially open door, paused with his hand on the knob and peered around the mahogany panel.

      Claire reclined against the stark white pillows, the baby suckling her full, ivory breast. The expression on her face was a lifetime away from Mrs. Trent’s when she held the baby. Claire studied her son, tenderness and adoration reflected on her lovely face. Nicholas wasn’t imagining the love shining from her eyes.

      Okay, she loved the boy. She was his mother, so that didn’t prove anything. In fact she may have been so desperate to give him a father that she’d used Stephen to that end.

      Nicholas had gone through the box of Stephen’s papers that had been forwarded, and if he remembered the date of their wedding correctly, it had been only about seven months ago.

      William’s birth could have been brought on prematurely by the accident, however. He would probably never know for certain.

      Nicholas observed mother and son a few minutes longer, coming to a conclusion. He wouldn’t know for sure if this were Stephen’s child—unless he got Claire to tell him. She was the one with the knowledge. His job was to wrest it from her.

      By any means possible.

       Chapter Four

      Throughout dinner that evening, Nicholas sullenly speculated on the men Claire had consorted with. Was it something she enjoyed? Or simply a means to snare a fortune?

      She wore another of her new black dresses, this one for evening wear, yet still properly modest. Against his will, he wondered what she looked like in russet or teal, or a shade of green. Even pastels would complement her multicolored gold- and wheat-toned hair and pink cream skin.

      It was no secret why Stephen had fallen for her. Her seeming grace and delicate beauty had snared him. Stephen had appreciated her soft and flawless skin, the full ripe plushness of her lips, just as any man would. Perhaps those springy curls against her neck had captured his attention from the moment he’d met her and he’d yearned to place his lips there.

      Beneath his scrutiny, a blush touched her cheekbones. Did her skin beneath the black dress pinken, too?

      A highly inappropriate image of his brother touching her, kissing her, making love to her, burned an indelible impression in Nicholas’s mind and seared his body with unwelcome awareness.

      Shocked at his presumptive and reproachful thoughts, he dropped his fork on his plate and excused himself.

      Sarah glanced at Leda, who appeared too exhausted to notice her son’s odd behavior. “You really must get some rest,” she said to the woman. “This was an exhausting day for all of us.”

      “Yes.” Leda leaned back and gestured for the maid to remove her plate. “I’m grateful it’s over now. I’m also grateful that I had you to help me through it.”

      “It was my pleasure,” Sarah said honestly. Doing anything she could to lessen Leda’s pain assuaged her conscience.

      “I believe I’ll go to my room,” Leda said after a few minutes of companionable silence. “Will you ask Mrs. Pratt to bring me wine later? That will help me sleep.”

      “Certainly. Sleep well.”

      Leda left her alone in the dining room.

      “Anything else I can get for you, Mrs. Halliday?” the servant asked from her side.

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