Bray tuned them out and claimed Louisa’s sweet lips once again.
Epilogue
And ruin’d love, when it is built anew,
Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.
—Sonnet 119
“Your Grace.”
A soft voice stirred Bray’s slumber, but he mentally batted it away like a pesky fly.
“Your Grace?”
Bray’s lids fluttered open, and he was looking at a pair of six-year-old blue eyes leaning right over his face. Startled, he jumped up. Bonnie jumped back, too. He quickly pulled the sheet up to his neck to cover his bare chest.
“Bonnie, what are you doing? How did you get in here?”
She pointed behind her. “I walked through the doorway.”
He looked. Sure enough, the bedroom door was open.Damn!He must have forgotten to lock it last night when he and Louisa came to bed. That was a lesson for him to be more careful, no matter how eager he was to get his beautiful wife under the sheets.
He glanced over at Louisa. She was still sleeping soundly beside him. Her beautiful hair was spread across the pillow. Her softly rounded shoulders were bare, so he eased the sheet over her skin.
“Bonnie, what’s wrong? Why are you in here?”
“Louisa doesn’t usually sleep this late, so I came to wake her up.”
He cleared his throat and thought on that a moment. “Ladies sleep later once they are married. So you won’t need to check on her anymore in the mornings. You wait until she comes looking for you, all right?”
Bonnie nodded.
“Good. Go back belowstairs now and close the door on your way out.”
She nodded again and turned away and stumbled and fell. Her feet had gotten tangled in his trousers.Damn!His and Louisa’s clothing were scattered from the doorway to the bed. They had not been careful in their haste to undress last night.
Bonnie untangled her feet, picked herself up, and laid his trousers on the bed. She smiled sweetly at him. And he thought, for the first time in his life, that he blushed. She quietly walked out and closed the door behind her.
That should not have happened,he thought.
Bray rose and stepped into his trousers and then threw his shirt over his head just as the bedroom door burst open. Sybil and Bonnie came skipping inside.
“Damnation,” Bray mumbled under his breath. He’d barely gotten his trousers buttoned.
“Louisa, look what just came for you and the duke.”
Louisa woke with a start and she jerked the sheet up to cover her nakedness as she sat up in bed. “What’s going on?” she asked, brushing her long tangled curls away from her sleepy eyes. “Sybil, Bonnie, why are you here in our bedchamber?”
“I came to give you this,” Sybil said, and tried to hand the envelope to Louisa. “A man at the door gave it to me and said it was from the Prince and very important. He said I should give it to the Duke and Duchess of Drakestone right away.”
“Sybil, you know you are not to answer the door,” Louisa admonished.
The little girl gave her sister an annoyed look and continued to hold the envelope out to her.
“You take it, Bray,” Louisa said, since she couldn’t let go of the sheet covering her to open the envelope.
Bray grinned at her, a bit amused that she was caught in the same situation he was in just moments ago. He reached over, took the envelope from Sybil, and opened it.
