Page 42 of The Duke's Impetuous Darling
She licked her bottom lip. "We must find a vicar who'll allow us to make use your special license."
Surprised she knew of it, he laughed. "We'll marry here and go on to Kingston."
"And do it soon."
"Urgent, is this?" he asked, his heart soaring with this unexpected boon.
"Very." She brushed her lips on his.
He feigned nonchalance. "We'll dress for church. Then think on it.”
She halted. “Think? I’ve no need to think and if you are prepared to wait—“
He caressed her cheek. “Let me see. Would tomorrow be soon enough?”
“Tomorrow. Hmm. He can be stubborn.”
Alastair considered the sky a moment. “A donation to his parish school, perhaps?”
She laughed, throwing her head back and kissing him on the lips. “A Christmas gift for the vicar!”
He wrapped her closely against him. “I shall thank him all my life, for you, my darling, are the most precious Christmas gift I have ever received."
Epilogue
Kingston Manor House
Kingston, Somerset
January 22, 1816
Dismissing their new butler and footman, Bee waited until the servant had closed the breakfast room doors upon them before rising. She ran her gaze over the cheery golden room, cozy from the fire blazing behind the grate. Kingston Manor House was a sprawling beauty of ivory Portland stone, Ionic columns and an interior of twenty-two rooms in subtle blues, peaches and yellows. They'd traveled here in a hired coach the day after all Aunt Gertrude’s guests had departed the morning of December twenty-eighth. Those happy people had declared the events most extraordinary, including one attempted kidnapping, two arrests, a fire in one of the bedrooms and three weddings of all Aunt’s nieces.
Bee and Alastair’s marriage ceremony had been the first on December twenty-six. But they had stayed on to witness Griff’s marriage to Marjorie the next day and Bromley’s to Delphine the following day. As those two couples departed Marsden Manor for London and Paris the twenty-ninth, Bee and Alastair left for Alastair’s new estate north. There in the comfort of their new home and between hours in their bedroom suite, they'd begun to familiarize themselves with the staff, their tenants and their land. Bee could not believe her good fortune to enjoy such luxury with the man she always yearned for and had never hoped to have.
Celebrating her luck, as was her habit at this hour each day, she decided to entice her bridegroom back to their bedroom and took Alastair's London newspaper from his hand.
"But I must finish reading that," Alastair said with more insistence than was usual.
"Later," she said as she swept aside his arm and situated herself firmly on his lap. "It's snowing again this morning. And blustery outside. Cold."
"I dislike it." These past few weeks, he'd learned that in warmth, he did not suffer so deeply his bouts of blankness or headaches. Bee had ordered fires in every room, burning high throughout the day.
"I do, too." She shivered dramatically. "To cure my ills, I need a kiss."
"If you squirm about like that, I'd say you're in need of more than a kiss." He arched his golden brows at her in mock reprimand.
"What can I say if I'm so demanding?" She gave him her best moue.
He pointed a finger to his paper. "I must have it back."
"But we have much to do today. The Moores will walk up from the cottages, wanting to discuss how to enlarge the pigsty. And Raymond Appleby wants you to reexamine his calculations on the estate records."
"But that is vital." He nodded at the papers. "You'll find them amusing."
She ran her fingers through the thick silk strands of his hair and cupped his handsome jaw. "Not as intriguing as you," she breathed.
"Hmm. On one condition." He began to relent, his masculine nature firmly responding to her amorous pursuit. "First, I insist you read one article before we adjourn to our bedroom."
