Expecting the Earl's Baby by Jessica Gilmore

Author:Jessica Gilmore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2014-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE CUP TILTED as Seb nudged Daisy’s door open and he hastily righted it before the lurid green mixture slopped onto the threadbare but valuable nineteenth-century runner. The tea was supposed to be completely natural but he’d never seen anything that resembled that particular green in nature.

He didn’t wait for an answer but opened the door. ‘Daisy? Tea.’

Luckily the nausea of last week had yet to grow into anything more debilitating but Daisy still found the first hour of the day difficult. A cup of something hot helped although replacing her beloved caffeine was still proving problematic. She was going to run out of new flavours of herbal tea to try soon.

‘I’m in the bath.’ A splashing sound proved her words.

‘I’ll just leave it here.’ Seb tried to put the image of long, bubble-covered limbs and bare, wet torsos out of his mind as he placed the tea onto the small table by her window. He didn’t have time for distractions, especially naked ones.

He turned and took in the bedroom properly. He hadn’t set foot in here since Daisy had moved in two weeks ago. It had been the first suite tackled by her mother and, although the nineteen-fifties chintz flowery wallpaper still covered the walls, the furniture was still the heavy, stately mahogany and the carpet as threadbare as the landing’s, the paintwork was fresh and white and the room smelled of a fresh mixture of beeswax, fresh air and Daisy’s own light floral scent.

It wasn’t just the aesthetic changes though. Daisy had somehow taken the room and made it hers from the scarves draped over the bedposts to the hat stand, commandeered from the hallway and now filled with a growing selection of her collection. Every time she went back to her studio she brought a few more. There were times when Seb feared the entire castle would be overtaken by hats.

Pictures of her parents and sisters were on one bedside table, a tower of stacked-up paperbacks on the second. A brief perusal showed an eclectic mix of nineteen-thirties detective novels, romances, two of last year’s Booker Prize shortlist and a popular history book on Prince Rupert by one of Seb’s colleagues and rivals.

Jealousy, as unwanted as it was sharp, shot through him. She did read history, just not his books it seemed.

‘Get over yourself, Beresford,’ he muttered, half amused, half alarmed by the instant reaction. It was professional jealousy sure, but still unwarranted. Unwanted.

A brief peek into the dressing room showed a similar colonisation. The dressing table bestrewn with pots and tubes, photos of herself and her sisters and friends he had yet to meet tucked into the mirror. The study was a little more austere, her laptop set up at the desk, her diary, open and filled with her scrawling handwriting, next to it.

Hawksley Castle had a new mistress.

Only the bed looked unrumpled. Daisy might bathe, dress and work in her rooms but she slept in his. Much as her nineteenth-century counterpart might

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