Celeste Bradley Scoundrel In My Dreams

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.“I repeat, I don’t have children, Jack.Despite my husband’s initial hopes, I’d never ruin my figure so.” She shrugged.“It isn’t so difficult to manage.A few herbs, a bit of this and that.”Frowning, Jack sent an assessing glance over that figure.He was no expert, but Amaryllis looked exactly the same as she had four years ago.Possibly slimmer.She was watching him look at her.“Do you like what you see, handsome Jack?” She ran a fingertip along her neckline, ending at her cleavage.“You used to like it quite a bit, if I recall.”“I don’t recall, actually.” He narrowed his eyes.“Amaryllis, no more games.Four years ago, you came to my bed.The next day you announced your engagement to another man.Nine months later, you deposited our child with a nurse and left her there.Two months ago, you ceased paying that nurse, whereupon she abandoned our child on the doorstep of my club.Go on.Admit it!”As he’d spoken, her face had undergone a journey from amusement, to surprise, to outright confusion.Now she gazed at him with her jaw frankly slack and her eyes blinking uncomprehendingly.Then she shut her jaw.“Four years ago—” She closed her mouth, blinked, and then laughed out loud.“God, you’ve become so droll, Jack! It’s a silly joke, but it has brightened an otherwise deadly day immeasurably.” She chuckled.“A secret baby! Good lord, what a thought!”Jack gazed at her, his anger turning to furious bewilderment.“Amaryllis, how could you abandon her? Why did you stop paying the nurse?” He gestured angrily at their luxurious surroundings.“Or is all this riding on debt?”At that, her eyes snapped.“Of course it isn’t! Debt? The very idea!” She stood, angry herself now, and advanced on him.“I’ll thank you not to spread such rumors!”He shook his head, disgusted.“Heartless! How could I—” He stopped.Rubbing his open hand over his face, he turned away from her.“You disgust me!”“Leave my house!” Amaryllis’s lovely features twisted into shrewish ugliness.“Take your foundling brat and get out! Or shall I have you tossed out on your arse, again?” Her lip curled.“After all, it was so very amusing the first time!”Again.In Jack’s mind, the past and the present collided.He’d dreamed of her for so long! Yet the woman before him was a wicked, selfish shell of the girl he’d loved.With a single silent cry, the past slipped away, slaughtered by the woman of the present, by the cruelty gleaming from her sky blue eyes.She seemed to sense that he was reaching the limit of his battle-honed temper.With a toss of her head, she tried to regain her former ennui.“For your information, Lord John, you and I were never lovers.You are intruding on my mourning with your nonsense.I think it is high time you left.”Mourning? The black gown.Jack swallowed hard, tamping down his rage.There were polite things one said in such situations, weren’t there? “Your husband?”She rolled her eyes.“How I wish.No, it was my father.His heart, eight weeks ago.”Jack reeled in his fresh, unaccustomed anger and took a step back.Her denial was complete.Raging at her would get him nowhere.He bowed.“My apologies,” he said stiffly.There was nothing more here for him or for Melody.“I shall go.Give my sympathies to your mother and sister.”Amaryllis plunked back down on the sofa and took another chocolate.“Mama died a year ago.Laurel wasn’t fond of Papa anyway.”Jack turned and walked slowly from the room.Amaryllis was nothing like the girl he’d once loved.And although she was full of spite, her surprise had seemed entirely genuine.She’d sincerely had no idea what he was talking about!In the hallway, Melody looked up from her little spot on the stair and blinked Amaryllis’s blue eyes at him.Could Amaryllis have forgotten that night?That night.that one night still ranked as the only moment in the last few years that he’d felt even remotely human—that one night when the world was not cold and gray and grim.That night that might as well have not existed, for he had nothing to show for it now.Even his memories were now suspect, tainted by Amaryllis’s malice.He had remembered a girl who had never truly existed, painting her with his own need, his own dreams.Amaryllis had looked at Melody like she was some sort of unpleasant subspecies, as if at any moment the little girl might lunge at her with grubby paws extended, intent on soiling her gown.No, Amaryllis was no one’s mother.Which meant that he, Jack, was no one’s father.Melody was not the product of that magical encounter.Melody was just a foundling, simply an anonymous lost child dumped on the doorstep of a gentlemen’s club with a cryptic note pinned to her coat.Lost in his swirling thoughts, Jack took Melody’s little hand and walked her down the hall toward the great doors.They passed a dark-clad woman in the hall without truly registering her presence.She dropped the book she carried as Jack passed.Quite automatically, he bent to retrieve it and pressed it back into her hands.“Pardon me, madam.”Melody waved at her, opening and closing her pudgy fingers in the manner in which tiny children waved [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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