I tucked a loose curl behind her ear and tipped her chin to face me. “I wouldn’t object to the begetting… With the right woman, of course. But, if I were to die without an heir, well, I won’t be available to care very much about it.”
“So you would be fine, without children I mean?”
“I like children. I’d like to have them—with you specifically—in case that wasn’t clear. But if that isn’t something that happens, or if you don’t want… If that is why you don’t wish to marry— I want you more, is what I’m trying to explain, rather inelegantly.”
“Kit… I still don?—”
“Not to worry then. I have two days at least to leave you half as flustered as you leave me. Then you will have no choice but to agree to be mine.”
Twenty-Seven
NORTH ROAD—APRIL 13, 1817
DAVINA
His refusal toaccept my denial should have irked me. Were he any other man, it would have left me furious.
But Kit wasn’t any of the other men I’d known. He wouldn’t try to buy my affection with shiny gifts. He wouldn’t circumvent my wishes by going to Xander. No, he simply impressed me, continually, in ever more surprising ways.
The instructions he’d left for his steward—the offers he was making to former employees—were more than generous.
Much as I had scolded him for abandoning me to my arachnid-infested fate, I’d never once thought he would end the night anywhere else. Kit was a good man, on the surface, underneath it all, and every bit of him in between.
But I didn’t want a marriage. I didn’t want to be a man’s property. So why did it sound so right when Kit called me his?
Before his hopeful gaze overtook me, I felt the subtle shift between dirt and cobblestones indicating a new coaching inn.
I pulled back the curtain—such a novelty—and the Bull and Mouth greeted us, the courtyard looking very much like everyother courtyard we’d seen thus far. Kit hopped through the door, his pleasure at no longer having to wait for Alfie or Rory to unbuckle us evident. He handed me out properly, then guided me to talk with our drivers, a hand on my lower back.
“We’ll have a quick meal. Do the two of you need a longer break?”
“Nah, it’s much nicer up here. Can you bring some sandwiches though?” Alfie asked.
Kit nodded, then escorted me into the inn. We ate quickly before returning to the carriage and slipping inside.
“Next time you abduct me, I require a finer carriage,” he murmured, a lazy grumbling sound of a satisfied man, and I couldn’t help but wonder what he would sound like when he was trulysatisfied.
I settled beside him and smoothed my wrinkled skirts for something to do. Kit was travel-worn and unbearably handsome. And the beard… The man should never, ever be without at least three days of growth again.
“I suspect my abduction days are at an end.”
He caught my hand and dropped a kiss on the palm before knotting our fingers together and resting them on his knee. “Don’t say that.”
“I think my brother would have liked you.” The sentiment broke free and the tilt of his brow gave away his befuddlement.
“Does he not already?”
“Gabriel, not Xander.”
He gave me a single huff of laughter. “I very much doubt that. And I’m not entirely certain it’s a compliment.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. You wouldn’t have been friends.”
“What did you mean?”
“He once told me I wasn’t allowed to marry a man who underestimated me. I’d nearly forgotten he made me promise.”
“But you’ve remembered?” There was an eager lilt to his whispered question.
