Her mouth dropped open. Pretty, lush mouth. Not a spinster’s mouth at all, and that bothered him for reasons he didn’t care to examine. Lady Octavia Alexander had no desire to marry. All she wanted was to be at the helm of a gossip journal. Hers, of course. When she had initially approached him with the idea, he had laughed. And then he had kissed her senseless. And then she had been the one laughing.
The bloody nuisance.
“Your children,” she repeated at last.
“Mine,” he said again, willing her to go away.
To go far, far away.
To the Continent, in fact.
Or mayhap the Americas.
Out of his reach, wherever that took her.
Was the moon a possibility?
“You are a father.”
He did not miss the manner in which she emphasized the you, as if the very notion of his paternal state were blasphemy.
“Aye,” he gritted, frowning at her. “Are you daft, woman? I’ve just said so.”
He was being rude, and he knew it. Also, he did not care.
“Don’t say daft,” he added as an afterthought, addressing his wide-eyed daughters.
“I would never,” Anne breathed. “It would be unkind, Papa.”
Papa. His cold, dead heart never failed to warm at the title, and curse him if he knew why. He’d certainly not wanted spawn. Still didn’t want them. Not particularly. They were trouble, these two.
Hence his need for a wife.
Yesterday.
A plain, appreciative woman without expectations who was willing to guide his children and turn a blind eye to whatever the hell he wished to do that did not involve her.
Lady Octavia was grinning at him like the cat who’d got into the cream. “Yes, Papa. It is most unkind to call a lady who has only ever been polite to you daft.”
“Do not call me Papa,” he growled at her, stalking forward.
Toward her.
Pulled.
Always, always pulled. This woman was vexing and she was intoxicating, and he wanted more of her, and he wanted her to go away and never to return.
But mostly, he wanted more of her.
“Papa?” asked one of his daughters, and he was ashamed to admit that with them at his back, he could not distinguish one voice from the next.
He paused, stopping just short of Lady Octavia. “What is it now, daughter?” he asked, casting a glance over his shoulder.
“I want a cat,” Anne said.
“I want a dog,” Elizabeth announced.
“Then you shall have both,” Lady Octavia proclaimed, her voice cheerful, benevolent.