"How is it?" Kit asked as he watched her sigh with contentment over one of the stolen pastries.
"Mmm. Divine." She let her head rest on his shoulder.
"You're divine." His arm around her waist tightened and he dropped a kiss on the top of her head.
"Your aunt is going to come looking for us, you know," Clarissa said. "At some point, I mean. I do believe she's being awfully charitable in allowing us this much freedom though. Of course, it helps that I was always meant to stay the night here."
"How fortunate for me," he teased. "As for my aunt, she is almost certainly watching from a window and feeling very smug about it."
She tilted her head up to see him. "Smug?"
"Mmm. She does enjoy being right and she may or may not have mentioned that my foul mood of late was because…" He straightened and adopted a ridiculously snooty tone. "Some young men are too foolish to see the gift that's been delivered right to their doorstep."
Clarissa laughed. "That sounded nothing like her." With a faux frown, she pulled away to look at him. "Hold on. Am I the gift in this scenario? I'm not sure I like that metaphor."
"Why not? You are a gift." He leaned over to kiss the tip of her nose. "To me and to everyone else who has the good fortune to know you."
Her feigned irritation faded into laughter. "You're incorrigible."
"And you love it," he shot back.
She nodded, pretending to think it over. "It's true. I do."
They shared a silly little grin. But when she shivered, he pressed his lips to her hair and held her tighter. "Are you cold?"
"A little." She didn't move. "But I don't want to go inside yet."
"Then here we shall stay," he said.
"Kit." She shifted so she could look at him. "We should talk. Properly."
"We should," he agreed. "But I'd like to establish something first."
"What's that?"
"The terms of your proposal. The original one. The business arrangement." His tone was light, but held her gaze. "I'd like to renegotiate."
Her lips twitched. "On what grounds?"
"On the grounds that I have no intention of being a sensible pairing." He took her hand. "I intend to be deeply, embarrassingly, inconveniently in love with my wife. I plan to make a fool of myself on a regular basis, and to laugh so loudly at garden parties that Mrs. Lennox considers retiring as a chaperone altogether."
She had to bite her lip to hold back a laugh. Or maybe some silly tears. She couldn't be certain. All she knew was she didn't trust herself to speak for fear all these welling emotions would come pouring out all at once.
"I also intend to be faithful," he continued. And now he was the one talking too quickly.
She rather liked it.
"I plan to be completely and boringly faithful." He said it as if it was a warning. Like she might argue.
Instead, she grinned through her tears and nodded happily as he continued.
"No mistresses. No scandals. Just you and me. And eventually, God willing, a house full of children who talk too much and gesture wildly and care deeply and love openly because they'll take after their mother, and their mother is magnificent." He ended this with a decisive kiss on the tip of her nose.
A half laugh, half sob escaped as she pressed her forehead against his shoulder. "Those are very aggressive terms."
She felt his smile against her hair. "I'm a very aggressive negotiator."
She lifted her head. "I accept your terms."
