“Yes.” The awe in her voice gave him confidence.
“Let’s remove this first,” he said, fingering the shoulder of her gown but allowing her to make the move. When she stood, they were inches apart. He waited until she pulled at it before reaching over to help her. It joined his clothing on the floor, and they faced one another so close that her heat surrounded him. “Better,” he rasped, tugging her until they touched and kissing her.
The enthusiastic response of her mouth and the feel of her down his length almost shredded his self-control. Almost. “Come,” he said. “Let’s get you ready to receive me.”
And so he began the slow, gentle veneration of her body that he had promised, leaving no desire unexplored, until she was open and wanting. When at last he entered, she welcomed him with only moans of pleasure.
Later, much later, the woman sheltered in his arms, sleepy and sated, raised her head and asked, “So is this a proposal?”
“Have we resolved your questions about the marriage bed?” he countered, earning a thump from a gentle fist. “Apparently so. Do you want me on my knees?”
She answered him with a kiss, and he never did get a chance to ask the question. Her obvious acceptance sufficed.
Epilogue
Spring had cometo Ashmead. At least the snowdrops in the forest hinted it soon would. Eli Benson locked the dower house, having collected Lady Madelyn’s favorite painting for shipment to Chelsea as directed. Mrs. Colonel Morgan she may be, but she would always be Lady Madelyn—or Lady Mad, affectionately—to Eli and to most of Ashmead.
He turned his steps toward the hall, his place of employment that had become his home. The tiny apartment over the estate office and workrooms may not be much, but it was home for now, sufficient for a professional gentleman, at least one still a bachelor.
He looked forward to having the place to himself for several months. Even the children had gone to London, Lady Marj having finally convinced her father they needed to be with him. After all the upheaval of winter—the excitement of guests for Twelfth Night, the horror of Jessop’s threats, the joy of a wedding in the end—he was glad for some peace.
When the earl announced Lady Madelyn’s betrothal at the much-delayed Twelfth Night ball—the one Rob referred to as the Seventeenth Night ball—almost everyone claimed they had expected it and had no doubts. The earl had appeared dubious, but that may just have been his stern ways. Eli’s employer tended toward an excess of propriety.
The earl had disapproved of the hasty wedding by license at Saint Morwenna in the village. The happy couple had insisted they did it for the convenience of his brother and her stepsons, who were already visiting, but when they had looked at each other, the room had heated, and their need to be together had been obvious to everyone. Eli, who had known her before and seen them together, thought Brynn Morgan quite the best thing that could have happened to their Lady Mad.
Now the ladies at Saint Morwenna speculated about interesting news from the pair of them soon. Perhaps they were onto something. Or perhaps not. It didn’t matter. The couple was happy.
The footman on duty nodded to Eli when he came through the formal entrance. They kept a skeleton staff at the hall these days. The butler and—alas—the cook had accompanied the earl to London. Eli couldn’t complain. Part of his job was to stretch the earl’s straightened finances.
He reached his office and put the painting aside for packaging. Eli sat at his desk, a man satisfied with his universe. After a year of labor, the last of the Ashmead heirs had been located and injustices from the dowager countess’s fraud put to rights. He had been able to manage the thing from her hidden bank accounts and had even preserved some of the funds for the earl. He looked forward to focusing on estate management, augmenting his duties as solicitor with those of a steward, another savings to the Clarion estate.
“Thank goodness we’ve seen the last of the Ashmead heirs,” he sighed to no one in particular.
It was well no one heard. He could not have been more wrong.
Author’s Note
Eli Benson should be careful about getting too comfortable! His universe is about to get upended. Sir Robert’s brother may seem like a mild-mannered solicitor, but you will discover what he’s capable of when what he loves most is threatened. There’s a hero lurking in his quiet manner, itching to get out.The Forgotten Daughtermay just be enough to unleash it.
If you’ve wondered what it will take to shake the earl and get him to loosen up, the answer is inThe Upright Son, coming next year.
Watch for updates on my website and for details about all my characters onCaroline Warfield’s Fellow Travelers, my fan group on Facebook.
Are you worried about the Duke of Glenmoor and his brother (and which is which)? So am I! When I finished this book, I realized I had two more stories to write.
A writer’s work is never done. I best get to it. But first, coffee!
Coming Next:The Forgotten Daughter
Eli Benson smiledfrom his pew at Saint Morwenna’s Church in Ashmead on a sunny Sunday in May, a man at peace with his world. He beamed at the congregation, several of whom he’d had cause to assist in the previous year. It had been difficult, and his accomplishments were a source of pride. He had much for which to be grateful.
Serving as the Earl of Clarion’s secretary, steward, and solicitor—the combining of duties itself a cost-cutting measure necessitated by the straightened circumstances of the estate—Eli had dug into a complex and a convoluted mix of petty spite and fraud unleashed by the old earl’s will, bringing justice to victims while stabilizing the finances of the current earl. He took pride in a job done to his satisfaction and, if he might say so, remarkable in its speed and thoroughness.
Several years before, the previous earl had shocked Ashmead with a scandalous will in which he’d stripped his son and heir, Eli’s employer, of everything not covered by the entail.
The rest he’d left in specific bequests to his by-blows, listing each of his illegitimate children and their mothers by name. The bequests had enriched some, embarrassed others, and complicated the lives of many, especially those of his legitimate offspring. He had impoverished his son, labeled his only legitimate daughter “defiant,” and explicitly left her nothing.
Alice Wilcox, the tailor’s daughter, had gotten five pounds and a pearl necklace. It had been a shock to tailor Wilcox, who’d promptly put mother and daughter out. Charley Granger, who had always known he was a bastard, had gotten the titles to three of Ashmead’s shop buildings that had been paying rent to the earl. He had sold them for a pittance, skipped town soon after, and died in a bar fight in Liverpool, the money gone. Little Willy Hammond had gotten fifty pounds, the sum pocketed by Walter Hammond, the father raising him. A schoolteacher three towns over had gotten a valuable racehorse. Twelve others had gotten different commercial property, cash, trinkets, the odd bit of furniture. One had gotten a rocky farm in Scotland. Eli’s brother, Rob (half-brother, as it turned out), had gotten the prime piece of property, one of the earldom’s minor estates. Every blasted one had gotten his green eyes and auburn hair—Caulfield family traits. The whole town had pretended to miss it until the will had come out, and then they couldn’t.
