Page 103 of The Duke's Daring Bride

“Oh no,” she quipped, “My stomach always makes this sound.”

Does it always make that sound because you are always hungry?

“Perhaps. Do you think there’s any cheese in the coldbox?”

Per my instructions, there is always cheese in the coldbox now. For my wife. I had the cook order some Caerphilly from Wales. Would you like to try it?

Well, really, how was she supposed to ignore something that sweet? Smiling, she rolled toward the edge of the bed. “Would you like to join me?”

His hand caught hers, and when he looked back, his lips were curled slightly.

“Aye…wife.”

Chapter 17

Alistair felt…lighter, somehow.

In the two weeks following the night he’d shared his truth with Olivia, there was a tingling in his chest he didn’t recognize.

It wasn’t the pain of knotting tissue—though the memory of that decades-old sensation had never left him.

It wasn’t the tightness of exertion or exhaustion.

It wasn’t even the throbbing of anger.

It was…something else.

Something he couldn’t identify, but didn’t dislike. For now, he was content to wake up each morning and wait for that lightness, that warmth, to seep into his chest.

And he suspected it had quite a lot to do with the woman whom he woke up beside.

Or around.

Or on top of.

Smiling, he cupped her right tit in his hand—Christ, these things were magnificent!—and kissed her shoulder, deciding this was the best way to start the day.

But it wasn’t just the sex. The sex helped, aye, but…there was more.

It was the way she smiled when she saw him, even if they’d been apart all day.

It was how fulfilling he found it, to sit beside her after dark and read quietly as they sipped their wine and shared a cheese platter. She was never shy about sharing what she was reading, or some interesting facts about the cheese they enjoyed.

It was the way she slipped her hand unthinkingly into his, or the way her eyes lit with excitement as they debated the proposals to help the working class, or the way she snuggled so trustingly against him at night.

It was the way she opened her life—and her mind—to him, chattering on about her plans for the newspaper, or discussing their newfound involvement in the case against Blackrose, as if she could participate.

It was the way she did seem to understand his responses, even before he took out his notebook, as if she could read his soul—his mind?—through his expressions.

It was the way she met life head-on with an excitement which sometimes scared him, but mostly left him in awe of her.

It was the way she didn’t ignore his scars, but treated them as if they didn’t matter.

As if his past—his brokenness—didn’t matter.

And so she achieved the impossible: Olivia had coaxed him into joining the family for dinner.

At first, Alistair had been hesitant; he preferred to dine alone, and the last time they’d all been together in the dining room, disaster had struck. He didn’t want to risk putting her in a situation where she might be hurt again.

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