What a twenty-four hours that had passed. Truly, even for the up-and-down life she’d lived, it was a remarkable whirlwind that had blown through.
What had possessed her?
Lust.No point denying it.
She’d never harbored a particular desire for lords, not like so many of her sex. In her experience, they were fussy and too full of themselves to tolerate for long. But Clare, well, he was a different sort of lord.
Her dealings with the man only grew more complicated with each passing day. Too complicated.
As if her thoughts had the power to summon him into the garden, he emerged from the set of double doors. If she looked every inch the marchioness, he looked every inch the marquess.
Watching him approach, she saw last night had been inevitable. It was only a wonder that it hadn’t happened sooner.
Yes, he was handsome and tall and possessed of all the physical features women found desperately attractive, including long, skilled fingers. An echo of last night’s desire skittered through her. Yet more lay within the foundation of this handsome man.
It was the look in his eyes. A seriousness. A determination. And when one found oneself the recipient of that gaze, well, one’s breath was likely to be stolen away.
Like now.
Never in her life had a man stolen her breath away.
Until this man.
He stopped within a few yards of her. She waited for him to speak first. If she opened her mouth, she might go straight to last night, and, well, that wouldn’t do.
“Have you broken your fast?” he asked after a few interminable seconds.
“Tea and toast,” she replied. She’d never given much thought to what husbands and wives might say to each other in the morning, but this sounded about right.
“The kitchen offers more variety if you so desire.”
“It’s my usual morning fare.”
He nodded slowly, reluctantly accepting her choice.
In the distance, Sir Bacon began alternately scratching at the back gate and squeezing his nose beneath the bottom edge and the ground. When neither of these actions yielded the desired result, he stood back and began barking.
“Sir Bacon!” she called out, already on the move. “Never a dull moment.”
“St. James’s Park isn’t far,” Jamie said, close at her back.
“Oh?” she asked over her shoulder.
“Would you care for a stroll?”
That brought her up short. “Sir Bacon certainly would.” The little terrier’s ears had perked up at his name. Big brown eyes staring up, he emitted an impatient whine for good measure. “I reckon it’s early enough that no one would see us.”
Jamie cocked his head. “I assure you it’s perfectly acceptable for a husband to take the morning air with his wife, even in civilized society.”
His dry tone pulled a bemused laugh from her. “The possibility hadn’t occurred to me.”
His humor fell away. “You’ve become so accustomed to living in the shadows, you no longer know how to live in the light, do you?”
The question sliced through her with the precision of a straightedge, stopping the breath in her lungs, cutting too close to the core of her. That he’d seen this truth about her so clearly, more clearly than she saw herself, was startling and disconcerting.
She glanced away on the pretext of keeping an eye on Sir Bacon. “Shall we go?”
Jamie held out his arm, and she hesitated, even as she understood that, of course, she must accept his offer. They were a married couple, the fiction they were selling to thehaut ton. Of course, Lord and Lady Clare would walk arm-in-arm.
