"You were not."
"I was not," he agreed. "But what I was going to say was much more complimentary."
"And much more inappropriate."
"Inappropriate is our specialty."
"Among other things."
"So many other things."
They lay in comfortable silence, listening to the old house settle around them. Somewhere in the walls, mice scurried about their business. Outside, winter wind rattled the windows. But inside their room, their bed, their matrimony, everything was warm and perfect and theirs.
"Gabriel?"
"Yes, wife?" He seemed to relish the word, rolling it around like fine wine.
"We did it. We actually got wedded despite everything."
"We did."
"Your aunt will be furious."
"Let her be."
"The ton will gossip."
"Let them."
"We'll be social pariahs."
"We'll be together."
"That's enough?"
"That's everything."
Clara lifted herself up to look at him properly. "I love you, Duke of Ashbourne."
"I love you, Duchess of Ashbourne."
"Good Gracious, I'm a duchess now."
"You've been a duchess since the moment you climbed my wall. It just took some paperwork to make it official."
"I don't know how to be a duchess."
"You'll be the same way you do everything else, magnificently, unconventionally, and with enough flair to make the ton clutch their pearls."
They kissed again, slow and deep, and Clara thought that perhaps being a duchess wouldn't be so horrid being a Duchess.
“We should go down to dinner…”
Gabriel continued to kiss her.
"I have better plans for our wedding night than dinner."
"Oh? And what might those be?"
