Page 69 of Entrancing the Earl
A hot flush heated her better than the fire in the grate.
“We really should wait until we’re at Wystan,” she said, nervously. “I should consult with my queen before doing anything drastic.”
He halted and turned her to face him. Crossing his arms, he raised one eyebrow and waited.
She didn’t like that. She squirmed. “I amnothiding.”
He waited some more. He looked so commanding, so very... magnificent.
Iona rubbed the ring on her finger and studied the waves of white lace covering her shoes. “It’s not hiding to need confirmation that I’m doing the right thing.”
He tilted her chin so she had to meet his forceful dark eyes and taunted. “I can sense it, y’know. Your head and your heart know what is right. Your bees only confirm what you already know. To back away and say you may consult with them is hiding.”
“I...” But the damned man was absolutely right. All her life, she’d fled to her hives for comfort—and to escape her unhappiness. The bees had been her confidants when Mortimer raged through the house or stole the coins she’d hidden.
She wasn’t unhappy now. Mortimer was out of her life. In his place stood an arrogant honorable lord who wanted to please her—who admitted tosensingher mood. And she was too stupid to know how to react.
At her silence, he asked worriedly, “Are you sorry we did this?”
Another woman might scold and accuse him of arrogant presumption, but Iona knew better. He’d known she’d never choose her own wants and desires over what was best for others. He understood her, just as she was learning to understand him. He was a man people relied on because he did what needed to be done, no matter how unpleasant or difficult. They were not terribly different.
But this marriage—he was actually doing for himself because he was braver than she was. He was doing it because itfeltright, not because it was logical or practical or all those things they normally did.
“I am terrified,” she whispered as she toyed with the buttons of his waistcoat. Herhusbandhad unbuttoned his tailed coat hours ago. “I’m so excited and happy that I may be delirious. And that terrifies me too. Like my queen, I flee when startled and fly elsewhere when threatened. What I feel right now—is overwhelming.”
Gerard caught her hand and kissed the knuckles, then picked up the jewelry box and held it out. “I know I was hasty and arrogant in believing you feel as I do. But Idoknow it. You were the one who taught me to heed the energies people emit. And for that, I wanted to thank you.”
Uncertainly, she released her hold on his waistcoat to open the box.
“My pearls?” she asked uncertainly, smelling the love on the luminous beads, unable to believe it was possible. “You bought back mymother’s pearls?”
He closed the box and set it aside while kissing her hair and temple. “I had Max ask your sister. I hope I found all of them.”
Closing her eyes, Iona swayed, feeling almost as faint as her twin. She clung to his waistcoat and let the love well up inside her, a love she hadn’t felt in so very long... And still hadn’t the words to say. “I cannot thank you... It’s too much. Your reward money...”
“Money is not as important as convincing you that I am the best husband for you. I didn’t spend it all. I can patch the leaks. The library is safe for a while longer. I don’t know how else to show you that we will be good together.”
His hint of uncertainty pierced her heart. She wanted him to be confident that she could be his countess. “We are attuned to each other, my lord. I never doubted that.”
His waistcoat fell open beneath her fumbling fingers, and Iona tentatively flattened her palms against his hard torso, as she’d wanted to do so many times. She drank in his odor of integrity and desire, steadying her quaking nerves.
He covered her hand with his, letting their paired senses read the moment. “Your queen doesn’t flee your drones, does she?” He teased kisses across her brow and down her nose. His big hands encompassed her waist and found the ties for her train.
Drones, oh my.That was plain enough. “We’ve already performed our mating dance?” If they talked, perhaps she wouldn’t be quite so aware of the hard beat of his heart.
Her train fell to the floor. With shaky fingers, Iona unknotted his cravat and cast it aside so she might start on his shirt studs. She really needed to see his chest naked again. Joy and desire pushed aside doubt and fear.
“Is that what bees do? Perhaps this can be our mating dance.” He spun her around and nimbly started on the tiny pearl buttons at her back.
“A little less... primitive... perhaps.” She suppressed a moan as he let her bodice and chemise fall and released her corset ties.
She tried to grasp all the fabric falling off her, but with masculine strength, he spun her back around again.
Gulping, she fastened her gaze on her husband’s face as he unwrapped her like a gift more precious than her pearls. She was nervously left standing nearly naked from the waist up. Gerard’s worshipful expression reassured her, along with his scent of lust and... expectation? She thought he trembled as much as she did when he pushed aside her gauzy undergarments to lift her bare breasts from her underpinnings.
“I’m feeling very primitive.” His voice was a low rumble that stirred all her nerve endings.
He lifted her and put his mouth to the aroused crest of one breast. Iona cried out with the intensity of her need.
