Page 158 of The Ladies Least Likely
“That’s enough for tonight, I daresay.”
She blinked at him, dazed, as he released her, drawing back to his side of the bed. She rode on a wave that might carry her out to sea.
“We should save something for the wedding, don’t you think?” His smile was warm and wicked, his lips still damp from her mouth, and that same tightness that pulled at her nipples tugged between her legs. An ache she guessed could only be relieved by his body against hers.
“I suppose so.” Best not let him see how entirely she’d lost her head. She would have allowed him to do anything to her, so long as she stayed wrapped in that spell of enchantment.
She touched the corner of his mouth with a fingertip. “Mal. Is it always like this?”
He tucked a loose curl beneath her nightcap, and the tenderness in his face hollowed her chest. “It is like this with you and I.”
Little wonder that women threw themselves headlong into a man’s arms, then, without benefit of a priest saying a few words.She understood now. A wonder that people could go about normal lives at all whenthisawaited them in bed with their beloved.
He leaned against the padded headboard, hands linked behind his head as he studied the room, and her belly warmed at the sight of him at ease, stretched out in her bed. Near enough to touch.
Did she marry him, she would have this access to him all the time, Mal in his most unguarded moments. She would be free to touch him whenever she pleased with the possessive touch of a wife. All his steady strength, his deep loyalty, his streaks of impish humor would be hers to delight in. And his body would be hers to hold.
He had shown her companionship already. He had shown her passion. She guessed their bond could deepen into love.
And when, or if, she were discovered, he would be trapped in her lies. Realization split her warm daze like a knife cutting parchment.
She could not let Mal marry her under false pretenses. It would be the worst sort of thievery. She had to tell him what she really was, what she had done.
And then she must somehow not break from despair when all his glowing warmth went cold and he turned away from her, and she lost the chance forever to be close to Malden Grey.
She reached for her Book of Hours and pulled it into her lap. She did not have to tell him tonight.
“I’ve been wondering how much your mother read of her book. If she chose it for herself, or someone else did. Lady Willoughby de Broke would have read medieval French, but did your mother?”
She flipped through the pages, drinking in the neat lines of script, the images she remembered. Saints with their beatificfaces and open hands, the typical marginalia of mythical creatures, the devotions for each hour of the day.
“She did love antique things,” Mal said. “She had a chatelaine, one of those chains women once wore at the waist. Hers had a pair of sewing scissors and a small vial of scent. I like the idea that my father might have bought this to please her.”
“I wonder how he came upon this volume. It seems strange that it might have surfaced in Bristol. Margaret Greville, the baroness, her family seat was in Warwickshire, I thought.”
“There’s some Hunsdon property near Wellesbourne. Though it’s equally likely my father pilfered the townhouse. The first duke had no notion how to build a library and acquired whatever took his fancy.”
Amaranthe slipped through the book to the back flyleaf, marveling that the volume was so intact, and as beautiful as she remembered. “That might explain how he procured the alchemical manuscript Ned showed me. It’s very curious that?—”
She stopped as her fingers found an unexpected bulge, pasted between the last page and the cover board. “Wait. There’s something glued inside here.”
Carefully she worked her fingers around the border of the cover, not wanting to tear the parchment. “This could be interesting. People often stored things in books, you know, or wrote their own notes in them. Any number of medieval manuscripts have recipes and sometimes even household accounts in the margins. On occasion someone left a last will and testament…”
She fell silent as she unfolded the document and read it. The room spun.
“I can read that script,” Mal said, glancing at the page. “It’s not that Gothic hand or what have you. More modern.”
“Mal.” She reached over and gripped his wrist, her nails digging in. Her voice clogged her throat. “These are your mother’s marriage lines.”
“What?” He reared back as if she’d slapped him.
“Look. There is her signature, the same as in the front of the book. Here’s your father’s. And witnesses.” She caught her breath, lifting her gaze to meet his. “Mal—this is a witnessed document. Their marriage was valid.”
Wonder softened his face. He looked like a young boy at Christmas as he traced his mother’s name.
“Then she wasn’t deceived by him. He cherished her enough to wed her. I’m glad to know that.” He followed the large, looping M of Marguerite.
“She must have hidden this in the midst of her fever. Your aunt said she had a spell shortly after they married. And then she couldn’t produce her marriage lines, so when the duke came looking for his heir, he didn’t believe they were wed.”
