Page 120 of A Slight Problem with the Wedding
“Not in the least, but I think we are not the only couple with this idea. How about we return home instead? I’m feeling a terrible headache coming on,” she remarked with obvious theatricality. “But before we make our excuses and leave, I have one more thing to tell you.”
“Only one?” he teased. “What is it, love?”
“Lord Ashborn is selling his townhouse.”
“How did we get from my claiming your luscious body to talking about houses?”
“Because it has all merged into one in my head. You. Bed. Our privacy, which is something we have little of while living under your brother’s roof. Not that I ever wish to sound ungrateful. He and Adela have been exceedingly kind and generous to us. Me, particularly. But they must be feeling this same lack of privacy in their own home. I think it is time we settled into a place of our own, especially with a child on the way.”
“Well, that’s all right then. I will speak to Ashborn first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Thank you, Julius.” She nodded. “Isn’t it perfect? We would still be close to Ambrose and Adela, just a few doors down from their home.”
They bid their friends a hasty goodnight, apologized to Lady Fullerton for the sudden headache Gory developed, and hurried home, probably fooling no one as to their true intent.
Upon their arrival home, they marched straight upstairs.
Julius wasted no time in stripping down to his trousers the moment they were in their bedchamber and he’d shut the door.
His eyes were on Gory as she changed out of her gown, but he stopped her as she was about to don her robe. “Give me a moment to look at you, love.”
She was shy, but never with him.
She smiled when he began to trace his fingers with reverence along the changes to her body. “You are so beautiful, Gory.”
She blushed. “I am soon going to be very ungainly.”
“Never. You have the sweetest body. It was all I could do to keep from devouring you at Lady Fullerton’s rout. You have me falling more deeply in love with you each day. I did not think it was possible to feel something more than I already do. But the passage of time forges a stronger bond between us whether we are together or not. This month apart from you was sheer agony for me. I ached to have you curled up beside me again.”
“I missed you, too. I hugged your pillow every night.”
“And now, I hope you will hug me.” He smiled wickedly. “I hope you will do more than merely hug me.”
Her smile was dazzling. “What do you suggest?”
He lifted her in his arms and carried her to bed.
She ran her hands along the scars on his arms. The stitches had long since been taken out but the scarring was there permanently. “Do these ever pain you, Julius?”
“Do yours?”
She put a hand to the tender spot behind her ear. “Sometimes, but not too often now. What about you?”
“No, love. No pain. I am fine.”
She laughed. “Fine? You always say this.”
“Because this is how you make me feel. I’m even more than fine. Shall I prove it to you?”
She nodded.
So he did, several times that night, in fact.
But he was always gentle with her, and always aware of the precious bundle she carried inside of her. He fell into the best sleep he’d had in a long while because she was beside him and he breathed in the familiar, honey scent of her skin that he adored.
He had botched everything up to their wedding.
No proper courtship.
