Seduced by a Pirate by Eloisa James Page A

thirty-four.”
    “Yes. Rather old to have children,” she said, her voice wooden.
    “Given your age, I suppose that you and I might never have children. Therefore, I should thank you for taking the precaution to provide me with heirs.”
    “Does it not bother you?” The words came out like something of a croak.
    “Yes,” he said frankly. “Of course it bothers me that my wife slept with another man during my absence.” Even saying the words made a feeling of near madness rise up his spine. “But how can I blame you? We were married for less than a day. I didn’t even remember your name correctly. I named my ship after you, you know: the Flying Poppy .”
    “It’s unfortunate that was not my name,” she said dryly. “Or perhaps fortunate; the Flying Phoebe sounds absurd.”
    Exhibiting a remarkable stubbornness, she added, “But surely you want children of your own, Griffin. My advanced age precludes that, and combined with non-consummation, I am certain that the courts will agree to an annulment.”
    “Do you see me telling a court that I am impotent?”
    Her eyes drifted uneasily over his body. There was a powerful surge of attraction between them, whether she wanted to acknowledge it or not. For whatever reason—probably some long-delayed response to their disastrous wedding night—the only thing he wanted to do was sweep her off to bed.
    He wanted to kiss her until those pink lips were dark rose, leave bites all over her creamy skin, tease and stroke and lick her until she was writhing under him, gasping his name.
    The way she was blushing, he might as well have spoken aloud every lusty idea that had run through his mind the moment he saw her.
    “May I assume that you came straight here from London?” she asked.
    Griffin nodded. He was trying to decide how Phoebe would react if he simply picked her up and took her to bed. Enough conversation. She was no virgin, after all. That made it easier.
    “I think we will all be more comfortable if you removed to your father’s manor while we work out this mess.”
    “No.” The word came out like a bullet.
    He wanted this wife of his. In fact, it came to him with an incandescent clarity that he wanted Phoebe more than he’d ever wanted any other woman. She was his, from the top of her buttery hair to the bottom of her no doubt dainty toes. “I see no grounds to dissolve the marriage.”
    “Because—”
    He interrupted her. “You have supplied the children that we lack. We will simply pick up where we left off.”
    She stared at him, apparently dumbfounded.
    Once again the feeling of rightness swept over him in a flood. Phoebe was his wife, and she would stay that way.
    “I don’t care who you slept with. I will accept Colin and the other children as my own and treat them with the same love as if they had been. We bought this house about eight years ago, am I right?”
    She nodded.
    “It’s not entailed, and I have several fortunes—none entailed, for obvious reasons. Money will not be a problem. We can establish all three children in the world.” He narrowed his eyes. “Acceptance into the gentry might be more difficult. What has your experience been?”
    “What experience?” she asked, knitting her brow.
    “In polite society,” he clarified.
    Her mouth curled in something like disdain. “I never bothered with that. I have friends. Family.”
    “You never bothered with society,” he echoed, stunned. “But that’s—that’s what you married me for.”
    “You are mistaken,” she replied, chin held high. “That’s what my father bought you for. I disappointed him in that respect. I would never fit into that world, and I wouldn’t want to.”
    “Phoebe,” he said, schooling his voice to gentleness, “you are Lady Barry, for all you wish to deny it.”
    She shrugged. “No one I care about is interested in that sort of thing. And please, don’t address me by the title. I don’t consider myself your wife, not after a fourteen-year