To Pleasure a Duke (The Husband Hunters Club 3)

She looked up at him, her green eyes wide and startled, as if she’d forgotten he was here. “His name is Georgie and he has no one, Your Grace. His family are all dead and he has been left here in the hope that someone will take him in. They give him some work, but he sleeps in the barn and makes do with scraps of food.”

If he wasn’t so agitated, Sinclair might have retorted that this sounded like a melodrama. But such cruel things did happen in his England, and he could see that Eugenie was deeply affected by the child’s predicament.

He searched her face and tried not to groan. A look of determination had firmed her chin, giving it a defiant tilt, and she didn’t have to tell him what she was thinking. The child was in need and Eugenie was not one to abandon anyone or anything in need. Look at all the trouble she’d caused herself—and him—over her brother Terry! Sinclair knew that arguing with her would waste time and he really didn’t have time to waste.

“Bring him in and I’ll get the landlord to feed him,” he ordered brusquely, and turned his back on her, knowing that this time she would follow.

He could hear her murmuring encouragement to the boy.

An unbidden thought crept into his head. Eugenie would never refuse her own child the joy of painting because it was “not done.” She would love him for what he was and not what others might think of him.

Angrily he shook his head and told himself he had no time for such nonsensical notions. If Eugenie was in charge of the world then there would be complete anarchy! Besides, he had Annabelle to find and bring home. He needed to focus on his task and forget about Eugenie Belmont.

The suspicious-eyed landlord turned into an obsequious fellow when he discovered who Sinclair was, at the same time giving the child a frown as if he were a stray cur. He even waved a hand at the boy, as if to shoo him away. It was only when Sinclair announced he would pay for the boy’s food and lodgings that his manner changed.

“Poor little lad,” he said, patting the boy’s head. “But we can’t feed every orphan who comes along, can we? We have to make a living. You understand that, don’t you, sir?”

The child ducked away from the hand, not taken in by the landlord’s sudden change of manner.

“Perhaps you have some clothes that would fit him?” Eugenie gave the landlord a look there was no arguing with. “And some shoes. He cannot go about with bare feet in this weather.”

“He’s used to it,” the man muttered, and then made a hasty retreat as Eugenie’s eyes narrowed.

Sinclair began to remove his coat and hat, both sodden, while Eugenie settled the child down in a chair she’d drawn nearer to the fire before kneeling down once more, this time to inspect his feet. The boy didn’t object, just stared at her as if she was something completely unknown to him—a gentlewoman who cared about his predicament and was willing to do more than hand him a coin as she walked away.

Perhaps, Sinclair thought, the two of them were both coming to terms with the shocked realization. Eugenie had probably never seen a child like this, living all her life in the village apart from her stay at the finishing school, and the child had probably never known a respectable young woman who was willing to fight for him.

“You are as wet as he is,” Sinclair reminded her almost gently. “Take off your cloak at least, so it can be dried before we resume our journey.”

She began to fumble with the ties, but her fingers were too numb to manage the knot. Sinclair brushed her hands away, bending to unpick the tangle with a frown. He bent even lower, his voice quiet in her ear, the words for her alone.

“You cannot save every abandoned child.”

She looked up at him, her eyes clear green, her damp curls clinging to her temples and water dripping down her neck. “But I can save this one,” she replied, and she didn’t bother to whisper.

Sinclair finally released the ties and her cloak fell from her shoulders. Beneath it, Eugenie’s dress was wet, clinging to her body so that he could see the rounded shape of her breasts. He tried not to groan. A moment before he’d been in awe of her goodness and now he was lusting after her.

Clearly he was suffering from some kind of mental illness.

He busied himself laying her cloak out, in an effort to distract his disordered thoughts, while Eugenie went back to her inspection of the boy’s feet.

“Is he really a duke?” the child said with a note of cynicism that belonged to someone much older.

“Yes, he is.”

“What’s his name then?”

“He is the Duke of Somerton, but my brother Jack calls him Somerton.”

“Are you his duchess then?”

“No, I’m not,” Eugenie said, with a nervous glance in Sinclair’s direction he decided it best not to see.

“Are you his baggage then?”

A pause. Sinclair gave a bark of laughter. She probably didn’t know what a baggage was, or was he once more underestimating her?

“No, I’m not his—his baggage, either. We are just traveling together, Georgie.”