Free The Problem with Seduction by Emma Locke Page B

several mornings ago. It was something in her eyes as she’d looked at him before she’d darted upstairs to see to her babe. Sadness, he’d thought then. Maybe a touch of anger. Since he’d just said some beastly things to her, he’d assumed he’d been the cause of it.
    Now he suspected there was more going on. Finn had been following her. Constantine could only guess how long. He was an ancillary party to all of this, and really, he shouldn’t be here now. If he’d kept on past the door instead of stopping to assist, he might even have remained uninvolved. Hell, if he’d stayed home instead of riding out here, he wouldn’t even know Finn was threatening her. Then he’d be pleasantly clueless, and she’d be frightened out of her mind.
    He was glad now that he’d gone back to her townhouse a day later to apologize for the unconscionable ass he’d been to her. The house had been all but vacant, which he hadn’t expected. With a few questions, he’d learned the small number of servants remaining stayed on with the lease, while she’d taken her personal servants to Shropshire. It was then that he’d become suspicious. That suspicion had turned embarrassingly selfish when he’d realized she’d taken his ability to make things right along with her, for if she wasn’t in London where he was, he couldn’t possibly perform due diligence as a father. Then what would he tell his family?
    He’d decided on the return walk to Merritt House that he must fetch her back. If it was his fault she’d left, if he’d offended her somehow with his proposal, he had to make things right. And if it wasn’t, well, he couldn’t have her stealing away in the middle of the night, or whenever it was she’d left, without leaving him a forwarding direction. He had a duty to her son.
    And so it was the baby he’d ultimately gone after, not the mother, although the woman standing before him now turned him inside out as she raised those lovely hazel eyes to his. Her inner strength appealed to him in a way he hadn’t suspected would attract him.
    “Thank you.” Her voice trembled, exposing a tiny swath of vulnerability he immediately wanted to shield. “I fear what might have happened if you hadn’t come.”
    He shifted uncomfortably. He hadn’t meant to be a hero, even if he did rather like the way she was looking at him. “’Twas nothing.”
    A portly fellow who must be the proprietor exhaled loudly and turned toward him. “Well, I’m glad we resolved that. Can’t be having brawls in my private rooms. Now, do you want to take number five, my lord, or do you prefer larger accommodations? The other gent paid up, so you may as well make use of the bed. I think the poor nurse could use a lie-down.”
    If he meant the slight-looking young woman in the corner whose face hadn’t recovered its color, he had a point. She looked ready to swoon. Elizabeth wasn’t faring much better. She collapsed into a chair and hugged her baby to her shoulder. “We won’t be moving on tonight.”
    Con had a feeling his pound of flesh was in for far more than the devil’s bargain he’d initially signed. How the hell had he become embroiled in such a mess? “There you have it, then. We’ll take another room for the nurse and a place for the servants. Have the trunks been fetched from the carriages?”
    The proprietor smiled, revealing empty spaces where teeth had once been. “We’ll be right on it, my lord, and a stall for your horse, too. I’ll start a bill.”
    A mistress and her massive entourage required money. Of course.
    He would worry about it later. After the proprietor and his wife left with pound notes dancing in their eyes, Con went to Elizabeth. “Are you hurt?”
    She shook her head. Her gaze fell to the baby drooling onto her shoulder. “We’re fine.”
    The nursemaid approached shyly. “Let me take him, madam. Else I fear you won’t have the strength to rise.”
    Elizabeth appeared to consider resisting before giving