Читать книгу Daddy's Little Darlings - Tina Leonard - Страница 7

Five months later

“We have located her, sir.”

The valet’s stiff voice held a ring of achievement, of a job done well. Alex Banning held in a sigh of relief. His heart sped up at the thought of finally seeing his wife again. “Good. Bring her, and our baby, to the mansion.”

“She’s very weak, but she is resisting us, sir.”

“Of course she is,” Alex said matter-of-factly. “Have you ever known Daphne Way to ever do the conventional thing? To go along quietly because someone asks her to?”

Sinclair chuckled. “No, sir.”

“Well, then! Do what you have to. Negotiate. But bring her here. And the baby,” he added as an after thought.

“Yes, sir.” The car phone was disconnected.

Alone in his mansion, his nerves on edge, Alex waited for the woman who had borne his child to be brought, probably kicking and screaming, to him. Months ago Daphne had run from their marriage. He’d nearly gone mad when she left, with only a short note telling him she wasn’t coming back. Though he’d gone several times to her parents’ house, they had said little except that she didn’t want to see him. His heart broke. His greatest fear was realized. They had married too quickly without allowing her time to get used to living in the Banning mansion. Without time to really get to know her husband. And when she had, she hadn’t wanted him.

Through a friend, he discovered she was pregnant. Realizing that Daphne had no intention of contacting him, he had sought her at the school where she taught.

She had responded by showing him the door. Then she quit her job and moved from her parents’ home. Her new phone number was unlisted.

The worst blow had been the delivery of divorce papers. A hundred knives had gone through him when he read them.

He’d re treated. He kept his eye on her through various means, none of them obvious enough to alert her to his knowledge of the baby growing inside her. Knowing Daphne, she’d leave the country, and then he’d have to go through serious maneuvers to keep in touch with her.

He’d kept quiet until the birth, though it nearly killed him. The thought that the woman he loved was bearing his child without him by her side was enough to drive him to complete insanity. There had been a complication, but he didn’t know what. Nurses went to the small apartment once a day, Sinclair reported, and Daphne went to the hospital much earlier than the due date Alex had circled on his calendar. It had been what he thought would be several months into her pregnancy, but since he had no idea when she’d gotten pregnant, he had no idea how far along the baby had been. Dear heaven, let it be healthy. Let Daphne be fine. He called the hospital, but they would give no information on her condition or the child’s.

Alex had been left with nothing to do but worry himself ill.

Today, Daphne had finally left the hospital. He had dispatched Sinclair at once.

Daphne Way was going to live in the enormous mansion in Green Forks, Texas, with him, whether she liked it or not. This place was big enough for the both of them and one tiny baby.

“I HAD NELLY take Miss Daphne—Mrs. Banning—upstairs,” Sinclair informed Alex when he arrived thirty minutes later.

Alex hovered in the marbled hallway, as nervous as if he’d been in the delivery room himself. Which he should have been, but there was nothing he could do about that now. “Is she all right?”

“Miss Daphne is weak, but not weak enough to forgo giving me a tongue-lashing. She doesn’t want to see you, sir.”

“I know. Where is my son?”

Sinclair looked at him oddly. “In the library.”

Alex grimaced. “I would have been down sooner, but I got caught on an overseas phone call.”

“Of course, sir. I will show you to your, er, child.”

Alex followed Sinclair into the library-turned-nursery, his hands trembling. He was a father! In time, another oil painting could be hung in the great hall along side the other portraits of Banning men of great accomplishments. His own son.

He stopped in his tracks at the sight of three little blankets spread across the floor with a tiny baby securely wrapped on each. There was a flurry of activity as servants pulled baby things from boxes and bags.

“What is going on?” Alex demanded. “What are those?” He pointed to the baby bundles. “Why are they lying on the floor?”

“We weren’t prepared for three.” Sinclair shrugged. “We only bought one crib and one set of baby accoutrements.”

A sinking sensation hit Alex. Perhaps an error had been made and the Banning mansion had been mistaken for an orphanage. “Those are not all mine, are they?”

“I’m afraid so. Trust Miss Daphne to do the ever-flam-boyant thing.”

“Oh, my God.” Alex couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Are you sure?”

“They’re all tagged Banning, sir.”

“You didn’t accidentally grab up too many?”

“No, sir. They are all Daphne’s babies.”

Daphne Way was a hell of a woman, but he didn’t think she’d been capable of that.

“In poker it’s called a three of a kind, sir. Very advantageous. Congratulations.”

Alex ignored the felicitations and moved forward to eye the sleeping bundles. “Have you called for extra everything?”

“Yes.”

“Daphne didn’t require extra hospitalization?” He whirled to glance at Sinclair.

“No, but as I said, she is weak. In spite of your questionable methods, sir, I believe this is the best place for her.”

“Yes.” Alex blinked at the first bit of criticism Sinclair had ever leveled at him. He looked at his progeny. One tiny bundle squirmed in its blanket wrap pings, starting a chain reaction. Suddenly, all three pairs of eyes were open and staring around. “What are their names?”

Sinclair stepped close to examine the baby on the left. “That one, I believe, Miss Daphne called Yoda.”

“Yoda! She named my son after a fictitious intergalactic creature?” His roar set Yoda to crying and the help to a stand still. After an astonished second, a nanny came forward to pick up the child and comfort it with a malevolent glance at Alex.

“I don’t know her proper given name, sir. That’s all I heard Miss Daphne call the child.”

“Well.” That would have to be fixed, though Alex could see how the triangular-shaped head and big dark eyes might have earned the baby the nickname. Suddenly, his brain processed what his ears had heard. “Her proper given name?”

“Yes, sir. Miss Daphne has done you the honor of giving you three daughters.”

“I—” There were only Banning male portraits hanging in the great hall. “Every single one?”

“Every baby is a girl.”

He closed his eyes. A whole new, unexplored world laid out its vastness before him. Lace and ruffles. Diaries and separate phone lines. Three girls. He’d better buy stock in the phone company.

Boy friends.

Oh, Lord. “And this one?” he demanded, pointing to the next baby on a blanket.

“That one is Miss Magoo.”

“Miss Magoo!”

“Mr. Magoo if it had been a boy, of course. You see the resemblance.”

Alex stared at the lashless baby. She grinned hugely at him, unaffected by her surroundings. With the big bald head, he supposed the baby did resemble Mr. Magoo. With luck, she’d grow hair eventually.

In trepidation, he looked at the smallest baby. It was by far the most unattractive creature he had ever seen. To Alex’s mind, this wizened child had a face only its mother could love. “What did this homely child’s unnatural mother name her?”

“I believe Miss Daphne affectionately called her Alex Junior. Alexis, in the feminine sense, I should think.”

“This is the one she chose to bear my name?” Astounded, he stared at the tiny baby, who appeared to glare back at him. Daphne’s eyes, Daphne’s mouth and no doubt Daphne’s temper. “She’s scrawnier than the others. And, though I hate to say it, she’s…ugly.”

“Sir, please. The child hears you.”

“Well, her mother will soon hear me, as well. Something’s got to be done about these names.” He reached down, gently picking up Alex Junior. “This one doesn’t look like me at all. Why do you suppose she named this one Alex Junior?”

“She said that one was forced out of the um, chute, sir. Miss Daphne commented that being forced to do some thing against its will was in keeping with your situation.” Sinclair coughed delicately, but Alex knew he was trying not to laugh. “She was the first child born. I believe it is customary that first born males bear their father’s name. Miss Daphne believes gender shouldn’t affect any situation adversely.”

It damn well did. Alex stared at the baby doubt fully, receiving the full force of haunting Daphne eyes watching him. He sighed, almost frightened by the morning’s events. If Daphne did anything by convention it would be a first, and Sinclair knew it. He handed the baby to the valet with a shrug. “I’m going to see Daphne now.”

“I would take an heirloom from the vault, sir.”

Alex paused, thunder struck. “An heirloom?”

Sinclair kept his head turned stiffly forward. “It is generally looked upon favorably by the mother to receive a token from the father of her child, signifying his appreciation for her propagating his lineage.”

Alex’s brows raised. “Are you suggesting a tiara?” Did three babies require more of an appropriate gesture than one baby?

“Your mother’s pearls should do nicely, though I do believe Miss Daphne isn’t in a relenting mood.”

“I’ll stop by the vault on my way to her room.” Alex’s chest tightened as he left the nursery. If he owned a diamond mine in South Africa and signed it over in her name, Daphne would likely not care.

He wondered if she had ever loved him—the way he’d loved her.

Still loved her.