“I hope so,” he said quietly. “I love it, in fact. I can think of no one else whom I could be so pleased to share my name with.”
Her heart gave a sharp, disbelieving leap at the words he had not seemed to realize he had spoken until it was already in the air between them.
He did not take it back.
He only looked at her as though waiting to see whether she would push him away or step closer.
She did not push him away.
They returned to the inn not as conspirators, but as husband and wife. Miles exchanged a few words with the innkeeper, who, while polite, looked faintly amused to be hosting a newly wedded couple arriving without baggage or entourage. A private chamber was prepared upstairs, the fire stoked, candles laid ready. Jillian’s hands trembled only once when she removed her gloves in that quiet room, and she could not even say whether it was from cold or from the realization of what must come next.
Miles closed the door gently behind them.
For the first time since the hurried ceremony, they were alone.
Truly alone.
No aunts. No whispering guests. No watchful servants. No house that seemed to breathe suggestions into every corridor.
Just the two of them, and the vows they had spoken, and the awareness simmering beneath her skin.
Miles turned the key in the lock, not with possessive flourish, but with a kind of careful finality, as though acknowledging that they now stood at the threshold of a different life. When he turned back toward her, there was no trace of the earlier amusement on his face. Only a seriousness laced with unmistakable heat.
“If at any point,” he said, crossing the few paces between them, “you wish me to stop, you have only to say so. Being my wife does not strip you of the right to be heard. I will not take what you are unwilling to give.”
Her breath escaped in a long, uneven sigh. “I know. I would not be here if I were unwilling.”
“This is all very new for you… Being willing does not also mean that you cannot be frightened by the unknown. I don’t wish to frighten you.”
“Then kiss me,” she whispered. “I find, strangely enough, that when you do so, I can’t think of anything to be frightened about.”
He searched her eyes for one suspended heartbeat, then lifted his hand and brushed a loose curl back from her face with a touch so light it sent a ripple through her.
“Then,” he murmured, his thumb lingering a fraction of a second at her temple, “I believe we ought to begin our marriage properly, Mrs. Fairfax.”
The sound of her new name on his tongue, warm and intimate, made her knees weaken.
Outside, the winter day continued as it always had. Within the quiet chamber, however, time gathered itself and held still as he lowered his head toward hers.
And for the first time, when their lips met, it was not by accident, not in the midst of a game, not under the eyes of half a household.
It was deliberate.
It was chosen.
It was theirs.
Chapter
Fifteen
He bent then, pressing a slow trail of kisses along the line of her jaw and down the column of her throat, lingering at the rapid pulse that beat there. Each touch felt like the softest possible claiming, a reverent mapping of her skin that left a path of awareness in its wake. Jillian lay back against the coverlet as he guided her, the wool beneath her palms rough and real in contrast to the heated blur of sensation gathering everywhere he touched. Her hair spilled around her like a dark halo, and she had the odd, disorienting thought that if anyone had told her a fortnight ago that she would lie in a York inn bed with Miles Fairfax lowering his mouth to her throat, she would have laughed them from the room and quoted something scathing in Greek for good measure. Now she could scarcely remember her own name.
He braced himself on one arm beside her, the mattress dipping under his weight, his other hand smoothing over her shoulder and down the length of her arm in a slow, calming stroke meant to assure her that she guided the pace as much as he did. The shift had ridden higher when she lay back, baring her calves and the curve of her knees, and the contrast of cool airon her skin and the warmth of his palm when he reached lower nearly undid her. His fingers slipped beneath the hem of linen, exploring the line of her calf with a care that made her shiver. He traced the shape of her ankle, the delicate bones of it, the arch of her foot, and the sheer tenderness of such an unassuming touch made her chest tighten.
“You’re trembling,” he murmured, lifting his head to search her face. She felt undone by the gentleness in his eyes, as though he might shatter from hurting her more easily than she might from being hurt.
“I am trying not to,” she admitted, her voice barely steady. “I do not know if I am nervous or simply overwhelmed.”
