Jemina and I waved at her.
The air smelled of powdered snow and gunpowder.
I looked at the steps. I no longer saw Colin there but the duke, the night we’d met, me helping him arrive at the entry.
The doors closed.
Jemina and I passed milling soldiers. They were in good spirits, drinking the sorrel punch I’d made.
“My Demerara is gone.”
She kissed my cheek. “You have a new home, here.”
My friend kept moving up to the third floor.
Walking deep inside the master’s bedchamber, I saw the duke asleep with Lionel on his chest.
My boy snored his crickets.
I scooped him up and resettled the blanket on my husband, my Busick. Then, I pushed open the door between the connected rooms.
Singing to my baby, I sank onto my bed and fed my hungry boy, but my eyes drifted to Busick’s bedroom.
When night fell, I didn’t like the quiet of my room and how far away I was from Repington.
I’d kept the big bread basket and settled Lionel inside.
I put on my nightgown and carried my boy into the large bedchamber.
I set the basket near the duke’s boots, where he could watch over him, then scurried to the other side and climbed aboard.
When I rested my head, Busick clasped my fingers.
“Duchess, is our boy asleep?” His voice was lazy and filled with gruff boulders and gravel.
“Yes, he has a full belly.”
“Good.”
I held my breath and scooted deeper under the covers, closer to him.
His face held an amused smile.
“I’m still a bit immobile, you know? This spine will loosen any day. What will you do with me then? You won’t be able to take up all the room on this mattress.”
I glanced up and saw something in his face I hadn’t seen before. It wasn’t quite vulnerability or his normal bravado. It was something in between.
He sank his fingers into my braids, tossing away thecoiffehead wrap. His thumb tumbled along my ear. “I snore sometimes, you know, in those moments when you’re not trying to seduce me.”
Busick took my palm and kissed the lifeline of the palm. “You don’t have to stay. My mother never shared a bedroom with my father when he took ill. You don’t have—”
Crouching on my knees, I brushed my nose against his, then kissed him silent, stopping the foolish drivel coming from his delicious mouth.
Surely, he knew I wasn’t his mother.
And he wasn’t his father or mine.
His hands found me slipping the edges of my nightgown, the lace covering my bosom. I curled into that position under his shoulder, that spot that had become mine, rib cage to rib cage.
