“You said we couldn’t go where the fancy coves be,” Elizabeth said.
“You didn’t say nothing about your desk,” Anne added mulishly.
Before he could address either of them, a knock sounded on the door. Three raps in quick succession, which signified more trouble.
“Christ,” he muttered.
“That’s the Lord,” Anne told him.
“I am aware,” he said, silently praying for strength. And patience. And strength.
“You owe ’im an apolology,” Elizabeth announced with a superior air.
Sodding hell. “Apology, Elizabeth,” he corrected.
“What’s sodding mean?” Anne asked.
Damnation. Had he said that bit aloud? To his utter shame, he discovered that he—Jasper Sutton, scourge of the East End—was bloody flushing.
He coughed to cover his embarrassment and called out to Hugh, who was on door duty this evening. “What is it now?”
“She’s returned,” Hugh called, his tone grim.
Jasper did not need to ask whom his man was speaking of. Over the last few months, one woman had continually appeared, ignoring his warnings, his threats—hell, even his kisses.
r /> Lady Octavia Alexander.
And damn him if the mere name of the dark-haired beauty did not make his cock twitch to life. Until he recalled his children were still standing before him.
Children.
His.
He was yet growing accustomed to this abrupt change of circumstances.
“Tell her to go back to Mayfair where she damned well belongs,” he ordered Hugh, for he had far more important matters awaiting him this evening.
Namely, the twins who had once more escaped from their shared room to wander about unattended.
The door burst open, and Lady Octavia crossed the threshold, elegant, beautiful, and maddening as hell. Her vivid brown eyes settled upon him first, and how he despised the bolt of lust that hit him. So, too, the memories of the frantic kisses they had shared, her tongue in his mouth.
The minx.
Christ, she was delicious.
And infuriating.
And delicious.
Damnation.
“You are not welcome here, Lady Octavia,” he told her, just as he had on numerous occasions in the past. “I will have one of my men escort you back to the safety of your sister’s home.”
“Children, Sutton?” she asked, her gaze flitting from his daughters, to him, then back again.
“Aye,” he ground out. “Children. Mine.”
She had not trespassed at The Sinner’s Palace in three weeks. Not that he had been counting. And not that he had missed her irritating intrusions. Because he most certainly had not.