“What are you reading, Your Grace?”
Rosalie looked up from the book she hadn’t put down since they’d entered the carriage to see Clara watching her, a bored look on her face.
Poor Clara, Rosalie thought as she set the book in her lap.She doesn't like to read, and I’ve been ignoring her all day.
“It’s a series about a young lady, Lizzy Seacliff, who runs away from home to become a pirate,” she said, stretching out her legs as she did so as she had been sitting in the same position, spellbound by the book, for hours. “She disguises herself as a boy, is given the nicknameNobeardbecause, of course, she doesn’t have a beard, and spends her days exploring new lands, running from exotic beasts, and looking for treasure.”
Clara looked confused. “You’re reading a book about sailing?”
“No,” Rosalie laughed. “It’s a romance, of course. You see, the Captain, Jonathan Blackthorn, is the most handsome man in the Caribbean, but he’s also fearsome and cold. He thinks she’s a boy, of course, and he takes her on as his personal helper on the ship. He’s quite beastly, actually, and they fight all the time. But in the most recent chapter, he also revealed that he has a tragic past as well as a soft, heartfelt side, and now, I think she’s starting to fall in love with him…”
Rosalie sighed as the memory of the last chapter sent a tingling sensation through her body. It was one of the most romantic novels she had ever read, and it had surprised her to find it among the novels her cousin had sent her. In the two years she’d lived with him, she’d never known him to have such good taste in books. Or to like such romantic adventures.
The only annoying part was that whenever she imagined the villainous captain, he often looked and sounded exactly like the Duke…
She shook herself, trying to rid herself of this image.
“That sounds scandalous, Madam!” Clara said, breaking into her thoughts and returning her sharply to the carriage. “Are you sure you should be reading something like that now that you are married?”
“I don’t know what my being married has anything to do with it,” Rosalie said indignantly. “If anything, I think it makes it more appropriate for me to read.”
Clara bit her lip. “But surely the Duke would disapprove…”
“Well, that’s why he doesn’t need to know!”
The Duke was riding in a separate carriage as they made their way to Carramere Castle for their ‘honeymoon’ although Rosalie had never considered the rainy, cold North of England to be the ideal place to honeymoon. Nor had she expected her husband to travel separately from her; if he wanted to start their honeymoon off on the wrong foot, he was certainly succeeding.
Although she couldn’t deny that she was enjoying the peace and solitude—whenever Clara wasn’t interrupting her, of course. It was good to once more be alone with a book instead of having to think about how she would be alone with her husband for a few weeks, and they were supposed to get to know one another.
Her stomach growled, and she ignored it, knowing that the sensation would eventually fade.
“Then you should put it away,” Clara said, peering out the window, “because I believe we’ve finally arrived.”
Sure enough, the carriage pulled to a halt moments later, and the footman opened the door and helped Rosalie down. She looked up to see they’d stopped next to a small, Elizabethan-style inn with a thatched roof and a wrought-iron sign that readThe Fox and the Hare.
The inn was on the outskirts of a small village. She could see it up the road, a cluster of houses from which smoke rose from brick chimneys. It was early in the evening, and behind the village, the sky was streaked with the pinks and oranges of a sunset.
The second carriage pulled up behind theirs, and the Duke alighted down from it. After a day of traveling, the Duke looked less perfectly coiffed than he usually did, and Rosalie had to admit that it suited him. His hair was a little unkempt from hours on the road, and there was a light dusting of stubble on his chin. He looked rugged and wild, just like how she imagined the Captain in her book looked, and she felt her mouth go dry.
“Are you all right?” he asked as he looked her up and down. “Did the rough roads affect your stomach?”
“I’m fine,” she said quickly.
“Are you sure? You look as if your stomach hurts.”
“I’m perfectly well,” she insisted. His eyes narrowed, but then he shrugged.
“We’ll stay here for the night,” he informed her. “Tomorrow, we’ll arrive at Carramere Castle.”
He led her inside where the friendly innkeeper showed them to a large and comfortable room furnished with a four-poster bed,a bathing tub, and a vanity. The room was simple but clean, and the innkeeper proudly told them it was the inn’s best room.
“We are honored to have the Duke and Duchess of Carramere here,” he said, before bowing and closing the door behind him.
Rosalie, meanwhile, was eyeing the bed.
Will we be sharing that?So far, she and the Duke had not spent a night together in the same bed, and she was more nervous than she cared to let on. She turned to ask him but held her tongue when she got a better look at him. He looked exhausted but even more rugged than ever before, his hair mussed and his eyes tired. She had never seen him look so vulnerable, and it mesmerized her so much that it took her a moment to realize that he had begun to undo his cravat right in front of her.
He is undressing in front of me!Her heart was beating rapidly, and she wanted to look away, but she couldn’t remove her eyes from the column of his throat.
