Page 106 of When a Duke Loves a Woman
“I still don’t know which fork to use.”
Leaning back, he smiled tenderly. “Sweetheart, you’ll be a duchess. You can use any damned one you want and people will love you for being eccentric. Marry me.”
How could she not? He was correct. What did utensils matter when she would have him? “Yes. Yes. Yes!”
He lifted her up and swung her around within the narrow confines of the bar, and then amid a round of cheers, he kissed her thoroughly.
No one seemed surprised when she handed the reins to the tavern to her head barman and followed Thorne out into the night. He wanted to take her someplace special, someplace elegant and worthy of her, but he also wanted her comfortable and at ease, so he escorted her into her flat. Once there, with the door closed, he dropped to his knees and pressed a kiss to her belly. “I’m so sorry, Gillie. I thought I was being ever so cautious.”
Even though he knew abstinence was the only method that guaranteed the outcome he’d been seeking, he’d been too weak to abstain because he’d wanted her so desperately.
She buried her fingers into his hair. “I was incredibly happy when I realized I was carrying your child, Thorne.”
He lifted his gaze to hers. “Your life would have been remarkably hard.”
“But also wonderfully joyous. Your babe, inside me, then in my arms. I want this child.” She lowered her fingers, held his face between her hands. “I want you.”
“No more than I want you. God, Gillie, I have missed you.” He pushed himself to his feet and took her mouth with all the longing that had haunted him for six weeks now, with all the fervor that had simmered whenever he thought of her, whenever he was tempted to go to her, whenever he forced himself to stay where he was.
How had he ever thought he could live without the taste of her, the fragrance of her, the sound of her sighs, the feel of her in his arms?
Drawing away from the kiss, she gave him a sultry smile before reaching down, taking his hand, and leading him into her bedchamber. Stopping beside the bed, she faced him and very slowly began unbuttoning her shirt.
He wanted to help her and yet he sensed that for tonight, it was important she set the pace, determine the direction. This brave, strong woman who would have endured being ostracized in order to bring his child into the world, to have kept it at her side, to have given it a home. When her clothes were a pile on the floor, he could have sworn a blush swept up over her from her toes to her hairline.
“My body has changed somewhat.”
Her breasts were larger, her belly slightly more round.
“Yet all that I love about you remains the same,” he said.
“Oh, Thorne.”
She was in his arms before he took his next breath, as though she might have doubted his earlier declaration, as though she feared his offer was not genuine. He loved this woman, every aspect of her, and he would spend the remainder of his life proving that to her. For all her boldness, there was still a part of her that believed she deserved being left on a doorstep; buried deep within her was a little girl who wanted to believe she was a princess.
He intended to treat her as though she were a queen.
He was aware of her working to remove his clothes. Then her hands were moving across his chest, over his shoulders.
“All that I love about you remains the same,” she said.
“My upper torso?”
“Everything. Your inner strength, your determination, your kindness. The way you blush at bawdy entertainments.”
“I did not blush.”
She gave him a secretive smile, just before she nipped his chin. “You blushed. You were so sweet afterward, explaining that what we’d seen was not the way it was between a man and a woman.”
“Sweet? I shall show you sweet.”
And he did. Laying her out on the bed, kissing and caressing every inch of her—even though there were now a few more inches of her here and there. Soon there would be quite a few more.
“When will we wed?” she asked.
“Before the month is out, to stave off the gossips when my heir arrives early.”
“Can we marry here in Whitechapel, with only friends and family about?” Someplace where she would be comfortable, where they would be surrounded only by those who loved them, who wouldn’t gossip about them.
