Page 66 of A Bride for the Rakish Duke

This is perilous, indeed. I should have abided by her rule. I should not have allowed myself to break it.

But the damage was done in that department, and making love to her had left an imprint on him that he could not erase. It had shadowed the edges of his vision, making it impossible to see anything but her—a vignette of his heart’s desire, not merely his body’s desire.

He had thought—mistakenly—that making love to her would quell his desire altogether, for the chase had always been what spurred him on. Yet, it had done the opposite.

Making love to her made him want to make love to her again and again for the rest of his life, forsaking all others as his vows had suggested. Making love to her made him want to be a proper husband to her, beyond convenience.

His eyes flew wide, a bristling sort of panic ricocheting across his chest.

It will pass… It has to pass. It is just… the novelty.

But even as he thought it, it echoed falsely in his mind. If it was going to pass, it would have done so already. It certainly would not have urged him to hold his wife closer, kissing her brow, worried that when he awoke, he would discover that it was all a dream, and he was still on his way to Stonebridge from London.

Lydia stretched out, smiling to herself as she stirred to the bright caress of morning sunlight across her face. She had woken up plenty of times after glorious dreams and smiled to herself that way, but there was something different about that morning because the dream had not been a dream. It had been real. She had finally had her wedding night, and goodness, it had been worth the wait.

“Will?” she murmured, patting the pillow beside her.

She cracked an eye open when her hand did not find him.

Frowning, she sat up and drew her legs to her chest, frowning at the spot where he had been. There was a slight impression on the pillow, and the coverlets had been disturbed, but there was no way of knowing what time he had abandoned her bed, or if he would be back. Perhaps he had gone to request breakfast or had gone to tend to something, deciding to be kind and let her sleep.

The adjoining door was still open, and it drew her from the warmth of the bed. She tiptoed toward it and peered through, calling out his name again. There was no reply, though his bed did not look like it had been slept in, which soothed her somewhat.

That was when she saw it—a card resting against the water basin, the word ‘kitten’ elegantly etched on the front of it.

She picked it up and turned it over, all of her worries dissipating as she read the words he had left for her.

You looked too peaceful to disturb. Rest well, wife of mine. Meet me at the lake when you rise. I am preparing a picnic breakfast for us.

Yours,

Wolfie.

She did not know how a single word could hit her heart as hard as any punch, but those five letters that formed ‘yours’ were so powerful that her breath hitched. She had not had much time to think before she fell asleep in her husband’s arms, but she had hoped that their evening together had changed things. And that word confirmed it.

He was hers. He had decided to be hers. No overwrought, overlong confession could have compared.

“Thank goodness I did not ask for an annulment,” she whispered, grinning from ear to ear as she pressed the card to her chest.

“Did you say something, Your Grace?”

Lydia jumped in fright, whirling around to find Beth standing in the doorway. The maid smiled and stepped further into the room, making a show of setting down a small pile of garments.

“Oh… goodness, you did not have to do that. I was on my way to… um… to…”

Words failed Lydia as she stared at the incriminating clothes, trying her best not to remember every detail of how Will had disrobed her, for she would surely turn beetroot red.

Beth stifled a chuckle. “My ma found them and took them straight to the laundry. She was making sure you didn’t fallasleep in the library again, I reckon, but it seems you found your way back to your chambers.”

“I did, yes,” Lydia said hurriedly, feeling the heat creep into her face.

Beth stood there for a moment with her hands on her hips, wearing the proudest smile. It was not quite what Lydia had expected, for she had anticipated awkward encounters and servants who were unable to meet her gaze, yet Beth looked overjoyed.

“You’re so good for him, Your Grace,” Beth sighed. “He was whistling this morning when he came to ask for a picnic breakfast.Whistling!He’s not a sullen creature by any means, but none of us have seen him so happy in a long time. Truth be told, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen him so happy at all.”

Lydia’s cheeks flooded with warmth but for a different reason. Beth’s joy and pride were somewhat contagious, and as Lydia thought back to the words on the note and the promise of a morning spent together with no threat of him running off again, she could not help but feel overjoyed too.

“I hope it stays that way,” she managed to mumble, drinking in the bright sunlight and the scent of woodsmoke that lingered in the bedchamber. The scent of him. The scent of her Captain Kildare.

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