With a shaking hand, he picked the object from its nest of paper inside the box, holding it aloft for his inspection. A pocket watch, and not just any watch but a finely crafted one of silver, etched with a rearing stallion. An engraving on the reverse readfrom your favorite horse thief.His mouth went dry, and everything he could have said fled his mind in that instant.
“Presumptuous of me to assume I would be your favorite horse thief, I know.” Her smile widened, and he became briefly mesmerized by the beauty mark alongside her mouth. “But I reasoned you likely do not know many, and the competition would not be fierce.”
He stared at her, swallowing past the lump that had risen in his throat. Bloody hell. No one had ever given him a gift before, and as the silver watch in his palm warmed to his flesh, it seemed to burn straight into him. Something happened. Some sensation, foreign, unwanted, whipped through him. Something shifted inside him, and he felt it like a skeleton key fitting into a lock.
Click. Open.
The ability to experience happiness that he’d thought he had lost forever the day that Millicent had killed herself before him seemed within his reach. Perhaps it had never been gone, only hidden away, waiting for someone to look close enough to rescue it. To make him realize he still possessed the ability tofeel.
“Why do you look upon me so strangely?” Boadicea’s smile faltered, a bit of the riveting gleam fading from her gaze. “You do not like it, do you? Oh, bother, and here I had been thinking myself massively clever.”
“Like it,” he repeated, his lips moving slowly, as though he were relearning to speak. And in some ways, perhaps he was. He was relearning himself in the process. Relearning everything he had once believed. She was changing him. Melting him.No. I will not let her. I cannot let her.He cleared his throat, chasing away any maudlin sentiment before adding, “I love it.”
And he did, in spite of himself.
“You do?” Her hopeful expression was adorable. He wanted to kiss her and gather her up in his arms and throw her on his bed all at the same time.
“I do.” He allowed his eyes to roam appreciatively over her. “Thank you, Boadicea. It is an exceptionally fine piece, and I will think of you when I need the time.”
And every second in between, but there was no need to say that bit aloud. He would not have his wife thinking he was obsessed with her. Or worse, in love with her. He most assuredly was not in love with her.
Was he?
Good Christ, no.
There was no bloody way. Love was an illusion. A chimera. It didn’t exist.
Her expressive face lit up, having no inkling of his inner battle. “Oh, Spencer. That was a lovely thing to say. I hope you meant that you will think of me happily and not with vexation. Imagine if whenever you checked the time you thought of me stealing your horse or infiltrating your library. Poor, innocent watch, to suffer your ire so.”
He grinned, thoroughly enjoying the much-needed levity between them. Enjoying himself for the first time that day, in fact, as they were finally allowed to be each other. Alone. “You are the most peculiar female I have ever met.”
She arched a brow, her expression turning wry. “Why, husband, you do know how to charm a lady.”
He winced. “I meant it as a compliment, though perhaps my gifts to you will help to ease the sting of my blunder. Will you open them now?”
“Of course.” She turned her attention to the box, unwrapping and opening it, withdrawing a small box first and glancing up at him with question.
“Allow me.” He took the larger parcel from her. “I shall hold this one until you open the first.”
When she removed the lid of the box, a gasp tore from her. He knew what she looked upon—the Marlow sapphires set in an ornate collar he had chosen himself, along with a glittering assortment of diamonds. The price of the necklace had been astoundingly dear, but there was nowhere else the Bainbridge sapphires belonged other than Boadicea’s throat, and he would pay the same sum thrice over if it meant she would wear them and stand at his side for the rest of their lives.
“Spencer,” she said, her voice hushed with reverence. “This is a small fortune. You should never have—”
“It is the Marlow sapphires,” he interrupted gently. “They belong to the Duchess of Bainbridge.”
“Oh.” She lowered her head, studying the glinting stones.
He understood her well enough to know that his explanation had not reassured her, and he also wished her to know that he wanted her to have them. That they belonged at her throat, that they were hers and she was his. That he had never given them to his first wife, for it had never seemed right, even before she had descended into madness. “You are the only duchess I have given them to, Boadicea. I had them placed in a new setting expressly for you. Do you like it?”
She looked back up at him, her expression unreadable. “You had this done for me?”
He couldn’t resist trailing a finger over the curve of her cheek, running it down the bridge of her nose, across the captivating expanse of her smattering of freckles. “Of course, and rest assured that acquiring your second gift caused me a great deal more difficulty than this necklace did.”
That had her curious, just as he had expected. “Do tell. What can it be?”
Since the gift in question was shaped like a book and her intelligence rivalled her looks, he was fairly certain she had an idea already. “Patience, princess. First, try on the necklace.”
He guided her to the looking glass and placed everything upon the top of the mahogany chest of drawers upon which it sat before taking up the necklace. He stood behind her, both of them facing their reflections, and it was oddly disconcerting and arousing all at the same time. Their gazes met, an arrow of heat zinging straight to his loins. Unable to help himself, he stepped closer to her, until they were leg to leg, back to front, his cock nestling into the sweet curve of her bum.
