Page 13 of Duchess Material

“Or fly a plane?” Ed asked.

“Correct.”

“Who says she will be a girl?” Ed laughed.

“I would hope for a baby girl. So much. But I’d take a boy, too.”

“You really are open to the idea?”

“Maybe not with someone else,” Natalie said. “But given how good you are to me and how easy it is to get on with you, I think yeah. Also, I am ovulating and the look of you is always making me horny.”

Ed snickered.

“I will continue to objectify you. I can promise you.”

“I can manage.”

“Ed, I don’t want to go public yet, but I am trying to make it all work. At some point, it won’t. Someday, the press will find out about this beautiful existence. They will follow you needlessly.”

“I know.” Ed traced her face for a moment.

“What?”

“I know they will come for me. And I will probably hate it. But then, I will think back to the last time I had you like this—naked, lovely, willing, sweet—and it will fade away. I will not care.”

She blushed.

“Natalie, I am virtually addicted to the sight, smell, and taste of you. It is altogether distracting. I am so glad I am retired now and can properly focus on something as wonderful as satisfying you in every possible way.”

She bit her lip.

He chuckled. “Tank is empty, Natalie.”

“I figured. Mmm… God, I love you. Can we please run away together and ignore all else for a week?”

“Make it so and I will be at your beck and call. Better yet, make it a place where I can see you in a bikini every day and I will go down on you relentlessly to say thank you for the visual.”

Natalie giggled. “That is sort of your M.O. I will see what I can do. Oof, sometimes leaving here kills me.”

“Yeah, I’d rather you never leave.” Ed gave her a slow, longing kiss.

“Maybe someday. When they finish my renovation at KP, you can come stay and never leave.”

“I’d not mind. You want some sort of bum like me hanging around?”

“You, sir, are the world’s most notable pants model. It would be an absolute honour to have you.”

He snickered. “What does that make you?”

“Your proud girlfriend, pants man,” Natalie sniggered.

4

DOG MUM

“Why on Earth are there five of them?” Rita’s voice rang out across the foyer as she stepped into Winston’s house in Kensal Green.

Mairead Sanchez-Ferguson, often known as Rita or the Duchess of Lauderdale, rarely came so far north in London. She infrequently left zone one. As the Queen’s right hand, she stayed close to the Palace. While her official title was The Mistress of the Robes, she could have been called The Maker or Breaker of Society. Rita knew everyone. The daughter of the previous Queen’s right hand, Princess Sabine, Mairead was in the know on everything. As the Queen’s best friend, she kept nonsense to an absolute minimum. She had little reason to come visit her sometimes antisocial artist son’s digs in North London. He usually came to her.

---