The Arrangement by Sylvia Day

Author:Sylvia Day
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Books
Published: 2019-12-09T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8

“Oh,” was all Jo could think to say as she stared at the tableau: Victoria kneeling beside her husband’s chair like a supplicant before her king.

Beau stood and helped Victoria to her feet before turning to Jo, his expression thunderous.

“Why, hello, Your Grace,” Victoria said coyly. “You look just as lovely as ever.”

Jo almost laughed at her masterful insult.

Beau, on the other hand, wasn’t in the mood for banter. His face looked carved from stone. “What did you need, Josephine?”

Jo flinched under his ice-cold anger but held her ground. “I’m sorry to disturb you, Wroxton, but Her Grace’s little girl—Sarah?” She cut Victoria a questioning look.

Victoria nodded, her full lips curled up at the corners, her expression that of a cat that had just licked up an entire bowl of cream. At Beau’s feet.

“Yes, what about her?” Beau prodded.

“She is crying—very upset, in fact—and is asking for a turtle?” Jo raised her brows.

Victoria’s expression snapped from lazily sensual to irritated and she huffed. “It’s Tuttle, her old nurse.” She cut a glance up at Beau, who was staring down at her, his face turned in such a way Jo could not see it. Victoria gave him a melting smile. “I told her that big girls didn’t need their nurses.”

“You left her nurse in Yorkshire?”

Victoria’s brilliant smile dimmed at his obvious disbelief. “It’s not as if I didn’t bring a girl to look after her, Beau. But Tuttle is too old to travel. Besides, it’s time Sarah started behaving like a little lady, not an infant.”

“Good God, Victoria, she is not yet five years old—she is an infant.”

“My, what a wonderful father you will make, Beau.” Victoria’s lips pulled up on one side into a sensual, wicked smile that made heat gather in Jo’s belly; she could only imagine what such a come-hither look would do to a man.

“Go see to the girl, Victoria. I will arrange for the housekeeper to send a suitable servant to assist whomever you brought with you.”

Beau turned away from her and strode toward the door, holding it open for her.

Victoria’s smile faltered at his autocratic dismissal, her expression shifting to mute outrage as she flounced toward the door.

Jo bit her lip to keep from smiling. So, her duke was high-handed with everyone, even a woman whom he’d once loved and still might.

He closed the door and returned to his desk, his expression distracted. “Was there something else, Josephine?”

Jo blinked. “Um, I thought . . .”

“Yes?”

I thought you might want to tell me what you were doing with Victoria on her knees? Or even why she is here?

Jo stared up into his face. It was expressionless now, but he’d been far from impassive in bed last night, and even this morning when he’d kissed her at breakfast.

Perhaps Jo was making a mountain out of a molehill and he really did not care about Victoria as he used to.

But why had she been kneeling beside his chair?

“I want to have a word with Mrs. Stowers. Please send her to me when you leave,” he said, impatient.

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