Page 62 of The Duke and the Temporary Bride

She laughed. “Tonight, I think I can manage it. But you owe me…” She widened her eyes jokingly.

“As soon as your sisters and mother leave, I will make it up to you.” He winked. “And I know exactly how I will do it.”

“I cannot wait.”

They slept together that night. Truly, just sleeping. Selina was wrapped in Benedict’s arms, and he was wrapped around her like a blanket, and it was perhaps the best sleep she had ever had. The first time, too, that they had not had sex beforehand, and the following morning was the first they did not indulge in a round of lovemaking upon waking up.

It made their situation infinitely messier. Questions were raised that might one day need answers. As far as Selina was concerned, in a little over one month, she and Benedict would part ways, and they would both be happier for it. But as she snuggled into his arms, and as his soft breaths tickled the back of her neck while the two drifted off to sleep, for the first time ever, she wondered if that was what she wanted.

Would she truly be happier once this marriage was over? Or was there an ending here that saw them stay together and find their happily ever after? A ludicrous notion, she knew. But one that suddenly felt not so strange as it should have.

Chapter Twenty-One

“Louisa! Isabella! Come back here!” Lady Langham shouted as her daughters sprinted through the crowd, vanishing from sight. “Oh, where are they going?”

“It is perfectly fine, Mother,” Selina sighed. “It is not as if they are in any danger.”

“It is not their safety that I’m worried about!” Lady Langham snapped. “It is not proper, running about like that. Diana!” She turned to her youngest daughter, whose attention was fixed on a performer who was juggling three balls on fire. “Go and tell your sisters to return immediately.”

“They will not listen to me, Mother,” Diana said absently, only to gasp when the juggler produced another fiery ball seemingly out of nowhere.

“Tell them I told you to tell them to come back at once.”

Diana pulled her gaze away from the juggler and frowned. “Tell them that you told me to tell them to come back? Should I tell them that I told you that to tell them would be fruitless, because they never listen to what I tell them?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Lady Langham threw her hands in the air, evidently giving in to her frustration. Then she snatched Diana by the hand. “Come with me, then.”

“We will be right behind you, Mother.” Selina giggled.

“I will be back in a moment,” Lady Langham sighed as she dragged Diana through the crowd, caring not for the mass of commoners who gathered every which way. But she had a presence about her, one that stood out starkly to those who got in her way, and the sight of her coming made them jump back lest they be trampled.

“And people say that I have a temper,” Benedict drawled as he watched her.

“How do you think I was able to put up with you as effortlessly as I did,” Selina said with a sly grin. “I have been practicing since I was a little girl.”

A wicked smile curved the right corner of Benedict’s lips. “I assume it is safe to say that the two of you did not solve your fights in the same manner that we do.”

“Oh!” Selina slapped him playfully on the chest. “Behave.”

“Am I not behaving?” he shot back.

She rolled her eyes. “Technically, yes. But keep talking like that, and I might have to reconsider.”

“Reconsider what, exactly?”

“If I wish to be seen in public with you.” She stuck her nose up as if to dismiss him. “I shall announce this entire experiment as a failure and return home with my mother and sisters without delay.”

“Oh, now you are just teasing me.”

She gave him a mischievous look. “Dear husband, you have seen nothing yet.”

They held hands as they walked side-by-side. They smiled at one another’s jokes. They made fun, but not in a way intended to annoy or anger. They spoke sweet words, and they kissed without worrying about how it might look. They acted as any happily married couple should do, as if they were impossibly besotted with one another such that the world might end before their eyes and they would not even notice.

Selina was determined to remind herself that this was still an act. When things became too sweet, when they became tooreal, she would remind herself that Benedict was only acting this way because that was what they agreed on. His feelings for her were not real, nor were hers for him!

What Selina needed was for her mother and sisters to leave already so that she could prove it. Surely, once they were alone, the two would go back to their old ways again? They had to.

Lucky then that they were leaving for home in a few hours. Three days spent acting this way for the sake of the charade they wished to keep up and come nightfall, there would be no need to pretend any further. What would happen when they were finally alone? What would change?

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