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‘Babies cry,’ he said with a shrug Ad so in the kitchen of a Mayfair bachelor household Hiht up in a nursery so remote from the floors his parents occupied that a fullheard and he’d had his earliest lessons in a schoolrooht of dropping by ‘I was not disturbed, merely curious’

‘This is Dorcas White, my lord’ Tess moved over to stand beside the woman Did she think she needed to protect her from him? ‘She is my new lady’s maid’

‘And the baby?’

‘Is mine, my lord’ Dorcas looked ready to faint

Alex looked down at her hands, clutched together in front of her No ring He aze and read a steely defiance in it that took him aback

‘The baby’s name is Daisy, my lord’

‘Thank you, Mrs Ellery I am aware that babies are people, too’ She coloured up Annoyance, he supposed That made two of them ‘So we have acquired another stray, have we? I suppose I must be thankful that the baby is already with us or I have no doubt I would be expected to house oxen and a donkey in my stables come Christmastide’

Tess drew in a deep breath through her nose and narrowed her eyes at hies on blasphemy, my lord Dorcas is very well qualified as a lady’s maid’

‘And comes with excellent references, no doubt?’ It came out sharply and Tess’s chin jutted So she didn’t like his tone? There was still an ache in his chest that he didn’t understand, ht he had locked away in his head His tight, small, bachelor household had become full of women, virtually a crèche He was entitled to snap—he was a

‘Might we have a word, my lord?’ Tess enquired with a sweet, false smile ‘Upstairs?’

He held the door for her and followed her stiff back along to the study Tess did not wait for hiet behind the barrier of his desk and sit down before she attacked ‘No, Dorcas White does not have references A man who forces himself on a servant and then tells his wife that the slut flaunted herself at hi for it, is not someone rites a reference for his victim’