He flashed a wry grin. “I am not lovely, princess.”
“You are to me, Duke.” She rose on her toes and pressed a kiss to his lips, taking his grin and molding it to her mouth.
He groaned, his arms tightening around her, before lifting his head. His emerald eyes sparked with that fierce brand of intensity she had come to expect from him. “Ridiculous woman,” he said without heat. “As much as I would like nothing better than to take you straight to bed and make love to you all night long, there is something we must do first.”
“Oh?” Her heart still beat a rapid pizzicato within her breast. Ever since that morning, she had been awash in exquisite sensation. Everything felt more vivid, seemed more vital, more meaningful than it had before. How was it possible that one man could completely alter her world?
“Do not look so disappointed, minx,” he teased, and he was grinning anew.
He seemed lighter, younger, his relaxed expression lending him an air of boyish charm that she had never seen him exude. Just a month ago, she would not have recognized the man gazing down at her with what her foolish heart construed as adoration.
Adoration. She wished.
Calm down, heart, lest ye be smashed to bits.
“What must we do?” she asked before her madly whirling mind could think up any more nonsense.
“You must open the rest of your gift.” He took her mouth in another kiss, this one longer and more thorough than the first they had shared, before abruptly breaking away and setting her from him when the kiss threatened to burn into a roaring inferno. “Damn it, I cannot resist your sweet lips.”
She gave him a smile of her own. At least they were of the same mind on that account, for she could not resist his either. “I am glad for it, husband.”
Husband.
Yes, he was that, and she could not suppress the gratification the knowledge filled her with. It still felt so new and strange to her, and yet, contentment was a river that had flooded its banks, running straight through her, washing away all that had come before. She had not wanted to marry, had not wanted to tie herself to him forever, but now it seemed impossible for her to imagine any other outcome. She did not want one.
Hewas all she wanted.
But the trouble was that perhaps she was not all he wanted.
As she turned to retrieve the gift, she gave herself a stern warning that she needed to guard her heart. He remained closed off from her, his past a barrier that may well prove insurmountable. It was possible that he would never return her feelings, that he was too damaged by what had come before her.
The prospect sent a pang through her heart even as she took up the prettily wrapped bundle. She forced herself to forget about the heaviness invading her and spun back to face him, the gift held aloft like an offering on an altar. It felt like a book.
“Allow me to guess,” she said, strolling back toward him with care, enjoying the way his eyes fastened to her hips. If she swayed them a bit more than natural as a result of his perusal, it couldn’t be helped. “You bought meThe Lady’s Guide to Comportment.”
He shook his head. “No.”
She pretended to think. “The Hoyden’s Manual to Reform?”
His lips twisted. “No again, princess.”
Bo stopped before him, holding the gift between them, and fell into his emerald eyes. “How to Please One’s Husband, and Other Gems of Knowledge?”
“You are incorrect.” He raised a dark, imperious brow. “However, I’m beginning to think I should have purchasedHow to Gracefully Accept a Gift, by a Husband Whose Wife Drives Him to Distraction.”
She laughed, and something in her heart shifted into place. She felt, in that moment, that she was where she was meant to be, that he was meant for her, and she for him. That somehow, fate had thrown them together when they had least wanted or expected it, but the universe held a larger plan for them both. A path they were meant to travel as one. And she knew an intense burst of gratitude.
Who would have thought that the Duke of Disdain knew how to make a joke?
“Very well, I shall take pity on you.” She tossed a grin up at him as she untied the ribbon and opened the paper to reveal the book within. It was handsome, red Morocco leather, a gilt title stamped to the face that readThe Jewel. Her mind spun as she took it in, certain she knew what awaited her within the pages and yet certain it could not be so.
“It is a new journal with a small run,” he said, his low voice crushed velvet to her senses, smooth and seductive. “It features hand-colored woodcut illustrations that I thought you may find…illuminating. Your other book had no such embellishment.”
She stared at the book in her hands, then her husband. He watched her with an expectant expression, and an unmistakable trace of scarlet coloring his high cheekbones. He looked, in fact, equal parts eager and ashamed, as though he could not believe he had purchased such a gift and yet he could not wait for her to crack its spine.
“You bought me a bawdy book,” she said, awed.
His color deepened. “Smut, yes. I do not know what I was thinking. I ought to burn the thing in the grate along with its predecessor.”
