Chapter Thirty-Two
Nicholas took the stairs like a man walking on clouds.He had meant what he said to Bea.He needed to hear what Fletcher had to say, but the truth was his mind was only half on the man waiting below.
The other half was still in his bed.
He could feel her in the warm indentation on the mattress, in the faint scent of her on his skin, in the memory of the scrape of her nails along his shoulders.Every step he took away from that room felt simultaneously like sacrilege and triumph.
She was in his house.
She was in his bed.
She was, in every important sense, his.
He smiled to himself as he tugged on the ends of his waistcoat and started down the curving staircase, his boots silent on the runner.
Marriage.
He rolled the word around in his head like a fine brandy on his tongue.
He had always expected marriage to be a transaction.An alliance.A line on some invisible tally sheet his father and Winston kept in their pockets.House A joins House B to strengthen Position C.
Useful.Predictable.Necessary.
And while he’d wanted Bea for years, he had never, until now, really allowed himself to imagine that it might also be…this.
Madness, certainly.Daily chaos, perhaps.But also something bright and crackling and alive.Like standing in the middle of a summer storm with his arms outstretched, daring the lightning to find him.
Beatrix Winslow.
Beatrix Archer, Lady Vanover.
The thought made his chest feel too full.
Of course, if word got out about Bea’s arrival at his town house today, both his father and Winston wouldn’t like it.But let them sputter and preen.Let them mutter about propriety.Nicholas would gladly endure a dozen lectures if it meant waking up every morning with Bea in his arms.
He could see it already—her in his breakfast room, hair loosely pinned, eyes flashing over the morning papers as she eviscerated every poorly argued editorial; her in his carriage, arguing with him all the way to a dinner party; her at his side in the gallery at Parliament, lips twitching around remarks she’d never before been allowed to say aloud.
He’d happily defend her against God and country for the rest of his life…notthat she needed defending.The woman was fully capable of handling herself and anyone who dared cross her path, and as the Marchioness of Vanover she’d be much more powerful.That should please her.
Then there was the little matter of what they were like in bed together.
His lips curved into a smile.He’d never imagined anything like it.Pleasure, yes.But the combustion that had been their making love.He hadn’t dared to hope it would be that good.
He reached the bottom of the stairs, the smile still tugging at his mouth.The door to his study stood open; beyond it, the figure of a man waited near the hearth, hat in hand.
Nicholas drew in a steadying breath, schooling his expression into something less like besotted satisfaction and more like professional courtesy.
No one needed to know he had just ruined the Duke of Winston’s daughter.
Well.
Not yet.And then, only if it was necessary for her father to see reason and ensure the marriage took place.After the duke’s thinly veiled threats last night, their afternoon together was a bit of insurance for Nicholas.
As for what she’d been struggling to tell him since she arrived…he suspected he already knew what it was.And he’d had good reason to attempt to delay her words.He’d hoped for exactly what was happening right now…a visit from Fletcher.Fletcher was about to reveal the identity of B.Adroit, which made Bea’s confession unnecessary.She didn’t have to torture herself with a betrayal.He was about to learn the name from a source of his own.
Her extreme worry did, however, give him pause.For months, he’d been convinced that the cartoonist was a stranger.Now, he was fairly certain it was someone he knew.It was obviously someone Bea knew.A footman in Winston’s house, perhaps?
It was time to find out.
