With care, he eased out from under Annabelle and off the bed, then set about donning the bare essentials of clothing necessary to make it to his chambers without scandalizing Babette should she be loitering about awaiting her mistress.
As he dressed, he studied Annabelle. He couldn’t not. She drew his focus like a beacon of light and he a damned moth.
She’d rolled to her back, and her mass of tumbled gold hair framed her delicate face. She wore a tiny smile as if she dreamt of something pleasant, which made his own mouth curve in ano-doubt goofy grin. She was…incredibly beautiful. Almost too beautiful to behold.
His hands fisted at his sides as something constricted in his chest. The feeling was alien, nearly painful, and yet…he couldn’t look away. He didn’t want to.
What hewantedto do was strip and climb back into bed with her. To kiss her awake. To make love with her, yes, but also to…hold her. Coax more stories of her past from her. Tease more artless smiles out of her.
Blood of the saints.
He was in serious danger of finding himself wrapped around her little pinkie. Stifling a self-deprecating groan, he rammed both hands through his hair—at the exact moment her eyes fluttered open.
She jolted upright in the bed, tugging the bedcovers with her, to his extreme disappointment. “Oh, no. You’re leaving? What time is it?”
He grinned, pleased by her obvious dismay. Unable to resist the compulsion, he strolled forward, edged a hip onto the mattress, and smoothed a hand down her bare back. Her skin was warm and so very soft.
He leaned forward and nuzzled her neck, breathing in her sweet, fresh scent while trying to avoid scraping her tender flesh with his morning beard. “It’s early. Barely sunrise. I came awake and decided to start my day. So much to do before we depart.”
Her arms twined around his neck. “But are you going down to breakfast?”
He huffed out a laugh and wondered if she was, in fact, dreaming. He hadn’t given breakfast an ounce of thought. “Eventually.”
She pressed a kiss to the underside of his jaw. “Wait. I’ll join you. I won’t be a minute.”
He shook his head, as much to clear it as to answer her. At this rate, he’d be harder pressed to resist rejoining her in her bed.Good God.What she did to him. “Go back to sleep. I’ll wait ‘til you get up. I have plenty to occupy me until then.”
“Promise?” she asked, unresisting as he pulled her arms from him and pressed her back into the pillows, her eyelids already fluttering shut.
“I promise, Sweetheart.”
Within an hour, he’d washed, shaved, re-dressed, and availed himself of enough coffee to manage a short ride on Zeus over the estate grounds to give the sleek horse some much-needed exercise—and clear his own befuddled head.
Too, for no reason he could put into words, he wished to inspect the work he’d overseen the previous day, sealing the kilns. He found the heavy doors as he’d left them—securely shut, hinges and locks untampered with. A quick search of the grounds showed no evidence of anyone having ventured near the keyholes the night before.
Satisfied, he returned to the castle.
Upon entering the foyer, Cogsworth greeted him.
“I trust you had an enjoyable ride, milord?” the butler said with a placid smile. “The ladies bid you join them in the dining hall.”
He washed and did as requested.
In the open archway, he froze. Annabelle and Caroline both stood beside the table, beaming.
Bouquets comprised mostly of greenery but also containing colorful, dried flowers adorned the sideboard. A platter of fruit preserves and another bearing an elaborately decorated dense cake topped with a thick candied glaze sat in the table’s center, and the sideboard spilled with a plethora of breakfast foods.
And at the head of the table were two elaborately wrapped gifts.
“Happy birthday,” Caroline and Annabelle called in unison.
His birthday. He’d forgotten. Evidently, Caroline hadn’t, and she’d made sure his wife knew, as well. Suddenly, Annabelle’s desire for him to await breakfast until she could join him made perfect sense—as did her and his sister’s venture into town yesterday.
And he’d railed at the two of them like a grumpy curmudgeon.
Cheeks thrumming with heat, he clasped his hands behind his back and made his way toward the table. “Thank you. This is a surprise. I take it these are for me?”
Caroline and Annabelle each took up a position on either side of him.
