Page 82 of The Moonstone Major
She expected a glib retort, for he was quite pleased with himself. Instead, he became surprisingly serious. “I did not think it possible to love you more than I already do. But after this, I think there will be no boundaries to my love for you. It will simply continue to grow unfettered, too vast ever to be contained. I already love you beyond the moon and stars.”
He kissed her on the forehead again and tucked her more securely within the circle of his arms. “I have never felt anything like this.”
“I know, Fionn.” She nestled against him and tossed an arm across his chest. “I may not know how to boil water, but I like to think I am good and capable in other ways.”
“You are.” He reached over and grabbed his shirt, the one he had so deftly removed from her body. “Put this on, or I’ll be ravaging you all night. I’ll probably do it anyway because you have the sweetest little body, and I did not have nearly enough of you. Also, it is a chill wind blowing outside. Wouldn’t want you to catch cold.”
“I’ll just cuddle against you if I grow cold.” She ran her hand along the expanse of his chest and then down his muscled arm. His skin was warm.
She looked forward to sleeping beside him for all the days of her life.
This was also her first night in this bedchamber. To be here with him was infinitely better than sleeping on her own.
More important, she truly felt Fionn belonged here beside her, that he belonged to this cottage…or perhaps the opposite-she and the cottage belonged to him, or were always meant to be his.
Perhaps his connection to the cottage was just fanciful thinking on her part.
She would continue to look into the captain’s boxes of documents for answers, for this feeling was real. There had to be a link between Moonstone Cottage, the ghost sea captain, and Fionn.
If only ghosts could talk.
But she would figure out this puzzle eventually, assuming her family did not forbid her from ever setting foot in here again. Hen and Phoebe were not going to be happy to learn she had spent the entire night with Fionn.
Their husbands would be livid and might do something to him in anger. Not hurt him too badly, because they now needed him to marry her.
She only hoped they would remain calm long enough for her to explain how it all innocently came about. And she would not—even on pain of death—ever reveal what they had just done.
Dear heaven, her entire body was still tingling.
“Sweet dreams, Chloe,” he whispered, kissing her softly on the mouth.
His arms were still around her, and she did not think he would release her at all throughout the night. She was right where she needed to be, close enough for him to touch and hold her, to know she loved him.
How tragic that she was the only person who had ever loved him.
Well, he’d known a fatherly love from Viscount Brennan, surely. And yet it wasn’t quite that. A father’s love was unconditional. Perhaps Viscount Brennan’s kindness was more the generosity of a mentor. Still important, but not quite the same thing.
“I can hear your brain spinning. Go to sleep, Chloe.”
She snuggled against him. “I love you unconditionally, Fionn.”
He chuckled. “I know you do.”
“We are going to make important discoveries tomorrow. I am sure of it.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll be marrying you no matter what we find.”
“But I feel we are very close to discovering important answers. There has to be a connection between you and Captain Arundel. There has to be. I could not be here in this bed with you if he did not approve of us as a match. And we are now betrothed.”
“Unofficially. It is not a done thing without your guardian’s consent.”
“As you insist on reminding me. But Cain will never deny us. To do so would leave me ruined, and he will not allow that ever to happen. So, you see. We are betrothed. Aunt Hen and her sea captain will make certain no one interferes with our happiness. The storm did not throw us together. They did.”
“How, Chloe? They are not all-powerful. Not even a ghost has the power to bring on a storm of this force. It is all coincidence, and our betrothal is the natural progression of the circumstances into which we have been thrown. Go to sleep, love. We’ll be facing a bigger storm once this one passes.”
“Do you mean the disapproval of my family?”
He nodded.
