Page 77 of A Scottish Bride for the Duke
“Adrian,” she whined.
“What do you want?”
She took his hand and placed it between her legs. At her request, he rubbed her there, finding the point of her pleasure and stroking her until her eyes lolled back in her head.
He watched as pleasure consumed her, until she shuddered and cried out—there was no longer any requirement to be quiet, and he relished in it.
Then, and only then, did he allow himself to find his own completion inside her.
When they had finished, he brought her back into his arms as they stared at the fire.
Her voice was heavy with sleep when she said, “I never knew married life could be like this.”
“No?” He pressed a kiss to her hair. “What did you think it would be like?”
“Far less pleasant.” She chuckled.
“Why? Are your parents unhappily married?”
“Oh no.” She gave a distant little smile and nuzzled a little closer, not seeming to notice she was doing it. “They are exceedingly happy. But Papa fell in love with Mama before she ever did, ye ken, and he pursued her until she finally gave in and allowed him to court her. And in that time, she fell head over heels in love with him.” She sighed. “I thought that…”
“You wanted your own marriage to follow similar lines?”
Isobel traced the lines of his thumb as she considered the question.
“Aye,” she said eventually. “I did at first, anyway. Call me a hopeless romantic, but I wanted there to be something more than mutual benefit to my marriage. I gave up on any idea of that when I fled to London, of course. But I still wanted it, I suppose, even when I thought I would endure a life with my husband.”
“I can be crueler to you if you’d like,” he joked.
“Nay, thank ye. I prefer this. Perhaps it’s not a love match, but it’s comfortable all the same.”
Not a love match, he repeated to himself.
Of course, he knew it wasn’t—and he wasn’t so much of a fool as to fall in love with his wife. That would be a weakness, and he couldn’t allow himself a weakness of that degree—especially when he already wanted her so badly. But still, he found himself wondering how she felt. And whether she would fall in love with him.
An uncomfortable thought. He didn’t deserve a wife who loved him if he didn’t love her. And Isobel was too precious to be pining after him. She deserved decidedly better.
“Adrian?” she asked sleepily.
“Hmm?”
“What were your parents like?”
“You’ve already met my mother.”
“Yes, but I never met your father. And I wondered what they were liketogether. Ye said a little about him, and I wondered…” She reached up to trace the lines of his face, which he could feel settling into the hard lines it always adopted when he thought of his father. “Don’t shut me out,” she whispered. “I want to know all of ye.”
He released a long breath. Thinking about his father made his skin crawl, but he could do this much for her.
“My father was not a particularly nice man,” he said. “I have my feelings about that, and no doubt my mother has her feelings. We have not discussed the subject.”
Nor would he wish to. If he could, he would put those memories behind him.
“If you want to know the realities of their marriage, then you will have to ask her yourself.” He ran a hand down her back, reassuring her as far as he could. “But be warned, Isobel; theirs was not a happy marriage, and her story will not be a happy one.”
“He died,” Isobel said. “How did he die?”
Adrian shook his head, shutting out the memory with as much intensity as he could.
