He laughed, “Sweetheart, if you asked me, I could have organized five more.”
“No,” she blinked, and slid her Queen forward while eyeing his Knight. “Three of us were enough.”
“Was wine involved?”
“No,” she said. “Tea and cake.”
“I see…” Cassian murmured as he slid his lone pawn in front of her Queen.
Triumphantly, she swooped the pawn. “Check.”
Cassian smiled, and his Bishop swept in and snagged her Queen out of nowhere. Her mouth dropped, and her head snapped side to side—a bad idea as the wine she’d drunk was already taking effect. “What—how?”
He smiled and slid his Queen, which he had moved across the board, to topple her King.
She glared, or attempted to, but by the laughter on Cassian’s face, her glare had fallen flat. Cecilia jabbed a finger into his chest. “That is illegal.”
“I am only saving you the pain of sacrificing your lone Rook,” he said while reaching over the board and snagging it. “This lone fellow deserves to go to the graveyard with dignity.”
She rolled her eyes, “I demand a rematch.”
“With the same terms?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll oblige,” Cassian replied as he pushed from the table. “But we need another bottle of wine.”
“Mind your step, Cecilia,” Cassian murmured as he half-carried Cecilia up the stairs back to her room, trying to hide his smile.
Tipsy Cecilia was truly the opposite of sober Cecilia, something he had found to be true in much detail—that drunken kiss several weeks ago aside.
While they had played their second and third game of chess, with her sipping her wine, she had become a fount of information, telling him things about her childhood and young adult days freely.
In truth, he was at fault for her tipsy state: as he had purposely lost some moves so he could fill her glass again and again. Shehad lost her self-consciousness bit by bit. He’d led her along with questions.
She’d lost her inhibitions and told him a rambling string of facts about her favorite hobbies as a child, reading he had known, but riding astride was one he had never expected. She told him what her family was like, rigid and overly staid, as he had assumed, and the suitors her family had rejected before Whitmore.
They reached the top step, and she stumbled, giggling. As he caught her against him, he cautioned again. “Easy, Cece.”
He managed to push the door in and, even with the gloom of her bedroom, managed to guide her to the bed. He pulled the sheets apart and gently rested her on the bed—only for her to pull him down with her.
“Cecilia—”
“Stay with me tonight…” she sighed as he shifted his weight off her.
He wondered if she meant something else. “You are drunk, sweetheart. We cannot possibly—”
“I don’t wantthat,” she murmured. “I just want to be near you.”
“Excuse me,” he said. “I think I need to get you to write that out and sign it before I get it notarized.”
“Hush,” she rubbed her cheek on his chest. “This was ever so much fun. We should do chess matches more often. I don’t know why we haven’t.”
“Because I do not think getting you drunk frequently is a good idea,” Cassian said wryly. “I have learned more about you tonight in two hours than you have offered to tell me in the twenty-one days since we were married.”
“It has only been twenty-one days?” Cecilia murmured. She gave a large, unladylike yawn, and Cassian smothered his grin. “It feels longer.”
His hand ran up her back. “Do you mean that in a good way?”
