A thousand emotions flickered across her face, but for the life of him he couldn’t identify any of them. She leaned back in the chair, crossed those slim legs, and made a little Protestant church steeple with her fingers. “When did you have this startling—and obviously unwelcome—revelation?”

“Sunday.”

Her nostrils flared. “This past Sunday?” Not a question but an accusation.

“Yes! And it wasn’t unwelcome.” The baby’s whimpers grew louder. He jiggled him.

“You only discovered this two days ago?”

“That doesn’t mean I haven’t felt it all along.” As a line of defense, it seemed weak even to him. His voice cracked. “I’ve loved you for a long time.”

“Ahh . . . I see.” She rose and walked over to him, not to fall into his lap as he hoped, but to take the baby back.

The pint-sized Benedict Arnold seemed more than happy to resettle on her shoulder. “You don’t look very happy about it,” she said. The baby wrapped a fist around the Mayflower pearls and shoved them in his mouth.

“I’m happy! I’m delirious!”

There went that eyebrow again.

Damn it! He made his living with words. Why had they deserted him now? It went against his grain, but he knew the time had come to throw himself on the mercy of the court. “Nealy, I love you. I’m sorry it took me so long to figure it out, but that doesn’t make it any less true. What we have together is too good to throw away just because I screwed up.”

She didn’t seem impressed. “Your idea of showing your tender feelings is to go on CNN and talk about me to the world. Is that right?”

“I was bluffing. You wouldn’t take my phone calls, remember? I needed to get your attention.”

“My mistake. And what do you propose to do about these newfound feelings of yours?”

“I propose to marry you, what do you think?”

“Ah.”

The baby gummed happily away at her pearls. Mat would have liked to do a little gumming of his own—on her bottom lip, her earlobe . . . a breast. He nearly groaned. Now was definitely not the time to be thinking about breasts, or any other enticing body parts. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Are you going to marry me?”

She gave him a frigid look that told him he needed a really good argument. Something logical instead of emotional. “I know you probably think of it as marrying down, since I’m not an aristocrat like you. But it might be time to refresh the Litchfield family genetic pool. Add a little Eastern European peasant blood to the mixture.”

“Then make a run for the Triple Crown?”

He narrowed his eyes. Exactly what was going on here?