The Magic of You Read Free Page A

man most happy and content when his little George was within reaching distance, and right nowshe was very accessible. His hands idly roamed, as did his lips, as his thoughts drifted back over the evening and the ball they’d attended.
    A bloody ball, something he wouldn’t have been caught dead at before he married, yet he supposed he had to make some allowances to the matrimonial state. The elders, as he and Anthony called their older brothers, had insisted he attend, though that wouldn’t have done the trick, since he never had obeyed their dictates and wasn’t about to start now. But Georgina had insisted, too, and that was all it took. He did so love pleasing her.
    Then come to find he’d actually enjoyed himself, though that had had a lot to do with watching Anthony hem and haw and crack disparaging remarks about each and every young cockerel who danced attendance on their niece Amy, especially after Anthony had told him earlier, “I’ll leave this one to you, old man, since you weren’t around for Reggie’s come-out. Fair’s fair, after all, and Reggie caused me worry enough to last a lifetime, particularly after she set her heart on that bounder Eden. She wouldn’t even let me shoot the fellow, more’s the pity, and now it’s too late, since she married him.”
    James had other reasons to dislike Nicholas Eden, than Reggie’s having married the fellow, but that was another story. She claimed to have fallen in love with him because he so reminded her of her dearest uncles, Anthonyand James, which only made it worse in their book, because anyone like them just wasn’t good enough for their Reggie. But neither James nor Anthony could find fault with his treatment of Reggie, at least not now, though he’d really made a muck of it in the first year of their marriage. But now Nicholas was an ideal husband. That they’d never actually like the chap was a matter of principle.
    Now here was another of their nieces making her come-out, and although James and Anthony had had no part in raising any of Eddie’s daughters, as they had Reggie, who’d lost both her parents when she was only two, Eddie’s youngest daughter, with her coal-black hair and eyes of cobalt blue, so resembled Reggie that they could have been sisters. It made a bloody damn difference. It certainly had stirred up Anthony’s protective instincts, though he’d tried to deny it. And James hadn’t particularly liked what he’d felt himself while viewing the dandies and young rakehells who’d fallen all over themselves to gain Amy’s attention. In fact, he had promptly changed his mind about hoping Georgina would give him a daughter as delightfully precious as Anthony and Roslynn’s little Judith.
    “You awake, George?” James asked in a lazy tone.

    “Me and baby.”
    He sat up, both hands moving to the large mound of her belly for a gentle message. When the next kick came, it pressed right into his palm. Their eyes met and they grinned at each other. It never failed to thrill James clear to his soul, the feel of his baby moving inside his wife.
    “That was a mild one,” she told him.
    His grin got wider. “Then he’ll be ready for the ring at an early age.”
    “He? I thought you wanted a girl.”
    He snorted. “Changed my mind after tonight. I’ll leave the worrying over daughters to Tony and Eddie boy.”
    Georgina smiled, knowing her husband so well she knew exactly what was on his mind. “Amy was exceptionally lovely tonight, wasn’t she?”
    He didn’t answer that, but said instead, “What I want to know is, how the deuce did I miss it, when she’s been over here lately more’n she is at home?”
    “You didn’t miss how lovely she is; you just missed how lovely she is,” Georgina said with meaning. “As her uncle, you weren’t supposed to notice that she’d filled out in all the right places, especially when Charlotte has had her wrapped up in those girlish, high-necked dresses right to the bitter end.”
    His