Page 222 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 1-4

She didn’t look at all reassured. ‘So what kind of marriage were you thinking of?’

‘Our lives would go on as they are now. I’ll live in the manor and you’ll live in the cottage. We will continue to sleep together and, I have to admit, that’s another string, because I’m not staying celibate. You will have our son and he will continue to live here with both his parents.’

Maude frowned. ‘I...’

‘Nothing will change.’ He made his voice as reassuring as he could, because now that he’d put the idea to her, he realised he very much wanted her to say yes. ‘You will have your life and I will have mine. The only difference from now is that you can stay on here as the groundskeeper.’

‘I still don’t understand,’ she said. ‘If nothing will change, then why do we have to get married?’

Irritation wound through him, but he quelled it. Getting annoyed wouldn’t help his case here.

‘Why shouldn’t we?’ he said. ‘It would be better for you financially, and, as I already said, would give you some legal protection if anything happens to me.’

‘I mean...’ Her gaze narrowed in that wary, suspicious way he was coming to dislike intensely. ‘What are you getting out of it?’

He reached out and idly pushed a strand of golden hair back behind her ear, relishing the feel of the silky strands against his fingertips. ‘I am getting you. In my bed every night with any luck.’

‘But you have that already.’

‘Except you will be my wife.’

‘How is that different?’

Questions. She was all about questions. He couldn’t resent that, though. She wanted to know and he liked that she had no qualms about asking.

‘I’ve decided that I want a family,’ he said, the truth coming out of his mouth before he’d even thought about it. ‘I did think I’d never marry or have children, and I’d never wanted to. But now I’m going to be a father, I want to give my child the best start in life, and that’s with a family.’

‘Is it?’ There was a crease between her brows. ‘My grandparents were married and I didn’t have a particularly good life with them.’

‘So you had a better life with your mother?’ he couldn’t help saying. ‘Who wasn’t around, which made you lonely enough to go into the forest to find companionship?’

She flushed. ‘That’s not... It wasn’t...’

‘Nymph.’ He reached for her hands and took them in his, because fighting like this wasn’t going to help either of them. ‘What are you so afraid of?’

She’d asked him that once, as he’d tried to resist her physically, still wanting to control his hunger for her, and he’d hated the question. But he had no qualms about turning it on her, since it was clear that the idea of marriage disturbed her and he didn’t want it to.

She didn’t pull her hands away, letting them rest in his, and he brushed his thumbs across her skin, wanting to soothe her, ease away her fears, whatever they were.

‘I don’t want...to be tied down,’ she said haltingly, as if the words were difficult. ‘I don’t want to feel like I’m with my grandparents again, where I wasn’t allowed to do anything or go anywhere. I had to be quiet, sit still, and not cause a fuss.’

He could understand that. It reminded him of his own childhood, bound by his father’s rules, his behaviour forced into something that had never been natural to him. And, God, he’d told her about those nights in the forest, alone. He hadn’t meant to, not when it exposed such a weakness in him. Yet still, he’d told her.

‘I understand,’ he said. ‘But it won’t be like that, I promise you. It’ll be a legal marriage and that’s all. You won’t have to do anything or be anyone but yourself. Call it a whim of mine.’ Her fingertips felt cold in his so he rubbed them gently. ‘You can stay here. You won’t have to leave. And when we tell people about the child, you can call me your husband. There’ll be some surprise, because of my reputation, of course, but marrying me will make the announcement easier.’

She was nodding, but there was still a tightness around her eyes and her mouth, so he tugged her gently into his lap. She didn’t protest as he put his arms around her, holding her, and it came to him, slowly, that though he’d held her before, he’d never held her like this. As a comfort rather than anything more.

He’d never felt the need to comfort anyone before or even made any kind of comforting gesture. Why should he? When no one had comforted him? And he was surprised how good it made him feel when she turned her head into his neck, accepting the warmth of his body and the strength of his arms.

‘You’re a wild thing, nymph,’ he murmured softly into her hair. ‘And I know that I need to be careful with wild things. I won’t cage you, understand? But also know one thing. I will be your forest. When you’re lonely and need someone to look after you, don’t go into the woods. Come to me instead.’

She looked up at him, her brown eyes dark, and he couldn’t have said what she was thinking. Then she lifted a hand to his hair, her touch light. ‘Badger,’ she said softly.

His heart tightened in his chest at the tender sound in her voice. The press called him all kinds of things, and he’d never paid any attention to them, but this... This was a name she’d given him and he rather thought she was owed.

‘Logically I should be “satyr”, since you’re my nymph,’ he pointed out.

She wrinkled her nose. ‘No, I like badger better. Also, you’re not being particularly satyr-like now.’

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