“Why not?” He grinned. “I am stealing you,after all.”
“Iam choosing to flee with a pirate,” she corrected.
“Charles, did I not just toss you over my shoulder before all of London’sBeau Monde?” He raised his brow, planting another kiss to her lips until he felt her body give.
“You did, my lord.” She softened deliciously in his arms.
Thank God she still liked his rough ways.
And then she shifted in her seat, surprising him more by straddling his lap, her hands falling to his waist to undo his fall as her eyes met his with the most brazen look yet.
He inhaled with a hiss as she mounted him in one swift move.
“I’ve missed you terribly, you scoundrel,” she whispered hot in his ear. Her body fit perfectly over his own. “And I hereby intend, for once and for all, to pay off my fine for thieving. So don’t you dare deny me full acquittal after this,Your Grace.”
“As if I could, Fox.” He laughed beneath her. “As if I—” And sucking in his breath, he could not.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
“Charles Merrinan, by God.” The Duke of Allendale held out a trembling hand to her from his sickbed. “If you aren’t the spitting image of your mother.” He beamed.
“Your Grace.” Charles curtsied deep as she instinctively kissed the Duke’s ring. He kept hold of her hand.
“Roland, I wish a word with her alone.” He waved his son off with his other free hand as Wells met Charles’s eye and winked before he exited.
“Sit, my dear,” the Duke commanded.
Charles sat on the edge of the bed, the old man now stroking her hand almost familiarly. She felt an odd rush of tenderness towards him, as if she sat beside her own father.
“You love him then,” he stated.
“I do, Your Grace.”
“But can you live with him, miss?” He watched her keenly.
“That remains to be seen, Your Grace.”
Which caused him to laugh, causing a fresh fit of coughing as Charles hastened to assist. He brushed her attempts aside.
“No, leave be. I am old is all.” He refused the glass of water she offered from his bedside. “I have managed to live withRoland’s mother all these years, my dear, by giving as good as I got; you’ll learn to do the same, I’m sure.”
“Your Grace is kind to speak to me so candidly,” Charles began.
His voice strained with effort. “You must give my regards to your father when you return to Cumberland, Miss Merrinan, for he was ever a friend to me, and the very best of friends to my brother. Roland tells me you carry Carlton’s timepiece with you now. I could not be more pleased, dear.” He squeezed her hand.
Charles blushed. “I promise to keep it safe, Your Grace. It is an honor to?—”
“The greater honor is that you’ve agreed to marry my son,” he told her firmly. “He could not have done better, Miss Merrinan.”
The Duke was beginning to fade; she could tell her visit taxed him.
“Be happy at the Abbey, be good to one another, and Charles . . .” He was almost whispering now, a faint grin about his lips. “He loves you too. I can tell.”
“I know, Your Grace.” Charles smiled as she let her lips, feather-light, brush the Duke’s forehead ere she tiptoed out.
“And what, pray, did he tell you, Fox? That I am an insufferable toad of a son you should never have agreed to marry?”
Charles playfully elbowed her betrothed, seated as she was beside him in the ducal carriage. Cuthbert looked a bit green in the face across from them on the seat. Apparently, he’d arrived just yesterday on the evening coach, exhausted and disheveled from nearly four days locked in a swaying carriage.
