Page 47 of The Duke In My Bed (The Heirs’ Club of Scoundrels #1)

There is no fettering of authority.

Bray never expected to find himself waiting for Louisa in her drawing room the day after she slapped him, but she’d given him no choice.

She might be right in thinking she was too prim and proper for his rakish ways, but if she thought she could best him in any tug-of-war, she was in for a huge disappointment.

And he was just itching to give it to her.

“Your Grace,” Louisa said, walking slowly into the room and clearly staying on the other side of the settee.

He didn’t know why, but it angered him that she didn’t come fully into the room to confront him but was keeping her distance as if she feared getting too close to him. Or maybe she thought she should stay near the doorway in case she had to quickly escape from him. “This is a surprise,” she said.

Why did she have to look so damn fetching? Why did she have to have her hair falling across her shoulders just the way he liked it? And why did she have to look so frightened? Did she think he might seek retribution for the slap?

He cleared his head of those troubling thoughts and tried to remember the reason he was there. “I bet it is.”

“Well, you are an admitted gambler so I’m sure ‘bet’ is an appropriate word for you to use. I suppose today you came to give me a lesson in sarcasm.”

He noticed that she didn’t meet his eyes when she talked. “Not sarcasm—but, yes, I think a lesson is in order.”

“Well, you will be happy to know I need no further lessons from you. You have shown me all you have to offer. And if you came to see Gwen, I’m afraid you’ve missed her. She and Mrs. Colthrust are at Mrs. Roland’s card party this afternoon and unavailable.”

If she wouldn’t come to him, he would go to her. He walked menacingly around the settee and stood in front of her, near the entrance to the room. His admiration inched up a notch when she stood firm and let him approach without fleeing.

“You know I didn’t come to see Gwen. And I’m not even close to having shown you all I have up my sleeves, but I will. I heard a few minutes ago that you have been to the Court of Chancery to see if you could have me removed as your and your sisters’ guardian.”

“You only heard today?” she asked. “I did that a couple of weeks ago. I can’t believe it took so long for you to find out.”

“Your petition finally made its way up to the Lord Chancellor, and he told me as soon as it was made known to him.”

“You look unsettled by this.”

“Maybe that’s because I am,” he said tightly, thinking what he really wanted to do was wrap her in his arms and kiss her, tell she would never be free of him, and not let her go until she begged him to marry her.

“Why? I told you the first day we met that I was going to Chancery Court to see about having our guardian changed to someone more appropriate for us.”

“You said a lot of things that first afternoon we met, Miss Prim, but I thought you were more intelligent than to actually go through with something like this.”

He watched her bristle. “I have to think about my sisters’ welfare. I needed to know what all my options are so I could make informed decisions as to what is best for them.”

“Options?” He ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t understand your relentless sense that you are responsible for your sisters’ well-being. You are not. I am.”

She stepped toward him. “I beg your pardon. In the past seven years, they have lost their parents and their brother. I’m all they have, and I will take care of them the best I can, and if that includes changing to a new guardian, I will see that it is done.”

“Are you implying I have not been taking adequate care of you and your sisters?”

“Not so far as the things they need.”

“Have any of my wild and reckless ways that you’re always so concerned about ever hurt or damaged any of you? Have I ever hurt them or frightened them?”

“Not yet.”

“Then why in the hell did you go?”

“Because I’ve known from the start you were not capable of being our guardian.

You cringe every time you are around Bonnie and Sybil.

You roughly handled Lillian when you took her out of the carriage.

You seduced me one week, and the next week you are in the courtyard with Gwen, proving to me that I was not wrong to seek help to get away from you. ”

“I admit I cringe at those high-pitched sounds, and I did forcibly take Lillian from the carriage, but I never hurt her. I would not hurt any of your sisters. I am not pursuing Gwen, and she is not interested in me.”

“So now you call her Gwen. Not Miss Gwen.”

“A brother doesn’t call his sister Miss.”

A ripple of surprise threaded through Louisa.

“Are you two arguing?”

Bray and Louisa jerked around and saw Bonnie standing in the doorway.

“No,” Bray said. “It probably sounded that way, but no, we were just having a discussion, isn’t that right, Miss Prim?”

She hesitated, and he knew Miss Prim and Proper was debating whether she ought to lie to her little sister and agree that they weren’t arguing.

She passed on the lie by saying, “Tell me what you want?”

Bonnie walked into the room and past Louisa without answering. She looked up at Bray and said, “I have something for you.”

“You have something?” He looked at her hands. They were empty. He looked at Louisa, and she lightly shook her head.

Bonnie gave Bray a big toothless grin. “I’ve been waiting for you to come back, Your Grace, so I could give it to you. I made it for you all by myself.”

She walked over to the secretary and opened a drawer.

She pulled out a small piece of canvas and walked over and handed it to him.

He took it from her and looked down at it.

It was a child’s painting. There were trees, flowers, and a big yellow sun in a blue sky.

There was a carriage overcrowded with people in the center, and off to the side was a booth with puppets hanging in it.

It took him a moment to realize she had painted a picture of their day in the park for him. His chest and throat constricted.

“It was the best day I’ve ever had,” Bonnie told him.

He looked down at Bonnie’s smiling face, and it dawned on him that he’d never been given a gift.

He didn’t know what to do. All his life, his father had given him anything he wanted.

His mother, too, but neither of them had ever given him a gift.

He had showered gifts of jewelry on his mistresses, gifts of money on doxies, and gifts of flowers and sweets on proper young ladies for years, but no one had ever given anything to him.

He was a marquis the day he was born. Who needed to give him a gift?

“I don’t know what to say.”

“How about thank you,” Louisa said from between clenched teeth.

Bray looked from Bonnie’s disappointed features to Louisa’s angry expression. How could he explain to them what he was feeling? How could he tell them how much this simple act of unselfish kindness meant to him? He had no words for this child’s gift. He felt so undeserving.

“You don’t have to keep it if you don’t want it,” Bonnie said. “It’s all right. It’s not very good anyway.”

“No, no,” he said earnestly. “Of course I want it.” Bray dropped to one knee, held out his arms, and said, “Come here and let me give you a hug.”

The little girl flew into his embrace.

Bray closed his arms around her slight frame. He wanted to hug her tightly, but she was so small in his arms, he was afraid of hurting her if he squeezed too hard. Her spindly arms went around his neck and pulled him close. She was warm and smelled like soap and sweetness.

Is this what a sister feels like?

The same feelings of protectiveness that he’d felt when he saw Gwen in the courtyard stirred inside him now.

At one time or another, he’d held a woman of just about every size, shape, and age, but he’d never held a child in his arms. That strong protective instinct swelled to overflowing again, and his resolve strengthened.

Bonnie had been given to him to care for.

This little girl had given him his first gift, and she had made it for him. No one was taking her from him.

“Thank you, Bonnie,” he said. “Thank you. It’s the most beautiful painting I’ve ever seen. I’ll always treasure it.”

From over Bonnie’s shoulder, he looked up at Louisa.

For the fourth time since he’d known her, she had tears in her eyes.

Tears that once again he had caused. He didn’t blame her for being angry with him.

There was a lot he didn’t know about doing the right thing, about being part of a happy, loving family.

But there was one thing he did know.

“I am her guardian, Louisa.” He turned Bonnie loose and rose to his feet. “You don’t have to like it and you don’t have to like me, but I will be your sisters’ guardian. I will be responsible for them. You will not change that.”

Gwen’s words about love invaded his thoughts. Is that why Louisa had refused to marry him? Was she waiting for him to confess that he loved her? Maybe he did love her. He didn’t know.

“I’m not going to lie to you, Louisa, and tell you I love you.

All I know is that I feel differently about you than any other woman.

I think about you, I want you, I want to be with you, but I don’t know that it’s love.

” He took a step closer to her. “I know I told you that you would have to ask me to marry you, but now this time I am asking you properly to marry me.”

Her eyes searched his face. He knew she had feelings for him, too, but did she like him enough to marry him?

“How can I marry you when my sisters make you flinch and swear when they laugh, or cry, or play? Bray, you don’t even know how to say thank you to a little girl.”

She was right—he didn’t—but he was capable of learning.

“I can’t subject them to you or you to them,” she continued. “I’m afraid all of you will end up hating me. You don’t have the patience to live with them day after day, and I refuse to live without them.”

“I have had the patience of Job concerning the girls and this household,” he ground out fiercely.

He couldn’t believe she’d refused him again.

Didn’t she know what it cost him to ask her to marry him after he’d told her that it was she who would have to ask him the next time?

He had never allowed himself to be that vulnerable to anyone.

Didn’t his capitulation on that tell her anything about the way he felt about her?

“I’ll marry you,” Bonnie said. The small voice penetrated Bray’s thoughts.

He looked down at Bonnie, and his throat tightened again when he saw how sincere she was. His feelings for her overwhelmed him, and he smiled at her. “I would take you up on that, missy, if you were a little older.”

“I’m older,” Sybil said, appearing from around the doorway. “I’ll marry you.”

He smiled at Sybil, too. “You aren’t old enough to marry, either, young lady, but when you and Bonnie are, I’ll be around to help you pick the perfect gentleman to make you happy.”

“I want him to be just like you,” Bonnie said, smiling back at him with her missing teeth.

“Bray, I—”

“You’ve said enough, Louisa,” he said, knowing that trying to learn how to love her had been his greatest challenge and it looked like he had failed miserably at it. “You’ve said all I need to hear.”

Bray rolled the painting and stuck it in his pocket. He reached out both his hands and said, “Sybil, Bonnie, come walk with me to the door.”

They took hold of his hands, and the three of them walked out.