Page 122 of A Wicked Kind of Husband

Suddenly, Joshua understood.

Cassandra’s sisters were so beautiful and lively that she felt plain and dull in comparison, for all that she was pretty and witty and well-liked. So she had carved out her own space in the garden, where she did not have to compete. Even now, when she was de facto head of the household, she did not claim what was hers. Here, and here alone, she felt fully herself.

The dream-like sensation faded. His thoughts were as sharp and clear as ever, and he was fiercely, ferociously, glad he had come.

“Do you like it?” she asked shyly.

He pulled her into his arms. “Very much. It is just like you.”

“And the house? Do you like your house?”

He ignored the “your,” looking at the garden with new eyes. “I suppose we must see someone in their own home to understand them,” he said.

“Perhaps if I saw your home in Birmingham, I’d understand you. Your devotion to your work, your love of metal.”

She would not see a home. She would see an empty house, the place where he slept and changed his clothes. His real home was the space in his head where he kept his work, the one thing no one could ever take from him.

She had shown him an important piece of her; he owed her something in return.

“I never had a particular love of metal,” he said. “That is simply where I landed. But I came to admire the alchemy of the blacksmith, the way a man can bend iron to his will. With heat and pressure, one can transform the very nature of things. A lump of ore or a piece of scrap can be forged into something powerful or useful or beautiful. Something strong, solid, lasting. I like the idea of that.”

“And that is Birmingham,” she said.

“Yes.”

She pulled away from him and went into the folly and leaned back on the seat. She took off her bonnet and placed it beside her, then closed her eyes and turned up her face. The afternoon light caressed her soft complexion and the hint of red in her hair, and he wished he could hold the sight forever.

Then she opened her eyes and smiled, and he joined her on the seat.

“It’syourhouse,” he said.

“It’s yours.”

“Forget what the law says. Youearnedthis house.” Sudden fury at her family coursed through him. “You love it. You run it. You make it work. Your family are too stupid to see it, but they need you. And you do not see it either. Your sisters followed you to London.”

“They went to London to be naughty.”

“No. They went because they do not know how to live without you. You are at the center of this family. You hold them together. You are the head of this familyandits heart, and this house isyours. Claim it. Stop giving up your space. Fight for what is yours. Kick your mother out of that room and claim that study as your own.”

She stared at him, eyes startled, lost and searching. She looked distressed, and he never meant to cause her distress. He brushed his hand over her cheek and had barely said her name when she cried, “Kiss me.”

He kissed her. Sweetly and sensuously, they explored each other, and yes, she still tasted like flowers, but he could not taste her well enough like that, so he tugged at her greedily. She clambered astride him and proceeded to twist his hair and rain soft kisses over his face and throat. He would never know which of them it was who hoisted up her skirts and opened his falls, but soon he was inside her again. The birds chattered, the fountain flowed, his wife tugged his bottom lip between her teeth, and then said, “I bet you can’t do this in Birmingham.”

He had no breath to laugh, still less to talk, so he took his breath from her, and drove deeper inside her as she fell harder on him, until she sank her teeth into his shoulder, and they came.

Afterward, he felt the moment when her awareness returned, for she shifted and buried her face in his neck.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what came over me.”

“It’s all the birds and the bees. Don’t apologize to me. I enjoy a good ravishing in the garden.”

“I used to be so well behaved and now, I…It’s your fault.”

He grinned. “And I am very proud of myself.”

Even after they tidied themselves up, he felt lazily warm and content, so he encouraged her to lie back against him and he closed his eyes.

“We should go,” she said. She didn’t move. “We have things to do.”

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