Page 51

Still in the Stables

Now three curious barn cats and two more horses are watching

Evan tucked his wife into the crook of his arm and kissed her with all of the passion and hunger he’d kept at bay these past weeks. If he lived to be a hundred, he’d never have enough time with his woman.

He’d realized weeks before that he could not let Sophronie go.

She’d take his soul with him.

Sighing, she melted against him, clutching his coat. She returned the onslaught of his kisses in her typical fashion, exuberant if not particularly skillful. Still, his blood heated, and his groin hardened as he nipped and nibbled his way from her mouth to her ear, down her neck, and lower still.

“Evan,” she breathed, her voice raspy. “I feel so odd. Hot and hungry but in a way that is hard to describe. As if there’s something more I crave, but I don’t know what it is.”

Naturally Sophronie, being Sophronie, would have a conversation in the middle of scorching kisses to discuss the new sensations.

“That’s passion, my love, and I feel it too.” He grazed his mouth along her neck, and she shuddered. “And there is more. Much more.”

“I think,” she said, her voice sultry with desire, “that I may wish to explore the more.”

Evan raised his head and stared deep into her passion-drugged eyes. “I’d like nothin’ more than to teach ye. But then ye’d be my wife, truly no’ just in name. Is that what ye want, lass?”

She looked past his shoulder for a long moment. So long, in fact, he feared she’d changed her mind.

“Is that what you want, Evan?” Her eyelashes fluttered downward. “I know I’m not who you would’ve chosen to be your duchess. If we consummate our vows, will we regret it later on?”

He placed his palms on both sides of her face. “I would have nae other, ever, Sophronie. I shall let ye choose when and if we make our marriage real. But ken this, if ye decide nae, I shall honor my vow and be faithful to ye until I draw my dyin’ breath.”

~*~

Sophronie’s mind warred with her heart as she peered into her husband’s eyes. “Are you saying you love me?”

He gave her a playful scowl.

“If ye are unsure after what I just said, lass, then I need to work on my poetic prose.”

His expression sobered, and he lifted her hand to his mouth. Pressing a kiss to her wrist where her pulse beat a fervent staccato, he gave her such a smoldering look through half-closed lids, her knees actually shook.

“Aye, duchess wife.” His voice grew husky with emotion. “I love ye. I love ye so verra much, I canna express with mere words.”

Joy thrummed through Sophronie.

Evan loved her. He really loved her. The misfit hoyden from America.

“I didn’t know how to win your heart, Evan, after everything we’d been through.”

“Leannan, ye won this duke’s heart long before I recognized I’d given it to you. We’re like those horses we raise, I think. Fighting the halter, bit, saddle, and rider until we stopped resisting and realized we were the better for it.”

Nothing else mattered. Not that Evan and Sophronie had been at odds from the moment they’d met. Not that theirs had been a marriage of convenience. Not all of the misunderstandings and harsh words between them.

Evan loved her.

And Sophronie loved him.

That was the unidentifiable feeling that had flummoxed and bewildered her these many weeks. She didn’t recognize her love because resentment and distrust had blinded her to the beautiful, unexpected truth.

She loved Evan.

Putting her palm to his cheek, she raised up on tip toes.