His beautiful face, hovering so near to hers.
His lips.
Clementine was certain she was more flushed than she had ever been, even when he had gotten a peek beneath her skirts and she had been scandalouslysansdrawers.
“We should name him,” the marquess—Ambrose—said.
Her mind was as blank as a sheet of paper before she wrote a letter upon it to one of her five dearest friends.
“I beg your pardon?”
“The kitten who has decided you are his mama,” he clarified, that beautiful grin of his returning. “He ought to have a name, do you not think?”
The Marquess of Dorset excelled at stealing her breath. And making her long for him.
“Have you a recommendation?” she asked, silently congratulating herself for neither allowing her voice to tremble nor hauling him to her for a greedy, elated, relieved kiss.
“Fergus,” he said.
“You think he is Scottish?”
“I think he has the red hair of a Scot.” Dorset winked. “And I also think the idea of having an orange cat named Fergus following us about at Tildon Court pleases me.”
Tildon Court.
His country seat.
“You never did tell me about it,” she said, recalling their earlier conversation.
“A pile of rubble,” he responded with the same lack of concern he had earlier evinced. “A draughty old tumbledown castle that is largely uninhabitable unless you are a bloody mouse. There was a fire some years ago which I daresay did not help matters. But still, the park is lovely. A lake lies within, along with forest and verdant fields. There is a river as well, though I cannot say whether or not we shall find any kittens floating within it.”
“It sounds lovely. I adore castles.”
Dorset shrugged. “If one likes draughts and mice and dust and despicable lighting. To say nothing of crumbling ruins.”
Old castles, crumbling or no, sounded intriguing to Clementine. She had always been a lover of history. Certainly not to the extent of Olive. No one would ever find Clementine digging up Roman relics from the muck, that much was certain. And yet, there was something about the idea of returning Tildon Court to its former glory that appealed to her.
That feltright.
Just as the Marquess of Dorset did. Just as Walter once had, and yet different. She was older now. Wiser, more jaded. She understood what it meant to love and to lose, to believe herself and the man she loved invincible.
What was the use in running and hiding?
“It hardly sounds as despicable as you would have me believe, my lord,” she said softly.
“It was never my intention to suggest my country seat is despicable.” He leaned into her, crowding her with his big, masculine body and his seductive scent. “I merely wished to warn you. As the Marchioness of Dorset, the obligations awaiting you would be many.”
Was she imagining the wicked gleam in his eyes? She thought not.
“Obligations?” she queried.
“I hope not all of your duties as my wife would be obligatory,” he said, voice low and deep and decadent as morning chocolate and the finest silk and the sweetest perfume all at once.
My wife.
Heavens.
He wanted tomarryher.
