Free Patricia Rice by All a Woman Wants Page A

“And it
appears as if you have been appointed. The brick will have to be wrapped
carefully or it will burn both of you.”
    He shrugged. “Wrap Bitsy in blankets. I’ll not die
of a little heat.” He looked up as James raced into the nursery with an
armload of bricks. “You’ll dirty your pretty gloves,” Mac said dryly.
    James pursed his lips, glanced at Beatrice, then knelt on the hearth and arranged the bricks under the grate to heat.
    Mr. Warwick stared up at a china doll garbed in ruffles and lace sitting on a wall shelf. “You’re an only child?” he inquired.
    “My mother died when I was less than two, and Papa never remarried.”
    He grunted and turned to watch the bricks heat. “Had a governess, did you?”
    Exhausted, Bitsy sobbed a hiccup on Beatrice’s
shoulder and sucked harder on her fist. She suspected Mr. Warwick felt
as uncomfortable as Bitsy, which was why he was asking awkward
questions. It was rather nice understanding why someone did something.
    “No, just Nanny Marrow until I was ten. Papa said
I’d learned all a girl needed to know.” She would have liked to have
learned more, but she’d been much too shy to attend boarding school.
She’d towered over the other children from her earliest years.
    Mr. Warwick’s grunt sounded disapproving, but he
said nothing as he used the tongs to remove a brick and wrap it in one
of Bitsy’s cloths. “Let’s give it a try.” He reached for his daughter.
    Bitsy started to wail when he moved her, then settled down with another sob against the heated comfort of his shoulder.
    Mary rushed in with a wine bucket half-filled with
ice chips. “They’ll melt quickly, this small,” she said breathlessly,
“so I did not make so many.”
    Mr. Warwick attempted to arrange child and brick and
free a hand to reach the ice, but Bitsy squirmed and complained at the
shift. He glanced helplessly at Beatrice.
    He wouldn’t ask. She could see he wouldn’t. He’d
bend himself into a knot trying to do it all before he asked for help.
She ought to let him. She ought to sweep out of the room and leave him
to the child he’d so obviously ignored for too long.
    He didn’t strike her as the type who would neglect
his children. Rather than puzzle over the enigma of her guest, Beatrice
took the bucket. “Thank you, Mary. Why don’t you catch some rest now?
And you too, James. I think you’ve done all you can.”
    At her tone of dismissal, they backed uncertainly
toward the door, no doubt wary of leaving her alone with a stranger.
Surely that was a foolish concern under the circumstances. Turning her
back on them, she held a piece of ice between Bitsy’s gums. The infant
eagerly chewed on it, and for the first time that evening, she quieted.
    “Thank God,” Mr. Warwick muttered.
    Beatrice echoed the sentiment as the child closed her eyes and relaxed.
    Without the cries of a distressed child to intrude,
the intimacy of her closeness to this overwhelming man struck her. The
warm approval in his eyes as he looked on her almost buckled her knees.
    She had handled a situation that he couldn’t, and he appreciated it. Her toes might never touch the ground again.

Seven
    “Giyyap!”
    Gremlin hands jerked at the hairs of Mac’s aching
head, and a deadweight settled on his shoulders. Moaning, he tried to
drag himself awake. Every bone in his body protested as he shifted
position. The gremlin emitted a high-pitched squeal that seared his
nerves.
    “Buddy.” He groaned, recognizing the sound now that he was awake. Where was his keeper?
    Eyes still clenched against the pounding pain of a
hangover, he groped behind his neck to grab the brat, hauling him down
from his perch and into his lap. He seemed to be sitting upright, at
least.
    At the sound of a feminine moan, Mac pried open one
eye. He didn’t think he’d been in a state last night to induce moans of
pleasure.
    A mass of crumpled petticoats spilled over the
narrow cot beside