Page 88 of My Deceitful Duchess
“You keep staring at your ring.”
“I can’t help it. It’s beautiful.” It sparkled in the light, the brilliant star contained within the sapphire stone glittering and shining in an extravagant display. She rolled across the surface of the bed, admiring it more with each new angle.
“You’ve been wearing it for weeks now. You’re only justdiscovering that?” Sebastian fought free of the cravat, casting the material aside, stripping himself down to just the bare essentials now that they were home at last.
“Oh, no, it was always beautiful,” she said. “But today youmarriedme with it.”
Sebastian took a seat at the edge of the bed and began to work off his shoes. “Do you know,” he said, “that the star sapphire is said to represent hope? And there are some that believe that to carry one will ensure that its owner has a lucky life.”
“Really?” Jenny rolled onto her side to face him, tucking her hand beneath her chin. “Do you believe that?”
A light scoff. “No; it’s just superstition.” His left hand settled over her hip, and with the right he worked the buttons of his shirt. “I don’tbelievein it—but I think it’s a lovely message all the same.”
“It is. Maybe it’s just alittlebit true, then.” Her fingertips pinched the linen of his shirt, pulled until she had loosed the hem from where it had been tucked into his trousers. “Today, I feel very, very lucky.”
“Do you?” It came out a bit muffled, since she’d stripped his shirt off over his head.
“Mm.” She sifted her fingers through those unruly gold locks, too long to be fashionable. “Today, I am not a fugitive. I’m not a duchess. I am just a wife.Yourwife.” And she settled herself across his lap, linking her arms around his neck. “I love you, Sebastian.”
“I know,” he said on a chuckle. “Everyone who was at the wedding surely has no doubt on that score.” Because she had burst into tears the moment the reverend had called upon her tolovehim, and had sworn to do so with such a wealth of feeling that she thought she had seen even Sebastian’s father—who had somehow been convinced to attend—swiping at his eyes.
It had been a lovely wedding, for all that the reverend had asked Sebastiantwiceif he was willing, considering she had dragged him in by the cravat.
“Do you know,” she said, as he began working the buttons that ran down her back, “I have everything I ever wanted.”
“As do I.” A brief pause. “How many damned buttons have you got?”
“A husband who loves me,” she said, planting a kiss at the corner of his chin. “Friends. Family.”
“A dog,” he added, slightly distracted. “Truly, how many buttons?”
“A home. A baby.” She slid her fingers into his hair, turned his face to hers to kiss him properly. “You have given me so much more than I ever thought to hope for.”
“Thebuttons, Jenny,” he whispered back, so seriously she nearly laughed right in his face.
“You haven’t got a romantic bone in the whole of your body!” she accused.
“I have, too,” he said, and still his fingers wrestled with the buttons. “But this marriage has got to beconsummated. It’s not official until it is.”
“Is that so?” Idly, she nibbled at his lower lip.
“It is.” His breath came faster as she wiggled over his lap. “I’m quite certain. I’ve been reading—”
Of course he had.She let one hand slide down his chest, feeling for the fall of his trousers. Just three buttons there, and she worked each of them free and slipped her hand inside.
He groaned into her mouth. “Thebuttons.”
She smiled. “Rip them. I don’t care.”
Epilogue
Five months later
“She’s beautiful.”
“I don’t know,” Jenny said, peering down at the infant that had been set into her arms only moments ago. “Don’t you think her face looks rather…squished?”
“Yours might be, too, if you had recently come from whereshehas. The journey might be short, but it seemed to me to be difficult indeed.” Sebastian nudged back the swaddling cloth in which the baby had been wrapped, the better to look down into the tiny little scrunched face of their daughter. “A journey of inches that took hours.”
