“I’ve had little experience with wives…and I don’t know anything at all about being a husband.”
“You don’t remember your parents?”
He cleared his throat, suddenly interested in the passing trees. “I remember them.”
His clipped answer further muddied the shallow waters of trust. “Is that all?”
He turned, studied her briefly, and sighed. “I have memories of them both, but never in the same room.”
A cold, slick emotion darted through her body, leaving her chilled. She’d felt a similar shiver when Farring had spoken of Rayne’s parents.
“I don’t remember my mother at all.” She looked away. “But I don’t tell many people, because Ishouldremember.” She’d been five. She remembered other things from that era. Markham. Katherine. Her father. Miss Watson’s warm cuddles. Just not her mother.
“Memory is a strange thing.” His gaze softened. “I suppose that means neither of us has an example to follow, doesn’t it?”
“What does that mean?”
“It means,” he said slowly, “we will learn as we go.”
The distance across the carriage had grown by at least a league.
“Well, there’s one thing we already know.” She reached across and laid her hand on his thigh. “We are good together.”
He stared down at her hand almost uncomprehendingly. She feared he would remove it from his person. Instead, he turned over her palm, then lifted her inner wrist to his lips. Looking into her eyes, he sucked and then gently bit her flesh.
“We are that.”
With his beard shaven, he resembled the Rayne she’d first met. However, the undomesticated Rayne, the Rayne she’d grown to love and to trust, lived on in his eyes.
“Come,” he said.
She shuffled over on the seat.
“Closer.”
She laughed. “I can hardly get any closer.”
“Can’t you?”
He lifted her into his lap, then arranged her skirts up around her waist so she could sit, facing him, with room enough to spread her legs and place her knees on either side of his hips.
“If”—he pulled her head to his shoulder—“one comes into possession of a nearly fully enclosed traveling chariot, one should make use of the privacy granted, don’t you agree?”
She closed her eyes. The curtain whispered across the rod as he shut out the world. The old fears should have returned. They did not. When Rayne was close, she was secure.
For this moment, she’d allow herself to believe that everything would proceed the way she’d once dreamed. That he’d take her home and they would build a life together at the Grange.
That he would finally see her and know her and love her complete.
“You—on my lap. Have I told you how good this makes me feel?”
“Justme on your lap?” She frowned. “Don’t mock me, Rayne.”
“I’m not.” He paused. “Have I ever?”
“Yes.” She snorted. “You’ve never held back from telling me the truth…no matter how pointy and sharp.”
He removed her hat, drew aside her hair, and kissed her neck. “The day I forget that first time together will be the day I die.”
