Page 12 of A Marriage of Undead Inconvenience

Her husband’s chin lifted from her head, and he tipped her chin up to meet his gaze. “You’re awake! Thank all the saints.”

“I am,” she said wonderingly, “and we’re both alive.”

“We-ell...” A wry smile twisted his lips. “Close enough, in my case. Undead, at least.”

“Thank God,” she said fervently. “And you haven’t been changed? I haven’t, either?” Suddenly conscious of their shockingly intimate position, Margaret wriggled hastily backwards, disentangling her skirts and landing hard on the leather seat beside him. “I don’tfeelany different...”

“Nor do I. You smashed the stone before its power could take effect. Even that cad Morningford survived, although he won’t enjoy waking up to discover his family’s house burned down, the Rose destroyed, and his family’s selfish ambitions failed forever.” Lifting her bandaged left hand, he stroked the line of her thumb gently, his expression troubled. “How bad is the pain?”

“Nowhere near as bad as the pain I suffered when I realized what I’d been tricked into doing.” Margaret groaned. “If I’d only kept my mouth shut...”

“He would still have worked it out on his own in the end,” said Lord Riven. “Not everyone can be as clever as my wife, but even a fool like him will eventually stumble onto the clear truth in the end.”

“My wife...”The words felt like a caress—but they brought new horror lancing through her.

“Oh,no!” Margaret lurched upright. “I was going to use the Rose to take away your curse. I’d promised you! I didn’t even think before I destroyed it.”

“Believe me, I prefer the choice you made,” he said dryly. “The last thing I wanted was forbothof us to be changed into slavering horrors...if, that is, we’d survived the Rose’s latest effects at all. At any rate...” He slid her a sidelong glance. “It did occur to me, at some point in the last few days, that my current state might not be quite the curse I’d thought it...at least, under certain circumstances.”

“Oh?” She tilted her head, leaning fractionally closer. Her hands still ached, but oh, he was so warm, and it felt so good to be so close to him after all the fear and horror of the night...

“For instance,” he said carefully, “remaining immortal might actually be rather useful if one wished to remain married to a younger wife...and perhaps grant her the same length of life as well, one day,ifshe decided that she wished to spend even longer with me.”

Margaret’s eyes widened. “You...wish to remain married?” She blinked. “Oh, of course, the law. You have to be married to stay in your house. But?—”

“No,” he said, firmly, “I don’t—need to stay in my house, that is. You’ve freed me from the leash that bound me for over two hundred years of misery. I swore, then, to keep the Rose from ever being used for harm again. Now, because of you, it never can be.” He took a deep, shuddering breath as he gazed at her with open yearning in his red-rimmed eyes. “However, I promised you your freedom, and I will keep that vow. We shall visit your uncle and aunt next and reclaim your inheritance together—quickly, too, unless they wish to have the news of their criminal manipulation spread across highest society and see all their hopes for social-climbing utterly ruined.

“Even if they do choose to hold out on that front, we have more than enough information to hold over Shaw now, to ensure thathefinds his own slithering way to get back your inheritance without the delay and annoyance of a court case. Regardless, youwillhave both it and your independence returned to you, I swear. From what you’ve said, that inheritance should be enough to support you at your college for the rest of your life if you so choose.”

“Enough...?” Margaret’s eyes narrowed. She’d never bothered to tell him, had she, just how large her inheritance actually was? If she had, he would know that, once unlocked from her uncle’s control, it would be far more than enough to pay for multiple lifetimes of study and still make up for any possible loss of his own income or estate, either now or in the future.

“However, if you wished to make a second bargain between the two of us...” A fascinating muscle in her husband’s hard jaw flexed as he swallowed. “I do recall you saying that you couldn’t imagine a time when either of us might wish to remain wed forevermore, but it occurred to me: you’ve lostyourofficial purpose too, now that you’ve so neatly disposed of the Rose. So...”

The breath he took sounded ragged, but he held her gaze with all the steadiness and strength that she’d come to know so well across the past week, his brown eyes steady in the dark. “When you told me how you first came to study it, you implied it had been a compromise of sorts. As a single lady, you couldn’t explore the world as your parents had together. You had to find an object of wonder within our own country’s bounds.”

Something light and bright was unfurling within Margaret’s chest, pushing back all the darkness of the night. “That is true.” She gloried in the steadiness of her tone. “But of course, a married couple could shock no one by traveling together...and you never had the chance to enjoy your planned Grand Tour.”

“Indeed not,” he agreed. “Someone I deeply respect told me recently that if I ever hoped to travel, I should be certain to do it soon. But it has been centuries, as you know, since I last left my home. I would prefer to do it now with a companion I both admire and enjoy.” His words were carefully chosen, but his deep voice scraped like sandpaper, and the red in his eyes glowed with heartfelt intensity. “Do you think you might consider joining me for my journey and making me the happiest of men?”

Margaret had sworn upon the day she’d first arrived in her uncle’s cold and unloving household that she would one day win her freedom for all time. However, as she contemplatedthe vampire at her side, who had held firm to his first promise across centuries and had now promised to stand forher, it occurred to her that freedom could take many different forms.

Some of them could even bedelectable.

“That depends.” In a sudden, determined move, she shifted across the seat and back onto his lap, adjusting her long skirts around them both.

His breath shortened as she settled into place astride his legs, and the glow in his eyes increased, but he kept his arms firmly to his sides, leaving her free to escape at any moment. “On what exactly, madam wife?”

“We-e-ell...” She flattened her hands against his broad shoulders and found them even more solid and pleasing to the touch than she had grown to suspect over the days of their first journey. “I hope you know that I have certain expectations for anyrealmarriage.”

He gave a pant of pained laughter as she leaned even closer, and his hot breath ruffled teasingly against her lips. “I promise, my dear, on my honor as a Riven and a gentleman. You willneverhave to do without good tea leaves again, no matter where in the world we may travel.”

“I should hope not.” Shifting on his lap, she tilted her head to one side. His shuddering breath tingled against the nape of her bare neck, and she bit back an instinctive gasp of pleasure. “But what about you?” she asked lightly. “You might not care for the supplies of blood available everywhere we travel.”

His muffled groan was music to her ears, but his strained voice said exactly what she had most hoped to hear. “I swear, I willneveragain ask for anything that you’re not ready and desirous to give.”

“In that case...” With her last hesitation gone, Margaret gave him a triumphant smirk.Oh,how she did love to win! And with this man at her side, she foresaw a very long future of mutual victories ahead of them. “Husband, I have a request to make. You see, in all my studies of the Rose and its effects, I came across a number of rumors.Scandalousrumors!”

“Is that so?” His voice was hoarse.

“It is,” she said sternly. “As a single lady, of course I couldn’t possibly pursue them with the academic rigor they deserved. But as a married woman, I did wonder if my husband might be willing to help me explore...for reasons of scholarly curiosity, of course...exactly what a vampiric bitemightfeel like, when enjoyed by mutual consent between lovers.”

As Lord Riven’s strong arms closed tightly around her, she felt more free and unburdened than she had in years. “Madam,” he said gravely, “I wouldneverstand between you and any of your scholarly pursuits.”

And indeed he did not...on that night or any other in their long adventure of a life together.

Those scandalous rumors, as Margaret was able to confirm to the academic world in a published article that became Lady Riven’s first widely-readand multiply-republished work, werein fact quite deliciously true...and she took enormous pleasure in every new and wondrous revelation they uncovered as a couple forever after.

As it turned out, marriage could be astonishingly convenient after all.

The End