She was smiling, afterward, when he finally lay down on the rug and gathered her close. “I didn’t exactly mean that kind of sharing, you know.”
He chuckled. “I know.”
His hands were still caressing her softly, possessively. She still wasn’t the least bit tired, but was now glad of that. She would be most happy, in fact, to snuggle there with him all night.
After a moment more, though, she sniffed the air and said, “You might want to remove your shoes from the fireplace, especially if you’re still wearing them.”
His first reaction was to burst out laughing, and he did. Her remark, out of the blue and so casually spoken, was just too bizarre. But then he also smelled what she did, leather burning, and sat up immediately.
“I’m no’ wearing them, but I suppose I will need them tae get home.” He made a sour face as he rescued the smoldering shoe that had managed to fall too close to the fire. “We’ll be married t’morrow, so I can be removing m’shoes properly for bed. Neville has a special license for it, so there’s nae reason tae delay.”
“No,” she said.
“No?” he roared, and pounced on her, pinning her flat on the rug, thinking he had more convincing to do.
“No,” she repeated, smiling up at him. “We’re going to let my aunts arrange this wedding. They’ve planned it for years and years. I’m not going to deny them their day, and lording it over their friends, what a fine catch I made.”
“Oh,” he replied, contrite, but then, “How long will this arranging take?”
“Two or three weeks at the very least.”
He groaned. “Could we no’ sneak off tae Gretna Green for a quick wedding, then come back and have another?”
“No, that wouldn’t be the same, but I’ll arrange for some roof work to be done on the house.”
“Och, I’m afraid tae question that, but what the devil do roofs have tae do wi’ weddings?”
“Not much, but it will leave a ladder handy outside my window until we actually do get married.”
He gave her a very beautiful smile. ‘You’ll be protecting m’shoes then?”
“Oh, absolutely. I might even keep my room quite chilly, just for you.”
He chuckled. “You’re joking, but you’ll ne’er need a fire when I’m around, lass, I promise you.”
“I wasn’t joking,” she corrected him. “I was counting on you keeping me warm.”
Fifty-five
The next weeks dragged by slowly for Duncan, though they weren’t unpleasant since he spent many of the days with Sabrina. It was simply his impatience to have her for his wife before something went wrong again to prevent it. Not an unreasonable worry, and nothing at all to do with his lady.
She had assured him that she loved him, even that she had realized it much sooner than he did, and he had no doubts there, just his own amazement that he’d been blind not to see it sooner. They had just had so many obstacles thrown in their path that he wouldn’t be able to relax fully until the wedding was an accomplished fact.
It was amusing, though, sitting back and watching the bickering that went on between her aunts and his grandfathers, who each had his or her own ideas on how this grand wedding was to proceed. And it was particularly amusing that the aunts won out in the end on every single disagreement—accept those the two ladies had with each other.
The wedding ceremony was going to take place in Summers Glade, because it really was the only place in the area big enough to accommodate the guest list, which included the entire village of Oxbow. Neville nearly collapsed, for real this time, when he heard that every one of the neighbors he’d managed quite nicely to ignore all these years was going to be invading his house.
He had protested long and loud, but with Archie feeling “the more the merrier” and so not supporting him in this, Neville was quite outnumbered. He might have turned his house over for the ceremony, but that was about the extent of his say-so in anything else having to do with the wedding.
Hehadcontinued to grumble about it, until Sabrina told him, “Look at it this way. They might have excluded you from the guest list, considering you haven’t been on the best of terms with them for a good many years.”
“From my own house?” he’d said incredulously.
“Certainly. You don’t think a minor detail like that would stop my aunts, do you?”
Amazingly, he’d burst out laughing and replied, “I’m almost sorry I missed the fight.”
Sabrina had blinked at him and then laughed as well. And to Duncan’s chagrin, they had been quite chummy ever since.
