“A color cannot be cheerful, dearest,” Auntie Agatha dismissed. “Besides, cheer is a dreadful state, best reserved for the simple-minded and babes. The rest of us know what we are in for. Wear the jaconet muslin trimmed with Vandyke lace, if you please. It is most becoming.”
A rare compliment from Auntie Agatha.
“And a lady who is desperate must be as fetching as possible,” her aunt added.
As usual, the compliment was wrapped in an insult. Felicity ought to have known.
“Am I not fetching enough?” she asked. “I had no end of suitors in London.”
“Two seasons, and you turned them all away. Even a diamond of the first water must choose from her beaux, lest they start defecting. Do you think the farmer wishes to chase about the cow for two years before he can milk it?” Auntie Agatha asked, her tone queenly.
“Forgive me for thinking myself the better of a milk cow,” she said.
“Never mind the analogy, dearest.” Auntie Agatha thumped her cane on the floor. “Reward. That is the promise you have to dangle before all gentlemen. Marriage to you is a great reward, and you must show them it is such. If you wait too long, you shall end up a spinster, and goodness knows what shall become of your sisters. It is your duty to them, to your father, to yourself, to make a good match.”
A good match.
Felicity sighed aloud this time rather than only in her mind. She was reluctant to ask what Auntie Agatha’s notion of a good match would be. For some reason, Blade Winter rose in her mind. Auntie Agatha would be properly horrified to discover she had consorted with such a man. As it was, she had been scarcely able to conceal her disgust over the common stock, as she had phrased it, of some of the guests in attendance.
You will not know them, she had added for good measure. Speak only to the gentlemen in attendance.
By which she had meant the lords, of course.
But that was the trouble. Felicity wanted to know the common stock. Or rather, one of them in particular.
“Lord Foy is in attendance,” Auntie Agatha went on. “And there is Lord Denton as well. Excellent prospects, the both of them, despite the latter having been jilted by the Duke of Linross’s daughter. Flighty chits, the both of them.”
Felicity scratched Miss Wilhelmina’s soft head, her aunt’s recommendations droning on.
His half sister, Lady Aylesford, held the infant toward him as if conveying to him the world’s greatest prize. If there was one creature Blade disliked more than cats, it was babies.
He stared at the chubby cheeks, the soft skin, the white cap and swaddling. “No.”
“Go on,” she said. “Lady Gwendolyn shan’t bite. You are her uncle, you know.”
Christ, he supposed he was. As he stared at the miniature person still being offered, something unexpected slid through him.
Emotion?
Tenderness?
“Uncle,” he said stupidly.
The child looked delicate. He was a rough man. His hands were only accustomed to gentleness when skimming the lush curves of a woman’s body. Did not Lady Aylesford realize he could drop the thing?
“Yes, Uncle Blade,” said his spoony half sister, smiling at him. “Hold her, if you please. Though you must tell me your real Christian name. No one is called Blade.”
“I am.” He made no move to accept the child, but he had to admit Lady Gwendolyn was rather…sweet-looking. She cooed and made a sound of contentment, then stuffed her fist into her little mouth and sucked on it.
“I refuse to believe it,” Lady Aylesford continued if he had not spoken. “Do hold out your arms, you silly man. Settle yourself on the settee like so. Excellent.”
Blade found himself seated on the furniture in question, arms positioned to welcome the babe. Suddenly, his niece—half niece—was a soft, warm weight in his arms.
It was…astonishing.
Her blue eyes blinked up at him, and she grinned.
“Uncle Blade shall do fine.”
“Oh, she is in love with you already,” Lady Aylesford said, smiling. “You need not have fretted so about holding her. William?”
He realized she was attempting to guess his Christian name. “Blade.”
“Peter?”
“Blade.”
Her nose wrinkled. “John?”
He sighed. Little Lady Gwendolyn grabbed his coat in her fist and tugged. “Blade, Lady Aylesford.”
“Oh, do cease being formal with me,” she said, with a dismissive wave of her hand. “You must call me Grace.”
The woman was stubborn; he admired that. When Genevieve arrived, he had no doubt the two of them would get on quite well.
“Grace,” he allowed. Damn him if these Winter half siblings were not nearly as bad as he had supposed them to be.
He liked them, in fact.
Strange, that.
The babe in his arms added a loud sound as if she were agreeing with him. He smiled at her, thinking children were better than cats.
“Would you mind holding her?” Grace asked. “I will return in but a moment.”
“Here now,” he grumbled. “I am not the child’s nurse.”
“Of course you are not. But uncles must hold their nieces.”
They must? Since when?
She was already on her way out the door of the private family salon, leaving Blade alone with Lady Gwendolyn.
“This is a hell of a thing,” he told the infant. “I don’t like babes.”
She cooed.
“I reckon you aren’t bad,” he allowed.
Lady Gwendolyn made a new noise, one that sounded rather ecstatic.
He made a sound back at her, and she babbled. For a time, he sat there, the babe in his arms, exchanging noises with her, feeling quite proud of himself whenever Lady Gwendolyn appeared especially enthused. At length, the door to the salon swung open, and he glanced up, expecting to find Grace returning for the child.
Instead, it was none other than the brunette beauty who had been haunting his thoughts ever since he had spotted her wriggling arse in his chamber.
“Lady Felicity,” he greeted her, surprised. “I would stand, but I am…”
Hell, he was afraid to move. Lady Gwendolyn was a precious, trusting bundle.
“I see.” She hesitated at the threshold. “Forgive me for the interruption, sir. I was searching for my aunt.”
He had seen her aunt last night at dinner—a typical society matron who had cast him a look of frigid disapproval. Although Blade had been seated far from Lady Felicity and her chaperone, his eyes had strayed more than once in their direction. In Lady Felicity’s direction specifically.
“Do I look as if I harbor aunts to you?” he asked drily, raising a brow.
Her pink tongue flitted over her full lips. “No, but nor do you look as if you harbor infants.”
She was not wrong. This was dashed unusual. But for now, he could not stop thinking about her lips. About kissing her. He had been tempted when they had collided the day before. So bloody tempted.
And he was tempted now.
Lady Gwendolyn made another happy sound, reminding him he was not in any condition to kiss anyone. Which was just as well, because he had been sent to Oxfordshire to avoid trouble, damn it. Not create more.
“I don’t,” he agreed. “This is my…niece.”