It took a moment for Alasdair to recover from the warmth he felt in his chest when David had said “our wives.” He still wasn’t used to that.
“Uh, aye, Tregaron, does yer wife know which boy is the heir?”
David leaned back into his perfect posture and winked. “She does, but she’s not telling.”
Mary heard this last bit and she stuck her tongue out at her husband and took her children upstairs to the nursery and asked Arabella to come with her.
That night, as Alasdair played with Arabella’s hair as she lay on top of him in their bedchamber in their house in the village, her cheek on his chest, he asked her if Mary had told her which boy was the heir.
“No.” Arabella raised her head to rest her chin on his sternum and look him in the eye. “We talked about truly important things.”
“Like what?”
“Like you.”
Alasdair could feel the heat in his face.
“I do wonder why you only blush from the neck up, Alasdair. I’ll tell you what Mary said, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind. First, she told me she had written a letter to Inverness in response to my letter to her, asking if I should marry Boyd. The letter said, without question, I should not marry without love. And then while she was nursing Gwenllian, she said, ‘I can tell, Arabella, that you are in love with a good man.’”
Alasdair noted that Arabella was blushing now as well, but her pinkening extended to her upper chest and perhaps even her bosom, but he couldn’t see her lovely breasts at this moment as they were pressed into his upper abdomen.
Alasdair wanted to investigate the extent of her blush so he held her to him and rolled over and placed her on her back and went up on his elbow next to her. Yes, the pink of her blush was fading but it definitely tinted the tops of her breasts. He cupped one of those breasts now and teased a nipple with his thumb.
“And what did ye say back to her?” His voice was suddenly gruff.
“I told Mary she was wrong.”
Alasdair stilled his thumb.
“I told her I was in love with the best man.” And then Alasdair felt his wife’s arms around his neck, her lips on his, a leg wrapping his waist, and he thought it wise to prove he really was the best man, once again.
The next afternoon, Catherine sought Alasdair out in the library at Sommerleigh. Arabella was with Mary in the nursery with the children. Harry was in her aerie. Thomas, James, and David had gone out to see if they could shoot some wild hare. Alasdair had declined to join them and was feeling rather proud of himself, that he had not felt that hemustgo. But he might go some other time. It might be fun to go shooting with a set of lords, and the Viscount Tregaron was said to be a crack shot and he, Alasdair, might pick up some pointers. However, today he was tired as Arabella had woken him up quite early and in quite a demanding way that had set his blood coursing and kept him from going back to sleep.
So now he was drowsy. And he had not yet resumed his medical duties in the village so he could indulge in an afternoon nap. This was part of his honeymoon, after all. He was in the library, sitting in a chair, dozing when Catherine came in.
“Dr. Andrews.”
He started awake and stood and bowed. “Yer Grace.”
Catherine sat opposite his chair and gestured for him to resume his seat.
“I really think,” she said, “that we had better find something for you to call me besides Your Grace. I’d like you to call me Catherine.”
He inclined his head in agreement.
She went on. “And may I call you Alasdair?”
“Aye, Yer—Catherine.”
“I hear we have a great deal in common. We both grew up on farms. We both made our ways to big cities when we were young and alone and somehow survived and found our professions.”
“Aye, Catherine, that is true.”
She spread her hands out on her lap and looked down at them. “I only want you to know that I am very happy that you and Arabella are married.”
“Thank ye.”
“I did not want you to think otherwise.”
