If it weren’t for the beast, he would still be kissing the woman he loved. Instead, he took her by the hand and led her in the direction of the dreadful sounds. They reached a gilt-framed settee, and he jabbed his finger unceremoniously toward the cushion.
Before he could protest, Grace grasped her skirts and sank to her knees.
And for the second time in their acquaintance, her rump was beckoning to him as she poked about beneath a piece of furniture. As tempting as the sight was—and as much as he appreciated it—he had no wish for the cat to attack her.
“Grace,” he protested. “Leave the thing alone. I will enlist a footman to help me remove it.”
“You will do nothing of the sort,” she said, her voice muffled. “There you are, you little darling. How sweet.”
Frowning, he dropped to his knees alongside her, and when he looked beneath the settee, he saw the reason for the yowling and his betrothed’s sudden cooing both.
The fat cat had given birth to four squirming, wet kittens.
“This certainly explains her outrage,” he said softly.
“She is not demonic at all,” Grace told him, casting him a glance that melted his heart. “She is a mama. Oh, Rand. Aren’t they adorable?”
He was sure they were, but at the moment, he only had eyes for her. “When can I marry you, Grace?”
He wanted to marry her now. This moment. He never wanted to let her go. When he had watched her fleeing from him in the orangery, it had torn him apart.
“Soon,” she said softly. “Rand?”
“Yes, Grace love?”
“Kiss me,” she ordered him.
He did not waste a moment in closing the distance between them and pressing his lips to hers as happiness and love blossomed inside him.
To the devil with feigned betrothals. He had what was real and what was right andallhe needed. Now, and forever.
Epilogue
“While your offeris tempting, I must regretfully decline, my lord,” Grace told her new husband with a teasing smile, intentionally echoing the words she had said to him not long ago, when she had initially turned down his feigned betrothal.
“One more?” he prodded with a wicked smile that did untold things to her insides, holding a savoy biscuit to her lips.
“Perhaps just one,” she allowed, and then took a ladylike bite from the airy biscuit.
It was delicious, and there was no denying it. But not nearly as delicious as the man before her. With his dark, tousled hair and those bright-blue eyes of his burning into hers, not even the most decadent dessert could distract her from what she wanted most.
Him.
They had married at a small affair in the country attended by her family and his. After a lengthy breakfast presided over by his grandmother, the august dowager Duchess of Revelstoke—during which Grace had earned her reluctant approval—they had departed for one of the lesser Revelstoke estates.
Rand had prepared for their arrival in true fashion. There had been a steaming bath awaiting her, along with a plate of savoy biscuits, and tea just the way she liked. All five of their cats had accompanied them for the journey, as both Grace and Rand had gotten quite attached to the mama cat—now named Snowflake—and her litter of adorable kittens.
In all, though the winter was cold, their travel had been onerous, and the day had been long, Grace had never been happier.
“Another bite, Lady Aylesford?” Rand asked, the half-eaten biscuit still in his long, elegant fingers.
She shook her head. “All I want now is my husband, Lord Aylesford.”
A glint she recognized all too well had entered his hooded gaze. “Truly? I thought you preferred blond gentlemen with brown eyes. And that I was in need of some fortifying pie.”
Of course, he had not forgotten her merciless teasing of him.
She bit her lip. “I must admit, I still treasure the expression on your face when I said that to this day.”
