Celeste Bradley - [Heiress Brides 02] by The Duke Next Door Page B

his mouth. Leaning back in his chair with a sigh of ecstasy, he let the delicacy dissolve slowly on his tongue.
    After all, he was a man who despised waste.

Chapter Seventeen
    Calder sat down to his breakfast at precisely the same time he always did. And, as always, despite the specific instructions he’d given his bride last night, he sat down alone.
    He drew a deep breath. “Fortescue, where is her ladyship?”
    “I believe her ladyship is still—”
    “Her ladyship is right here, my lord.”
    Calder’s head jerked up at that husky purr to see that Deirdre was indeed standing in the doorway—or rather, was lounging sleepily against the doorjamb as if she didn’t quite have the alertness to stand.
    She rubbed the back of one hand across her eyes, then blinked hard. “God, Brookhaven, who in the world eats this early? I can scarcely stand to look at the food.”
    His breath stuck in his throat. “ What are you wearing, my lady?”
    She blinked at him with wide eyes. “You said ‘dressed for supper.’ You never said ‘dressed for breakfast.’”
    Clad in a hastily tied wrapper and something lacy and diaphanous beneath, she was a mess—a luxuriously half-dressed erotically tousled mess drawn straight
from his darkest fantasy of damp and tangled bed linens. She yawned with catlike delicacy, her lacy sleeve slipping halfway up her arm as she covered her mouth with the back of her hand, then blinked sleepily at him. “I might as well eat, since I’m here.”
    That was it. No greeting, no husky “Good morning, my darling,” no sleep-warmed arm twining about his neck to pull him down for a soft-mouthed drowsy kiss …
    The lack of such was no oddity—but his sudden aching longing for it was. She was his wife. She should be waking in his arms, her smooth limbs tangled in his, her soft breast weighing heavy in his palm, her sleepy blue eyes seeing only him—
    She flopped into the chair Fortescue pulled out for her. The damned butler got a smile and a husky-voiced thanks, of course. A plate appeared before her—toast and a sliced apple. She drank only tea with no milk.
    Calder frowned. She ought to eat more. Her figure was lovely, but he had no objection to a bit more of it. He opened his mouth to protest her diet—then halted. The bloody-minded creature would only do the opposite and starve herself. So instead, he eyed her plate with feigned approval. “I see you’re very disciplined with your figure. Good. You wouldn’t want to get fat.”
    That lit a spark behind her drowsy gaze. “Fortescue, eggs and ham,” she snapped.
    Calder hid a smile behind his napkin.
    At that moment, Meggie wandered in. The fact that his daughter had obeyed him stunned him, but the fact that she was somewhat clean and dressed and more or less groomed—in a summer-in-the-country manner—left him entirely speechless.

    Her dark hair was shining and combed and braided, albeit lopsided. Her dress showed not a dot of mud or food or soot and her face, pink and freshly scrubbed.
    She was a beautiful child, just as anyone would expect a child of Melinda’s to be. Her mother’s face, softened by the childish lack of angles—her mother’s hair, gleaming nearly blue-black, her mother’s shy smile that had hidden so much loathing for so long …
    Pain twisted within him. Not for the loss of Melinda—at least not for his loss—but for what he’d done and not done and what he’d cost the child before him. He looked away, frowning, and missed the way that Meggie’s wistful smile faded slowly away at his lack of greeting.
    Deirdre didn’t miss a thing. Idiot man . “You look as though you’re going out today, Lady Margaret. What are your plans?”
    Meggie, her mood obviously now as foul as her father’s, only shot her a disdainful glare from beneath long lashes. “Don’t be ridiculous. I have to stay in all day with you.”
    Deirdre sighed. They were a pair, the two of them. Meggie even sounded like her father. She glared at