Rexanne Becnel by The Heartbreaker Page A

“Leya’s mother died when she was two months old. Clarissa’s—” His jaw stiffened. “Clarissa’s mother is a—” He broke off. “She lives a life unsuited to raising children.” A muscle in his jaw flexed. “She used Clarissa to…to run errands, shall we say. To tend her needs and mind her other children.”
    “I see,” Phoebe murmured, though she didn’t. Not entirely. But whatever those “errands” were, they must not have been appropriate for a girl only ten years old. “So…So Izzy has other siblings?”
    “Yes. And Izzy is her old name, from her old life. I want her to be called Clarissa now.”
    Phoebe sighed and wove her fingers together. “What you’re doing for them seems commendable, Lord Farley. But I wonder if you might be trying to accomplish too much too fast with the girl.”
    “What I’m trying to do is save her from the wretched sort of life her mother chose.”
    “Yes, and that’s most commendable. But can’t you see how frightened she is?”
    He snorted. “Frightened? I’ve yet to see that child frightened of anything. Even the threat of a good switching doesn’t faze her.”
    She gave him a sharp look. “You said you’d never laid a hand on her.”
    “I haven’t.” He stopped and turned to face her. “I’m not generally inclined to beat children, Mrs. Churchill. But so far nothing else has worked—and now you tell me she’s stolen yet again.”
    They stood at the far end of the clipped lawn, where the gravel walkway gave onto a mowed walking strip through the rougher meadow. Though the man managed to rattle her with just the force of his eyes, Phoebe tried to ignore that. How could she be frightened of a man who held a happy, babbling baby in his arms?
    But there was more to him than merely the struggling father, she reminded herself. He might be trying to do right by his daughters, but he’d not behaved so nobly with their mothers. The very thought of what he’d obviously done with each of them turned her mood black. But then, hadn’t her mother warned her incessantly about just such self-indulgent male behavior?
    Determined not to dwell on him or his wild past, she plucked a long stalk of grass, waved it in front of Leya, and steered her thoughts back to the matter at hand. “I’ve been trying to figure out why Izzy would steal from me again, when she knows I would guess she’d done it. I’m beginning to think—” She shook her head. “It will sound perverse, I know. But I wonder if she wanted me to come back here and accuse her.”
    “Why would she want that?”
    “I’m not sure. Perhaps because I’m the first person who has called her Izzy? After all, that’s the name she knows herself as. Try to put yourself in her place. She’s lost every aspect of her old life. As bad as it may have been, it nonetheless was all she knew. Is it asking too much to allow her to keep the name she wants?”
    He frowned, but he didn’t argue.
    “Also,” Phoebe went on, “I think it may have confused her a bit when I tried to befriend her by inviting her to my farm. And intrigued her. Actually, I was quite disappointed that she didn’t come.”
    “You think she wanted to come?”
    “Perhaps.”
    He heaved a sigh. “Perhaps. One thing I’ve learned: the child is smart as a whip despite having no education to speak of. You’re right. She knew you’d come charging over here when your milking stool went missing. The question is, why did she want you to come?” Again he sighed. “As you can tell, I’ve reached the limits of my patience with Clarissa. With Izzy,” he amended, a wry twist on his lips. He jiggled the baby who seemed content on his hip. “You seem to have solved Leya’s problem. Maybe you’re right about Izzy too.”
    He smiled at her then, a half-smile, really. But there was a warmth in his clear blue eyes that touched her.
    At once Phoebe averted her gaze. Just that easily he made her far too aware of him, too aware of the physical