Sophie blushed again at the mocking look in his eyes.

“And no,” he continued, “I am not very interested in the idea of children. In fact, I’d just as soon not have any.”

Sophie stumbled into speech. “But … but, no heir?”

Patrick gave her a flippant smile. “I don’t have a title for a boy to inherit, so why should I worry about it? And my brother has two children, with more, I’m sure, on the way. So there will be plenty of family members to inherit my millions,” he said with a distinctly ironic cut in his voice.

Sophie was bewildered. “You don’t want to have any children?”

Patrick caught the tone in her voice and looked at her. Then he took her hand and drew her over to a low sofa.

“Are you very attached to the idea of becoming a mother? If so, I am even more sorry about what happened last night. I assumed that you shared Braddon’s rather matter-of-fact attitude toward children. In my experience, very few well-bred ladies are interested in offspring.”

Sophie swallowed. She didn’t know what to say. Should she reveal the belly-deep, longing ache that she felt when she saw Charlotte with her babies? Patrick seemed to have such a dislike for the idea, and she found that the idea of not marrying him was more than she could bear.

“I always thought I would have children,” she said, her voice faint.

Patrick clasped Sophie’s hand, trying to see into her eyes, but she fixed them resolutely on the rose pattern of her gown.

“Perhaps we could have one child,” he said after a silence. “I don’t want to act as a tyrant in our marriage, Sophie. If you want a child, then we’ll have one.”

One? As an only child, Sophie had always planned to have many children, so that they could be playmates to one another. Oh, she didn’t want ten children, as she had frivolously told Braddon’s sister, but she definitely wanted more than one. She had spent her childhood sitting about her nursery, with no other children to play with.

But then, look at all the childish plans she had put to the side in the last twenty-four hours. She had thought never to marry a rake, and she was marrying one of the most notorious rakes in London. So she would marry the rake, and have only one child.

Sophie raised her blue eyes and met Patrick’s black ones, and what she saw there warmed her resolve. It was better to marry Patrick and share him with other women than not to have him at all. And if they only had one child, so be it. She would cherish that child so much that he or she would never be lonely.

Patrick looked a bit anxious, so Sophie smiled at him reassuringly. “One child would be fine, Patrick.”