Page 61 of Marigold and the Marquess
She laughed and lifted onto her tiptoes to place her arms around his neck. “All right. I love you, Leo. I love you with all my heart and with every breath in me.”
“Nicely said.” He lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her long and hard, and with an aching depth of feeling. It must have been minutes before he finally drew his lips off hers.
She looked up at him, her eyes soft and questioning. “That was nice.Toonice. What is going on, Leo?”
“Can a man not kiss his wife?”
“Yes, but not you.” Her eyes suddenly widened. “Thereissomething going on. I knew it! Tell me.”
“There is nothing going on other than a husband feeling an urgent need for his wife.” He cast her a wicked smile as he lifted her in his arms and strode out of his study to march toward the stairs.
“Leo! It is the middle of the day! What will everyone think?”
“If you keep protesting, everyone will hear you.”
She gasped and clamped her pretty, puckered mouth shut.
Sterling noticed them but merely cleared his throat and then poked his head out the front door as though someone had knocked, which they hadn’t.
Marigold had her arms wrapped around his neck and her eyes were wide. “Really, Leo,” she said in a whisper as he started up the stairs. “You cannot be serious. What are you doing?”
“Is it not obvious? I am taking you up to our bedchamber. I would think climbing the stairs was a hint.” He then looked down at Mallow who was skipping up the steps beside him. “Go to Sterling, he has more treats for you. That’s a good boy.”
Mallow immediately turned and headed downstairs.
Marigold shook her head. “How do you make him follow your instructions? He never listens to me.”
“Because you are not the dominant dog in this family. I am.” He chuckled. “Although you certainly know how to control me in the bedchamber.”
Her face turned scarlet.
This girl was so sweet.
He almost let slip that he loved her, but caught himself in time.
They had taken to leaving the interior door between the marquess and marchioness chambers open so that each could freely come and go between their rooms. They always slept together, usually in her bed since it was easier for him to toss on his breeches and walk back to his room when her maid and his valet, both new hires, came knocking in the morning.
Her maid, another of the Mayhew nieces who had been in the employ of John and Sophie Farthingale but was now working for them, stopped sorting out Marigold’s wardrobe and bobbed a curtsy. “Out, Jenny. Come back in an hour,” Leo said, hoping he did not sound as urgent as he felt. “And have a bath brought up for my wife when you do return. Have Ethan do the same for me.”
Jenny nodded. “Two baths. Yes, my lord.”
He wanted to tell her to make it just one bath that he and Marigold could share, but Jenny and Marigold might faint at the remark.
Leo growled low in his throat once they were alone in Marigold’s chamber and all doors securely closed. “Let me help you out of that confining gown.”
She turned her back to him to give access to her lacings. “I haven’t forgotten what led us up here.”
“Yes, you were going to tease me with your wanton ways,” he said, his voice a deep, aching rumble. “I am breathless in anticipation.”
“I never said I was going to do any such thing. You are the brute who hauled me up here because you think to distract me. I will not be distracted, Leo. What is going on? I want the truth out of you.”
He slipped the gown off her, then knelt to remove her walking boots and stockings, evoking soft, breathy cries as he kissed his way down her legs as her stockings came off. She was now wearing only her corset and gossamer chemise.
The corset came off with a few tugs, leaving her only in the chemise that hid almost nothing from his view. “Your turn to undress me, love.”
Was that his voice? Had that tense, raspy growl emanated from his throat?
“Gladly,” she said with an impudent and rather smug smile.
