Page 32 of The Rogue’s Runaway Bride (Rogue of Her Own #3)

“M r. Mason, will you be heading directly to the Rogue’s Lair?”

“Not tonight,” Jon replied to his assistant, Alton Bennett. “I expect to venture out later, after I attend to matters on the home front.”

Bennett’s forehead furrowed, but he kept his thoughts to himself.

The man’s reaction wasn’t surprising. Not really.

In the not-too-distant past, Jon had rarely felt a need to head home before midnight.

He’d gone about his days—and nights—with very little inclination to spend his waking hours rambling about his house, essentially alone.

That was, of course, before Carrie had come to stay.

Since the child had been rather unceremoniously shuttled into his care, his habits had changed.

He now made a point to return home most nights, if only to verify the child’s wellbeing with her governess before he headed to the tavern for the evening.

An image of the girl’s wide smile flashed through his thoughts.

Truth be told, he had come to look forward to the child’s enthusiastic greeting.

By thunder, he’d even begun to enjoy her lively accountings of the dog’s mischief, especially as it related to the pup’s ability to leave Carrie’s dour governess in a stir.

Recently, Carrie had often made plaintive requests for a bedtime story.

In all honesty, he could not puzzle out why the little girl wanted to hear the tales in his gruff voice, but it seemed to matter to her.

And so, he’d actually delayed his departure to read from a book of fairy tales, of all the blasted things, after the child had been tucked into bed.

He couldn’t deny the heart of the matter. Since Carrie’s unexpected arrival at his doorstep, he’d grown quite fond of the child. When she was happy, the light in her blue eyes might’ve buoyed the spirits of Scrooge himself, while the sadness he observed from time to time was like a fist to his gut.

In those moments, a dreaded sense of uncertainty tended to fall over him.

In his life, he was the one people turned to when they needed a problem solved.

From major negotiations that had gone off the rails to the minor crises within his family’s enterprises that arose on a near-daily basis, he was the one that his father—and so many others—counted on.

He was the one who found the solution, the one who came up with a way to make the issue go away.

But a sweet-faced moppet’s tears could leave him utterly confounded.

Truth be told, he didn’t know the first thing about raising a little girl.

Or a little boy, for that matter. It wasn’t as if he could reflect back on his own childhood.

It had been a bloody long time since his boyhood, and God knew he would not wish to raise a child with the same philosophy, for lack of a better word, that had guided his father.

Over the years, he’d rarely spent time around children.

One of his partners at the Rogue’s Lair was father to a tot and a babe in arms, and his sister was expecting the birth of a child soon after she and her husband returned from their journey.

He’d never thought to have any interest in being a father, beyond the duty to carry on the family name.

But that had changed with Carrie’s arrival.

He’d quickly come to care for the girl with her sweet, impish grin.

The wee lass, as Mrs. Gilroy had dubbed her, had quickly mastered the art of twisting him around her little finger.

She was an adorable sprite, and though he wouldn’t admit it to Mrs. Gilroy, the child’s earnest affection for the wild little dog and cantankerous cat who were currently in residence rendered the bit of chaos they’d brought with them worthwhile.

Carrie had taken an instant liking to Belle. No mystery there. When Belle looked at the girl, her rosy smile was utterly genuine, as real as the kindness in her heart.

“Is there anything else for today’s agenda?” Bennett went on, ever efficient.

Shuffling through papers on his desk, Jon offered the man a perfunctory dismissal for the day and prepared to take his own leave.

As he donned his overcoat, an image of Belle’s smile flickered through his thoughts, bringing with it a peculiar sense of anticipation.

He didn’t want to admit it, even to himself, but the idea of Belle in his home—in his life—appealed to him far more than it should. Certainly far more than was prudent.

An hour later, as he walked through the door of his house, he was greeted once again by the sound of Carrie’s high, not-quite-on-pitch voice, singing a tune about Mary and her lamb.

This time, the song was coming from the kitchen.

And the flawless notes of a soprano accompanied the child.

Was that Belle? He’d known she could carry a tune, but he’d never heard the true beauty of her voice.

Intrigued, he followed the sound, confirming his suspicion that the lyrical notes were the product of Belle’s voice. She sat at the kitchen table with Mrs. Gilroy and Carrie, cutting cookies out of dough while they happily recited the nursery rhyme verse set to music.

“Biscuits?” He decided to play the rascal. “I think I’ll have a taste.”

“Don’t,” Carrie said as he reached to take a small bit of the dough. “You won’t like it.”

“And why won’t I?” He took a better look at the dough, seeing that it looked nothing like Mrs. Gilroy’s shortbread.

“It’s not for eating, Cousin Jon,” she said with a tone of authority. “It’s for art.”

Art ? He turned his attention to Belle, who at the moment was rolling out a bit of the mixture.

Her cheek bore a streak of what looked like flour, while her chin was dotted with a smudge of the stuff.

In all his days, he’d never met a dollar princess who wasn’t too preoccupied with her appearance to ever be seen with a dusting of flour on her face. How bloody appealing.

“You should listen to her,” Belle said lightly. “She knows what she’s talking about.”

“Or ye’ll get a mouthful of salt. And flour,” Mrs. Gilroy added.

“Might I ask what the three of you are doing?”

Belle slanted him a glance. “As Carrie said, we are making art.”

“Michelangelo might well disagree.”

“If I were a betting woman, I would wager that if he were alive today, he would agree that the three of us are engaged in artistic creation.” Belle accented her words with a saucy little smile.

“I shall alert the Louvre.”

“Would you like to make an ornament?” Carrie offered him a cookie cutter shaped like a star. “It’s easy. You’ll see.”

“She’s right,” Belle said. “Will you show him how you do it, Carrie?”

“Of course I will.” The girl sounded rather formal. “This is how I make my ornaments.”

Carrie proceeded to demonstrate how she cut the design, then pressed her small fingers into the dough. “Poky-dots,” she declared proudly.

“Ah, polka dots,” he said. “Very creative.”

“Will you try?” the child urged.

“My fingers are too large to make the dots,” he said, finding a logical excuse.

Carrie was not convinced. “Just one dot.”

“Yes, Jon,” Belle said, her eyes teasing. “Shall we see how artistic you can be?”

“I do not possess a creative bone in my body,” he countered, but unable to resist Carrie’s encouragement, he chose a bell-shaped mold and pressed his thumbprint into the trimmed shape.

“We will paint them tomorrow,” Carrie went on. “I think yours should be blue.”

“An excellent choice,” he agreed. “I’m counting on you to paint it for me.”

“I will make it pretty,” she said proudly. “I promise.”

“I have full confidence that it will be,” he said, ruffling her chestnut-hued hair.

Belle looked as if she were biting back a chuckle at his momentary awkwardness. “And we will have a grand time coloring our ornaments.”

“This is fun,” the child agreed with bright-eyed enthusiasm.

Watching Carrie manipulate the dough with her small, slightly clumsy fingers, he smiled to himself. The ability to create something of beauty—even the unsophisticated beauty to be found in a child’s fledgling efforts—brought her such joy.

In his boyhood, he’d experienced the joys of simple pastimes.

He’d enjoyed games and roughhousing and rollicking treks through the woods surrounding his family’s country estate.

For a time, he’d lived without a care in the world, other than whether or not he would best his cousins in footraces and their boyish scrapes.

But then, days before his ninth birthday, everything had changed.

His existence became focused on his studies and his father’s near-daily talks on the value of duty.

Of responsibility. Of the need to prepare to one day lead the family business.

Even so, he’d managed to wedge moments of reckless adventures and camaraderie between the lessons and lectures, especially during those summers when his childhood friend, Finn Caldwell, would come to visit.

Thankfully, his mother, a free-spirited pixie of a woman who was evidently the only person on the planet who possessed the ability to soften his father’s steely edges, saw to it that he had the opportunity to cultivate the friendship that endured to this very day.

Now, as he watched Carrie, he could not help but marvel at the contrast between the child he saw today, happily engaged in an activity which allowed her young mind to flourish, and the descriptions Miss Pritchard had offered of the girl.

The governess had painted Carrie as willful and disobedient, perhaps even incorrigible.

But that was then. That was before Belle had darted into the Rogue’s Lair and back into his life. Since she’d first stepped through the doors of his home, she’d drawn Carrie to her with her caring heart. He could see the way Belle’s kindness had brightened the child’s smile.