But then so was a child, she realised with a tremor as she watched Blake rock the child to sleep and hand him back to the Duke to be put down in his cot.
Arabella was very young. She had little experience of children. She would not be marrying any time soon, that was for certain. Not unless it was to someone she could admire wholeheartedly.
She was pensive for the rest of the evening. She had thought herself so worldly wise, but the consequences of having allowed Blake to press his advances to their natural conclusion could have brought a shocking set of problems all of their very own.
He had done the right thing by refusing her. Had done her a huge favour. Why then did she feel as though she had been badly let down. Betrayed, even?
He could not fail to notice her change of mood. "Did you have a good evening?" Blake asked on the trip back home.
"Indeed. They are all most pleasant. The house is magnificent."
"Yet Thomas is only the second Duke. They were always a most gifted family."
"And yours?"
He shrugged. "Nothing to speak of. A talent for making money."
"Not healing people?"
"I work hard. I'm not sure of the rest," he said modestly.
"Well, I shall come see for myself tomorrow."
"I'm looking forward to it."
"So am I."
"Your oldest frock will do." He reached out to tuck her in more carefully against the cold.
Arabella longed to nestle against him as she had done in the carriage in the past, but that would never do. Blake was her guardian, however much she was certain she had fallen in love with him the moment she met him. Here in London she had just kept on falling, but that way lay disaster.
Blake longed to pull her to him to share her warmth as he had done so many weeks ago in the dire snowstorm. She looked so delicately beautiful as she sat there that his heart turned over and he could barely breathe. If she so much as looked at him he would…
But the vehicle pulled up in front of the townhouse, and he helped her down carefully.
"Thank you for this evening. What time would you like me to be ready in the morning?"
"You're always up with the larks. We'll break our fast and go thereafter."
"Good night, Dr. Sanderson."
Blake resisted the urge to call her back, to spend even five more minutes with her. It was as though she took all the light out of the room when she left.
He dragged himself into his study and pressed his back against the door. This was a test of his character he could not afford to fail. Arabella was so young, and so very lovely. He knew that she had had a legion of male callers ever since the night of the ball, but had been at home to none of them. Surely his luck would run out sooner or later, and he would lose her. The light would go out of his life forever.
Unless….
But no, that was impossible. Peter trusted him. They both did.
Or unless he somehow managed to keep her single until she was twenty-one, and no longer her guardian.
Three years? Three minutes without her in his arms was almost unbearable.
He went over to his decanters and poured himself a brandy. He did not normally partake, but he felt the need to dull his pain somewhat. His needs.
Was it all male lust? He didn't think so. He had thought himself in love with Rosalie, but with the benefit of hindsight had realized he had just ached to possess something so beautiful.
Where Rosalie had been a pretty little English rose, Arabella was a hot house flower, warm, sultry, alluring…
Her every look, word, the sound of her voice, were all magic to him. Not to mention her decency and courage. The best that could have been said about Rosalie was she was pretty.
Blake shook his head again. He had been such a fool, pining for Rosalie all these years, wasting his time with Leonore and the handful of other women who had cared nothing about him, only pleasure and the thrill of the chase, the thrill of illicit liaisons.
Now he had the most wonderful woman in the world in his home, and she was destined for another. He had thought the loss of Rosalie nearly killed him. If he had won her it would have. The loss of Arabella would be just too dreadful to bear.
He put down the glass and sighed. He raised both hands and ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. Getting drunk was not going to change the past. It might just make the future even more bleak.
He extinguished the candles and marched up to his lonely bed.
The men were all lined up, starkly naked. Rosalie laughed with lascivious glee. There was just something so incredibly pathetic about the male anatomy, but it did have its uses. Pity none of the men she had had thus far had had the stamina to satisfy her.