Free The Problem with Seduction by Emma Locke

Six

     
    “I AM NOT YOUR WIFE!” Elizabeth darted her eyes toward her nursemaid for help, but Mrs. Dalton only gaped at Nicholas in horror.
    “Elizabeth,” Nicholas said, taking three more strides toward her, “give me my son.”
    “He’s not yours!” She half-turned from Nicholas, shielding Oliver with her body. “Leave us alone!”
    “Er…” The innkeeper’s head swiveled from her to Nicholas and back. “The rules posted in the common area specifically disallow disputes of a domestic nature.”
    “Which room is ours?” Nicholas barked over his shoulder. “We’ll take our dispute there.”
    “She don’t have a room—” the innkeeper started, but his wife interrupted, “Number five.”
    “No!” Elizabeth cried, but no one was listening. The innkeeper’s wife rifled through the keys at her belt and turned up a long hunk of metal that she handed to Nicholas. “Ten shillings.”
    Nicholas’s angry eyes never left Elizabeth. Long fingers probed the pocket in his coat. He flipped a guinea at the woman. “Keep the change.”
    “I’ll scream,” Elizabeth threatened. “I’m not his wife. I’m nothing to him.”
    The innkeeper regarded her with pity. “You seem to know him, and the baby does look a bit like—”
    Elizabeth’s fury broke in a single teardrop. It drew a scalding path down her cheek. “He can’t just charge in here and act like he owns us! He’s married ! To someone else !”
    The innkeeper’s wife’s eyes went wide. She elbowed her husband in his ribs. “Now it makes more sense.”
    Yes, it made all the sense in the world, and she’d been stupid to ever think otherwise. She’d never had the possibility of holding all of his heart . He was married. He’d always been married.
    “Look here,” the innkeeper said, shaking himself from a surprised stupor, “you need to keep your private business private. This is a proper establishment. I can’t have folks thinking it’s a—a bawdy house. They won’t come back.”
    “I will not be quiet,” Elizabeth said through clenched teeth. “I will never go willingly with him.”
    “I’m sorry, ma’am, but we can’t have a woman like you here alone,” the innkeeper said, to Nicholas’s evident amusement. “If you could at least pretend to be married…”
    Nicholas twisted his lips into a tight smile. “No hardship at all. Come along, then, Beth. Bring the baby and let’s go upstairs. I’ll even get down on one knee and apologize, if that’s what you want.”
    Elizabeth stood rooted to the floor. What did she do? If she refused to go with him, the innkeeper would toss her out and there would be only her servants to protect her from Nicholas. If she went upstairs with him, she’d be at his mercy anyway. He looked murderous, though she didn’t truly believe he would do her bodily harm.
    This was a man she’d been in love with?
    A rap on the door’s frame drew the attention of everyone in the room. Elizabeth looked, too, and her breath caught. Lord Constantine.
    Nicholas’s weathered face darkened. “Get out.”
    Con relaxed his forearm against the doorcase, clearly making no move to leave. “Why? I’ve only just arrived.”
    “This doesn’t involve you.”
    The innkeeper’s and his wife’s attention bobbed back and forth between the two men. They must have forgotten their desire to maintain the appearance of propriety.
    Con’s overly dramatic wince implied that he couldn’t credit what he’d just heard. “I’d have thought a dispute involving a man’s mistress, his babe and her ex-paramour would naturally be of interest to him.”
    The innkeeper’s wife nodded her head in agreement.
    Elizabeth didn’t know if she should be relieved or suspicious of Lord Constantine’s bald-faced lie. Nevertheless, she was glad to have an ally against her ex-lover, who fairly growled, “I don’t know what game you’re playing at, Alexander, but it’s a dangerous one. Do you know what manner of woman she is? Have you