A flush stained her cheeks, quite unlike her—he didn’t think he had ever seen her put to the blush during their entire acquaintance.
“My courses were unusually late,” she murmured, “but they have since arrived. There is no child. Now, if you please, go. Leave my drawing room, the both of you.”
“With pleasure, madam,” he managed past the shock and roiling emotions within.
And then, he escorted his wife from the Earl of Worthing’s town house for the second and last time. On this occasion, however, he took her home with him.
Which was precisely where his Bess belonged.
* * *
“Are you disappointed?”
“About spending the afternoon in bed with my beautiful wife?” Torrie’s voice was a decadent rumble beneath Elizabeth’s ear. “Not for a moment, my love.”
After abruptly ending their call on Lady Worthing, she and Torrie returned to Torrington House, where they had slipped into her chamber and out of their respective garments. Now, she was lying on her belly, sated and happy, her head on her husband’s chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart as he idly sifted through the strands of her hair.
“Not about the manner in which we’ve spent our afternoon,” she said softly, exploring the bands of muscle on his abdomen with a slow, tender caress. “About the babe, I mean. Learning that the child never was.”
“If anything, I’m relieved not to be tied to Lady Worthing any longer in any capacity.” He lifted her long hair and dropped it steadily, piece by piece, to her bare back. “I would have cared for the child, loved the child. But I want to become a father when you become a mother. I want our children to be raised in a happy home with parents who love each other.”
Our children.
Hers and Torrie’s.
Oh, how she liked the sound of that. How she liked this unexpected second chance she had been given, the opportunity to find love and a deeper contentedness than she had ever known possible. To become a wife and one day, she hoped, a mother as well.
“You will make a wonderful father,” she told him, unable to resist pressing a kiss to his chest.
Torrie’s hand swept beneath her hair, his touch igniting a trail of fire over her bare skin as he followed the length of her spine. “I cannot say I’ll be a wonderful father. Christ knows my own sire fell far short of the mark, and my mother was no better. But I will try.”
The return of his memory had lessened the strain between Torrie and his mother. However, the dowager still remained rather frosty with both Elizabeth and Torrie. Their paths infrequently crossed, and by design. Elizabeth still hoped that gradually, bit by bit, she might loosen the stones in the wall Lady Torrington had built around herself. Thus far, however, the dowager had been far more willing to accept Angel into her heart than Elizabeth.
But time was a healer, and Elizabeth was eternally optimistic. After all, time had eventually given her the greatest gift of all, and his heart was beating directly beneath her ear in a steady, wonderful rhythm.
“I caught your mother sitting with Angel in her lap this morning,” she said. “I was quite shocked when I saw it. She claimed that Angel jumped into her lap without provocation, and she was too fearful of her claws to demand she move, so she allowed it.”
Torrie chuckled. “What rot. I’ve seen her slipping chicken livers about the house on a plate. She is bribing your cat, darling.”
Elizabeth smiled, finding the trail of hair on his abdomen that led lower, to another part of her husband’s anatomy she also admired. “I think she is lonely. It will be good for her to find some companionship in Angel, and Angel is willing to eat whatever delights are offered her.”
“Always kindhearted and compassionate, my beautiful Bess.” His hand passed between her shoulder blades, his touch warm and reassuring, but also bringing her desire back to life. “Always willing to give the undeserving another chance. Myself included.”
“Oh, but you are most deserving.” Her fingers trailed deliberately lower. “I would be happy to show you just how much.”
“My sweet, proper wife,” he murmured, arching into her touch. “Whatever can you be suggesting?”
Her fingers wrapped around his length. Already, he was rigid and thick, despite their earlier lovemaking, and she felt an answering pulse between her thighs. He had such a beautiful cock. But then, that was hardly surprising. Torrie was beautiful everywhere, inside and out.
“I think you know precisely what I’m suggesting, Lord Torrington,” she murmured, feeling naughty.
She flicked her tongue over his nipple.
He made a low sound, deep in his throat. “I’m afraid you’ll have to say the words, Lady Torrington.”
She glanced up at him, holding his glittering green gaze. “I want you inside me.”
He gave her a slow smile. A burning smile. The smile of a reformed rakehell who knew the effect he had on his wife. A viscount of villainy no more.
