Spying had become a family pastime, Harry observed as his son zeroed in on the guests three floors below from his aerie at the top of the stairs. Harry and Elise had sprung Sammy from Maeve’s clutches so the boy could watch the ball from a safe distance.

Harry settled the plate of demolished puddings he had brought from the nursery on a side table to ensure he returned it downstairs. Elise established herself on the top step, smoothing her long skirts around her. He leaned upright against the newel post and crossed his ankles.

“Do I have to go back to the nursery?” Sammy whined, a paper airplane clutched in his hand.

“Before too long you do, or my father will send people to look for me,” Elise informed the lad with a solemn expression.

Her gown spilled over the stairs like a lovely waterfall and brought out the blue of her eyes. Sammy hunkered down beside her, his eyes on the guests below.

Angled against the railing, Harry sipped from his glass while his gaze drank in the sight of Elise and Sammy. His son had curled up, his head against Elise’s thigh while her slender fingers played with the cowlick on the back of his head that defied every hair gel known to man.

The minutes lengthened like mellow drops of gold, gilding the moment forever in his mind’s eye.

Harry’s fingers tightened on the glass stem as his heart battered his ribs. For the last year, he had fancied Elise—fancied her with the intensity of an all-consuming toothache. But he hadn’t seen a future with her, not with him and Sammy anyway. She was an exceptional MI6 agent, a woman with multiple overseas missions under her belt. Never once had he imagined her capable of maternal emotions.

In the last few weeks, he had an inkling she might care for his mischievous son more than she let on. Not until this very moment did he have evidence to back it up. Elise had proven him wrong—a future with her was possible. The proof lay before him. She was capable of motherly feelings.

He took another sip from his fluted glass, the amber warmth sliding down his throat. Tonight, his dreams had taken root and shaken him to the core, like a young man in the first throes of love.

Personally, he had no desire to return downstairs, but Elise was right; her family would notice her absence, and so would others.

Sammy’s breathing had evened out, and he hadn’t uttered a sound in some time. Harry set down his glass and removed the crumpled paper airplane from his son’s fist. No doubt, before his son had run out of energy, he’d planned to sail it into the entrance hall and give Lord Roxbury’s stiff butler a moment he wouldn’t soon forget.