They really were the perfect pair. The thought was as giddy as the bubbles in champagne.
They kissed for a perfect age, but eventually, not even their newly-declared love could distract them from the permeating chill. Phoebe began to shiver in Aaron’s arms.
He pulled back.Again. When would he quit this irritating behavior?
“You’re cold,” he accused.
“Absolutely not,” she said, pulling on him some more. He resisted this time, which really emphasized how much hehadn’tresisted before.
“You’re shivering,” he argued.
“It’s passion,” she insisted.
His eyes narrowed, and she could see the moment he decided that good sense triumphed over the sensual promise in those words.
“No,” he said firmly—in that admiral’s voice that Phoebe loved so well when he used it appropriately. “We’re going inside. I won’t have you freeze to death on me. I plan for us to have a long, long future together, my darling wife.”
Well. Phoebe had no arguments withthat.
Aaron picked his greatcoat off the ground and shook it out before deciding that it was still clean enough to wrap around Phoebe’s shoulders. Then, he added his arm around her for good measure.
Their steps fell into an easy rhythm as they headed back toward the house. When they neared the back door, it opened to reveal Hannah, a shawl wrapped around her shoulders as she beamed at them.
“Are the two of you finished out here?” She didn’t wait for a response. “Finally! Come inside, would you? It’s Christmas!”
Aaron smiled down at his wife. Phoebe grinned up at her husband.
“Happy Christmas, my love,” he told her.
And Phoebe wondered if her heart might leap out of her chest, as this was the most wonderful, happiest Christmas that she had ever known.
EPILOGUE
“Ithought you said that it’s snowy out here all winter long,” Phoebe complained as she looked out at the muddy, gray expanse that had once been the rolling, picturesque,snowyhills of Aaron’s country estate.
Hercountry estate, too, now. It still gave Phoebe a little shiver of satisfaction to think about this, not so much because of the land itself but because of the life it represented—the life she was building with the husband that she loved so dearly.
She would have been more satisfied, however, if there was still snow. She’d been promised snow!
“I am very powerful, my darling,” Aaron drawled, coming up behind her. “But I am not nearly so powerful as to command the weather.”
Phoebe sighed, leaning back into his embrace. “I’ll have to keep that in mind for my next husband, I suppose.”
He nipped her at the place where her neck met her shoulder.
“Imp,” he scolded. He sounded amused, though.
He sounded amused a great portion of the time in these past few weeks—ever since they had opened up about their pasts and their emotions on Christmas. There was a new lightness to him, and it drew Phoebe in, as though she was a plant reaching toward his sunshine.
Sunshine that was desperately needed in the dreariness that had greeted them when they’d come back to the countryside after the holidays and Hannah’s wedding.
“Phoebe, have you—oh.” Clio’s question cut off as she saw Aaron and Phoebe standing together. “Are the two of you flirting again? I’m going to leave if you two are flirting.”
Clio had offered to remain in London when Aaron and Phoebe had returned to the countryside.
“I know you are not technically justnownewly married,” she said, “but you have the—” She waved a hand that was somehow both fond and disgusted at the same time. “—energy of people who have been newly married now that you are all happy and in love. If you need time alone, I will understand it perfectly.”
“Absolutely not,” Phoebe insisted. “You have only just come home, too. We aren’t banishing you.”
