“You know, and yet you make us suffer,” he joked.
“But you love me all the same,” she said with a shrug.
He took that opportunity to press a kiss on her temple. Over the past year, he always took advantage of any opening to kiss her, still enjoying the way she blushed every time.
Hand in hand, they left their bedchamber and made it downstairs. They were only a few paces away from the drawing room when Ava and Maisie’s voices found them. Catriona looked at him in alarm.
“What are my sisters doing here?” she asked in alarm.
Joseph couldn’t hold back his grin. He shrugged, and Catriona narrowed her eyes at him.
She started ahead again, her steps hurried. She entered the room to Ava complaining that she was going to go upstairs herself. She stopped talking mid-sentence, surprised.
And then all three girls, Dorothea included, leaped to their feet to exclaim, “Surprise!”
Catriona was frozen at the door, her eyes wide. She looked at Joseph, then her sisters, then Dorothea, then Joseph again. And then realization dawned in her eyes.
“Oh right,” she said with a growing smile. “It is my birthday.”
“Surely you didn’t forget?” Maisie gasped.
“Again?” Ava exclaimed.
“Does she do it often?” Dorothea asked. The two sisters turned to Dorothea and nodded.
“I don’t do it on purpose,” Catriona defended herself, drifting further into the room. Joseph stayed on her heels. “I simply don’t pay the date much mind.”
“Which is exactly why we decided to do something special this year,” Maisie said. “You’ve always made sure we’re happy on ours.”
“You don’t have to?—”
“But we wanted to,” Joseph cut in. He slid his arm around her waist, pulling her into his side. “And you’d better get used to it because this will be your reality for the years to come.”
She leaned into his embrace. “I think I will adjust quite nicely.” Looking back at her sisters, she asked, “So will you two be joining us for dinner?”
Ava and Maisie shared conspiratorial looks, smiling. “Something like that,” Ava said.
“And what is that supposed to mean?”
“It means it is a surprise,” Dorothea spoke up eagerly, grinning from ear to ear. “But I think you’re really going to like it.”
“So it’s time to go.” Maisie made a shooing motion with her hands. “Let’s go now. Out the door with you.”
“We’re leaving the manor?” Catriona asked, bemused.
“I think it’s best not to ask any questions,” Joseph told her with a chuckle. “Because you won’t be getting any straight answers.”
“Did you help with this?” Catriona asked. She let herself be ushered out the room. “Because there is something unnerving about the thought about my sisters being the lead on this.”
“It was my idea. They simply helped with the execution.”
That seemed to ease her mind which pleased Joseph immensely. Before Catriona came into his life, he never would have known how to tap into that sensitive side of his heart, the one capable of showing his love as much as he could say it aloud. Sometimes he wondered if he was doing a good enough job in showing her how grateful he was to have her. Tonight was the perfect time to do so.
They all made their way outdoors where two carriages stood waiting. Joseph and Catriona climbed into one by themselves while Maisie pulled Dorothea along to ride with them, likely because she sensed that Joseph wasn’t going to be able to keep his hands off Catriona. The moment they were alone, Joseph did what he had been wanting to do since he went to fetch her in their bedchamber but wasn’t sure they had the time.
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her deeply. Catriona leaned into his kiss like she always did. Like the first time, the second time, and the hundreds of times since then. He hoped she never stopped. He hoped he still stoked her need to be close to him like he had for her.
But she was the one who pulled away first. “Tell me where we’re going,” she whispered, her breath brushing his lips.
